Most small business owners/operators would probably agree that developing a stand-out brand identity is an essential part of the marketing package for corporate and large companies. Many would add that branding is not that important for small businesses and see it as an additional expense on the P&L. So they head off to the local printer or graphic designer who designs a logo (sometimes even for free) that gets used on stationary, vehicles and other marketing materials.
From our experience in this field, we find that most logos designed for small businesses are simply graphic devices and not actually brands in the true sense of the word, and portray little about the value proposition of the company, its personality and service promise. In actual fact, development of a meaningful, representative and outstanding brand identity is just as critical for small businesses and if properly executed, can actually be a powerful competitive advantage. For corporate, an effective and powerful brand is a 'must-have', simply in order to be in the game.
It may not necessarily differentiate them but it does at least give them parity with their competitors. Unfortunately, some corporate still do not understand the value of a great brand and have cruddy logos that are, in short, embarrassing and doing nothing for their businesses. But there is significant value to the small business that has the vision and commitment to invest in having a professional marketing agency develop a meaningful and appropriate brand identity.
A brand identity is more than just a visual symbol or logo design - it defines your company's unique service promise, builds lasting brand recognition and invokes positive recall. A strong brand enhances your company's credibility by integrating your brand strategy with consistent graphic application across all market and customer contact points.
Think about this - if most small businesses have weak branding, then by developing a compelling and effective branding package you can position your company ahead of your competitors in the mind of your target market. A strong and effective brand can definitely be a competitive advantage in the cut throat world of small business. To develop a strong brand identity, your marketing agency needs to work closely with you to understand the needs of your customers and prospects.
They need to explore suitable graphic elements and branding metaphors for the logo device, develop appropriate color palettes and provide guidance on how to effectively apply your branding and logo design in specific applications. Your goal should be to ensure complete brand integrity. If the brand development process is executed correctly then your company will stand out from the mass of small businesses that simply could not be bothered, or more likely, do not know any better.
Professionally designed brands, usually most visibly represented by the logo device, tell the market a visual story about your company. It speaks of attention to detail, professionalism, pride and investment in your company, presents your unique value proposition and helps you to stand out above your mediocre competitors.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto
Who is Cache Closed and what can he do for you? Cache is a digital construct created to inform, enlighten, and entertain Web-marketers interested in learning how best to market on the Web.
Now do not be alarmed, Cache is not interested in selling you anything, no e-books, no DVDs, no magic elixirs or potions, no sir, just a pixilated-paranoid, pied-piper of ideas and concepts designed to improve your Web-business.
The Cache-man has put a little something together he modestly calls, 'Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto:' ten things every marketing manager, business owner, and sales executive needs to know about business websites.
Cache is Web-Marketing Manifesto
1. If it is not working, stop tweaking and blow it up.
If what you are doing is not working, or if it is working about as well as a 1973 Yugo, then it is time to start over. You can only make so many modifications and adjustments until your site gets a bad case of digital disconnect: a cyber version of Capgras Delusion where the brain can not connect the content to the emotional context.
2. If you are relevant, search engines will find you, it is their job.
Is not it time you stopped chasing the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the Google rainbow, and start thinking of practical ways to connect to your audience.
Search engines are supposed to find you, it is their job and it is what they do, what they get paid for. All this stuff about you can not do this or you can not do that because it is not search engine friendly is so yesterday.
If you have something to say worth listening to whether it is text, audio, or video, search engines will find you. And if they are not, perhaps you should take a look at what you are saying and how it is being said.
3. Being relevant means you actually have something to say, something to contribute.
Meaningful content does not mean a catalog of merchandise that is the same as the six million other guys selling the same stuff. If all you are offering is an online catalog and order system, all you have done is turn whatever you sell into a commodity and commodity sales go to the lowest seller. Say goodbye to Mr. Profits.
4. Retaining your audience long enough to get your marketing message depends on how you present your content.
Having something relevant to say will attract an audience, but in order to keep that audience around long enough to absorb your core, marketing message you must present that message in an entertaining performance that creates an experience. The Web has matured and evolved over time into a multimedia platform that allows you to really connect to your audience by turning your website into an experience. Just because you are selling something, a product, a service or even an idea, does not mean you can not present it in some memorable manner. If your presentation does not get your audience's juices flowing then you have wasted your Web-investment and your audience's time.
5. Without creating an experience your message will never be memorable.
You have been careful creating your website content, but ask yourself this? Why would anyone remember any of it? And if they do remember it, why would they remember that it was your company that said it? Just because you are good at what you do, or you sell the best product in your field, does not mean you are going to get the business.
Memory is based on pattern recognition, association and emotional triggers. If your content and presentation is without context, without some memory inducing experience, then my friend you ill be instantly forgotten. The companies that get the sales are the companies that turn their presentations into an experience.
6. Creating an experience starts with engaging the audience and the best way to do that is with a signature Web-host that presents your story.
The easiest way to create a memorable experience on your website is to use a website host, a personality that will deliver the content and context of what you provide in a way that penetrates and sticks in the minds of your audience.
7. Treat the presentation of your website material as if it was a performance, not a meeting with your banker or board of directors.
A signature Web-host brands your company by creating a memorable image through the use of verbal and non-verbal performance techniques, clever scripting, and digital presentation enhancements, including music, sound effects, editing, and style.
8. Do not be afraid to push the limits.
The Web is not a place for the timid. You are no longer competing just in your local market; you are competing with the world, where the Web, email, Internet phone service, and international shipping make buying from England or Australia, as easy as buying from the USA or Canada.
No matter what you do or how good you do it, there are other companies around the globe that do the same thing, and chances are they do it as well or better than you. So who is going to get the business: the company that presents their message in the most compelling manner that is who.
9. Narrow your focus by turning your brand into a single adjective or short phrase.
The single word "Plastics" from the 1967 movie, 'The Graduate' was voted the 42nd most memorable movie quote of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute.
The biggest challenge most companies have in being understood is their ability to narrow their offering down to a precise concept, idea, or adjective. Can you say what you do in six words or less? How about a single adjective or noun?
10. You cannot be something you are not.
Customers are not stupid; they will see through any phony presentation or prevarication. You cannot getaway with misrepresenting what you are, or what you do. Eventually you will be found-out or more likely, people will instantly see-through your efforts to present a false image.
If your marketing problem lies deep within your corporate culture, no matter how clever your advertising or marketing campaign, nothing will overcome it. You will have to change your corporate culture before you attempt to deliver a message that redefines you and what you do. You must be true to yourself and to your company's culture.
Cache Closed
Cache Closed was summoned from the misused and discarded concepts found in the ditch beside the information highway. His mission is to demonstrate and enlighten Web-entrepreneurs on how to deliver meaningful content in entertaining, informative and even viral presentations. His bizarre behavior and style may not be suitable for the stuffed-shirt purveyors of yesterday's methods, but he does speak to today's open-minded Web-savvy marketing manager. For all things Cache, visit his website http://www.cacheclosed.com.
Source From SitePro News
Now do not be alarmed, Cache is not interested in selling you anything, no e-books, no DVDs, no magic elixirs or potions, no sir, just a pixilated-paranoid, pied-piper of ideas and concepts designed to improve your Web-business.
The Cache-man has put a little something together he modestly calls, 'Cache's Web-Marketing Manifesto:' ten things every marketing manager, business owner, and sales executive needs to know about business websites.
Cache is Web-Marketing Manifesto
1. If it is not working, stop tweaking and blow it up.
If what you are doing is not working, or if it is working about as well as a 1973 Yugo, then it is time to start over. You can only make so many modifications and adjustments until your site gets a bad case of digital disconnect: a cyber version of Capgras Delusion where the brain can not connect the content to the emotional context.
2. If you are relevant, search engines will find you, it is their job.
Is not it time you stopped chasing the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the Google rainbow, and start thinking of practical ways to connect to your audience.
Search engines are supposed to find you, it is their job and it is what they do, what they get paid for. All this stuff about you can not do this or you can not do that because it is not search engine friendly is so yesterday.
If you have something to say worth listening to whether it is text, audio, or video, search engines will find you. And if they are not, perhaps you should take a look at what you are saying and how it is being said.
3. Being relevant means you actually have something to say, something to contribute.
Meaningful content does not mean a catalog of merchandise that is the same as the six million other guys selling the same stuff. If all you are offering is an online catalog and order system, all you have done is turn whatever you sell into a commodity and commodity sales go to the lowest seller. Say goodbye to Mr. Profits.
4. Retaining your audience long enough to get your marketing message depends on how you present your content.
Having something relevant to say will attract an audience, but in order to keep that audience around long enough to absorb your core, marketing message you must present that message in an entertaining performance that creates an experience. The Web has matured and evolved over time into a multimedia platform that allows you to really connect to your audience by turning your website into an experience. Just because you are selling something, a product, a service or even an idea, does not mean you can not present it in some memorable manner. If your presentation does not get your audience's juices flowing then you have wasted your Web-investment and your audience's time.
5. Without creating an experience your message will never be memorable.
You have been careful creating your website content, but ask yourself this? Why would anyone remember any of it? And if they do remember it, why would they remember that it was your company that said it? Just because you are good at what you do, or you sell the best product in your field, does not mean you are going to get the business.
Memory is based on pattern recognition, association and emotional triggers. If your content and presentation is without context, without some memory inducing experience, then my friend you ill be instantly forgotten. The companies that get the sales are the companies that turn their presentations into an experience.
6. Creating an experience starts with engaging the audience and the best way to do that is with a signature Web-host that presents your story.
The easiest way to create a memorable experience on your website is to use a website host, a personality that will deliver the content and context of what you provide in a way that penetrates and sticks in the minds of your audience.
7. Treat the presentation of your website material as if it was a performance, not a meeting with your banker or board of directors.
A signature Web-host brands your company by creating a memorable image through the use of verbal and non-verbal performance techniques, clever scripting, and digital presentation enhancements, including music, sound effects, editing, and style.
8. Do not be afraid to push the limits.
The Web is not a place for the timid. You are no longer competing just in your local market; you are competing with the world, where the Web, email, Internet phone service, and international shipping make buying from England or Australia, as easy as buying from the USA or Canada.
No matter what you do or how good you do it, there are other companies around the globe that do the same thing, and chances are they do it as well or better than you. So who is going to get the business: the company that presents their message in the most compelling manner that is who.
9. Narrow your focus by turning your brand into a single adjective or short phrase.
The single word "Plastics" from the 1967 movie, 'The Graduate' was voted the 42nd most memorable movie quote of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute.
The biggest challenge most companies have in being understood is their ability to narrow their offering down to a precise concept, idea, or adjective. Can you say what you do in six words or less? How about a single adjective or noun?
10. You cannot be something you are not.
Customers are not stupid; they will see through any phony presentation or prevarication. You cannot getaway with misrepresenting what you are, or what you do. Eventually you will be found-out or more likely, people will instantly see-through your efforts to present a false image.
If your marketing problem lies deep within your corporate culture, no matter how clever your advertising or marketing campaign, nothing will overcome it. You will have to change your corporate culture before you attempt to deliver a message that redefines you and what you do. You must be true to yourself and to your company's culture.
Cache Closed
Cache Closed was summoned from the misused and discarded concepts found in the ditch beside the information highway. His mission is to demonstrate and enlighten Web-entrepreneurs on how to deliver meaningful content in entertaining, informative and even viral presentations. His bizarre behavior and style may not be suitable for the stuffed-shirt purveyors of yesterday's methods, but he does speak to today's open-minded Web-savvy marketing manager. For all things Cache, visit his website http://www.cacheclosed.com.
Source From SitePro News
Monday, May 25, 2009
How To Build A Better Business Website
A look of a website can make or break your business. First impressions always count. Here are ten tips to building a better business website.
1. Color - A black background is not recommended. It is hard on the eyes. I do not know how many people have problems reading white or colored text on a black background and with that said; do not go neon pink or glaring orange either. Generally black text on white background is best. Ideally you can choose two colors, but make sure they match and use it consistently on all your pages to maintain fluidity and continuity. For example: Reds and oranges which stimulate appetite works well on a food site while warm pastel colors match a baby site.
2. Layout – Do not cram everything into one page. Cluttered websites overwhelms the visitors. Keep it clean, crisp and concise. I had a CMS style website before and although it looked organized because there were three columns, there were also a lot of text. Navigation was not as plain as day and it overloaded the senses. Take these three words to heart, less is more.
3. Navigation - The more user-friendly the better and your visitors are bound to stay longer. You do not want your visitors to be jumping through hoops to find what they are looking for. Make shopping carts or payment buttons visible and easily accessible. Everything should be just a click away. Make sure all your links are working. Finding broken links becomes frustrating and annoying.
4. Proper spelling and grammar – There is nothing good about visiting a website to find loads of misspelled words and poor grammar. It is unprofessional and you can bet your visitors will leave.
5. Speed - When it comes to website loading, no one likes to be kept waiting. They will definitely leave a site if it will not load properly. People's time is precious; do not make them wait.
6. Graphics - Be careful of using big flashy graphics or banners. Too many animated and too many big banners take away a site's credibility. It also slows down the loading time of your site considerably. Not everyone uses high speed Internet. Remember people do not wait around for slow loading sites.
7. Audio - If you like it and want it, change the default setting to give the visitor control if they want to hear audio or not. Make sure it is visibly accessible to the visitor. The last time I landed on a site, I could not find the button to disable the audio so I immediately X'ed out.
8. Pop-up anything - Although many people now have pop-up blockers, it may not be so much of a nuisance, but a pop-up of anything is intrusive, unwanted and annoying. Adding a form to your page in a highly visible spot is much more effective and non-intrusive.
9. Content - Informative, resourceful content will keep a visitor coming back. No one wants to visit a site that has not been updated in a long time. You can add a small graphic or a simple text in red with the word "NEW" or a "What is New?" page to inform your visitors you have made updates.
10. AdSense ads - Too many AdSense ads on any page looks scammy and it downgrades the quality of your site. If you can handle honest opinions, have someone critique your website. It really all comes down to personal preference and you will never be able to please everyone and that is okay.
The main goal is building a functioning, well laid out website that is successful and prosperous to you for many years to come.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
1. Color - A black background is not recommended. It is hard on the eyes. I do not know how many people have problems reading white or colored text on a black background and with that said; do not go neon pink or glaring orange either. Generally black text on white background is best. Ideally you can choose two colors, but make sure they match and use it consistently on all your pages to maintain fluidity and continuity. For example: Reds and oranges which stimulate appetite works well on a food site while warm pastel colors match a baby site.
2. Layout – Do not cram everything into one page. Cluttered websites overwhelms the visitors. Keep it clean, crisp and concise. I had a CMS style website before and although it looked organized because there were three columns, there were also a lot of text. Navigation was not as plain as day and it overloaded the senses. Take these three words to heart, less is more.
3. Navigation - The more user-friendly the better and your visitors are bound to stay longer. You do not want your visitors to be jumping through hoops to find what they are looking for. Make shopping carts or payment buttons visible and easily accessible. Everything should be just a click away. Make sure all your links are working. Finding broken links becomes frustrating and annoying.
4. Proper spelling and grammar – There is nothing good about visiting a website to find loads of misspelled words and poor grammar. It is unprofessional and you can bet your visitors will leave.
5. Speed - When it comes to website loading, no one likes to be kept waiting. They will definitely leave a site if it will not load properly. People's time is precious; do not make them wait.
6. Graphics - Be careful of using big flashy graphics or banners. Too many animated and too many big banners take away a site's credibility. It also slows down the loading time of your site considerably. Not everyone uses high speed Internet. Remember people do not wait around for slow loading sites.
7. Audio - If you like it and want it, change the default setting to give the visitor control if they want to hear audio or not. Make sure it is visibly accessible to the visitor. The last time I landed on a site, I could not find the button to disable the audio so I immediately X'ed out.
8. Pop-up anything - Although many people now have pop-up blockers, it may not be so much of a nuisance, but a pop-up of anything is intrusive, unwanted and annoying. Adding a form to your page in a highly visible spot is much more effective and non-intrusive.
9. Content - Informative, resourceful content will keep a visitor coming back. No one wants to visit a site that has not been updated in a long time. You can add a small graphic or a simple text in red with the word "NEW" or a "What is New?" page to inform your visitors you have made updates.
10. AdSense ads - Too many AdSense ads on any page looks scammy and it downgrades the quality of your site. If you can handle honest opinions, have someone critique your website. It really all comes down to personal preference and you will never be able to please everyone and that is okay.
The main goal is building a functioning, well laid out website that is successful and prosperous to you for many years to come.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Saturday, May 23, 2009
7 Steps to Building a Successful Web Presence
Doing business in the 21st century will eventually require every company to have a website in one form or another. Whether your site is interactive or simply informational, there are steps you can take to ensure you are on the right track to creating a successful web presence, seven to be exact (at least from our humble perspective). While following these steps will not guarantee a successful website, it is certainly an intelligent place to start.
1. Perform a Business Analysis.
What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan? Develop a business plan first before you go any further into the process. Your business plan will be your roadmap to success, so make sure the objective of your website fits into your overall business plan.
2. Perform some research, also known as, the Research phase.
Research your competition and industry sites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Do not look to "reinvent the wheel", take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.
3. Develop a concept and a design.
Finally time for the creative and fun stuff! This involves the selection of specific content, the layout of the site structure and navigation and the overall "look and feel" of your website. Remember to pay special attention to your navigational structure. If visitors can not navigate your website or feel lost when doing so, your "pretty" site will have been a waste of time; do not go there, keep the navigation simple and for SEO purposes, make sure your navigation is text based. Although Flash driven websites look cool, they are not SEO friendly and can create more problems than the "coolness" factor they express (we will discuss Flash sites in another article).
4. Develop your website.
When considering which technology to develop your website, think cutting edge technology, not bleeding edge. Make sure the technology you use, such as ASP, PHP, HTML, CSS, will be useful for the next three to five years. Database driven website is ultimately the easiest to maintain through the use of a content management system, but make sure the CMS you use is SEO friendly. An SEO friendly CMS will utilize real URLs, not strange looking query strings with lots of strange characters and question marks. Search engines despise query strings and rank these sites accordingly.
5. Choose a host provider and implement your website.
When deciding on a host provider, make sure the host is not only reputable, but has been in business long enough that you can be sure they will be in business next year. Also, ask about site uptime. If your site is down for any reason, this will not only affect your potential and current customers, but the search engines as well. If the search engines decide on a given day to spider your site and it is unavailable, it could cost you your rank.
6. Promote and market your website.
Register your site with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Initiate other marketing activities such as an email blasts to prospective customers. Consider "Pay per Click" advertising with the major search engines and do not forget about a long term SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to your site.
7. Finally, maintain your website.
Probably the most important long term step is continuing to provide current and relevant information on your website. Keep your site content current to encourage return visitors and give them something to return for! Related to SEO, search engines just LOVE sites which provide new content on a regular basis and rank such websites accordingly.
Overall, remember, your website is not just a marketing tool, it is a business tool, and it should be generating a revenue stream for your business.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
1. Perform a Business Analysis.
What is a business analysis? Simply put, review your business requirements and your objectives. What do you want to accomplish? How does your website fit into your overall business plan? Develop a business plan first before you go any further into the process. Your business plan will be your roadmap to success, so make sure the objective of your website fits into your overall business plan.
2. Perform some research, also known as, the Research phase.
Research your competition and industry sites. See what kind of competition is out there. What kind of marketing does your competition engage in? Do not look to "reinvent the wheel", take a look at how the current market works; develop a list of pros and cons about your competition and then make your web presence work better.
3. Develop a concept and a design.
Finally time for the creative and fun stuff! This involves the selection of specific content, the layout of the site structure and navigation and the overall "look and feel" of your website. Remember to pay special attention to your navigational structure. If visitors can not navigate your website or feel lost when doing so, your "pretty" site will have been a waste of time; do not go there, keep the navigation simple and for SEO purposes, make sure your navigation is text based. Although Flash driven websites look cool, they are not SEO friendly and can create more problems than the "coolness" factor they express (we will discuss Flash sites in another article).
4. Develop your website.
When considering which technology to develop your website, think cutting edge technology, not bleeding edge. Make sure the technology you use, such as ASP, PHP, HTML, CSS, will be useful for the next three to five years. Database driven website is ultimately the easiest to maintain through the use of a content management system, but make sure the CMS you use is SEO friendly. An SEO friendly CMS will utilize real URLs, not strange looking query strings with lots of strange characters and question marks. Search engines despise query strings and rank these sites accordingly.
5. Choose a host provider and implement your website.
When deciding on a host provider, make sure the host is not only reputable, but has been in business long enough that you can be sure they will be in business next year. Also, ask about site uptime. If your site is down for any reason, this will not only affect your potential and current customers, but the search engines as well. If the search engines decide on a given day to spider your site and it is unavailable, it could cost you your rank.
6. Promote and market your website.
Register your site with the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Initiate other marketing activities such as an email blasts to prospective customers. Consider "Pay per Click" advertising with the major search engines and do not forget about a long term SEO campaign to drive targeted traffic to your site.
7. Finally, maintain your website.
Probably the most important long term step is continuing to provide current and relevant information on your website. Keep your site content current to encourage return visitors and give them something to return for! Related to SEO, search engines just LOVE sites which provide new content on a regular basis and rank such websites accordingly.
Overall, remember, your website is not just a marketing tool, it is a business tool, and it should be generating a revenue stream for your business.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Thursday, May 21, 2009
How to Choose a Web Designer
You have the often unenviable task of finding someone to build your website. Chances are you know little to nothing about web design and, let us face it, you don not even know what you do not know. Let us change that, shall we?
Let me start by making a few assumptions about you and your business:
1. You either own or are part of a small business.
2. You are not trying to do this on the cheap.
3. You are looking for an experienced professional or organization.
4. You care enough about your business that you are willing to invest some time and money to get the job done right the first time (see the above two points).
Regardless of whom you choose to build your website you need to have, at the very least, a defined set of goals or objectives for your website. In other words, you need to figure out what you want your website to do.
Forget about PHP, ASP, CMS or any other acronyms you have heard; the right web designer will figure all that out for you. It is your job to create the wish list from the perspective of your business. Do you want the website to help sell your products or services? Recruit new employees? Stay in touch with clients? You define the problem and we will let the web designer propose the best solution. Armed with your high level requirements, here is how to identify the right web designer for you:
1) Decide on Geography.
A local designer/company will have more invested in ensuring that you are a happy customer. If things go poorly you can actually walk down the street and yell at them. That said a web designer who has a good reputation or comes to you through a referral should not be overlooked if they are not located where you are. Technology can greatly enhance communication and keep things running smoothly. Make a decision based on your comfort level.
2) Locate Candidates.
This is easy thanks to the nature of web design and Google. Do a search for 'web design city' where 'city' is your city. Pay attention to two different areas of the search results:
a) The first three to five listings in the natural or 'organic' results, and
b) The top three to five paid advertisers. Create a list of between five and ten possible candidates.
3) Go Surfing.
Visit each candidate's website and look for the following:
3a. Quality content. Are they interested in solving problems? Does the writing make sense to you as a consumer rather than a geek? If yes, good. Do they provide their services in 'packages' based on number of web pages and whether you want fries or a side salad? If yes, bad. The right web designer will be someone who understands your unique issues rather than trying to jam your business into a bronze, silver or gold package.
3b. Presentation. This is not only the design of their website, but the organization. Does it make sense to you? Do you like it? Would your customers like it? The design and layout of a web designer's website is typically indicative of their 'style'.
3c. Happy clients. Look for testimonials, a portfolio and case studies. Do they show an aptitude at being flexible enough to work with different industries? Ideally their testimonials include full names, which mean they are not trying to hide anything. Web designers without some sort of portfolio or client list are either bad or lazy; either way, they are not for you.
3d.Contact info. Are you forced to fill out an online form to get in contact? Is there a phone number listed? A physical address (other than a PO Box)? You will need to speak to someone before moving forward, so be sure you can actually call and get a hold of a human being. Companies without phone numbers or addresses are typically located in a basement.
4) Revise Your List.
Based on your surfing adventure, choose your top three candidates.
4a. Call. Ideally, do not email or fill out an online form; pick up the phone. You want to ensure that you are dealing with a professional, so call them up and see how they respond. A good web designer will get you talking about your business. They will listen to your problem, try to assess whether or not you are a good client for them, and take things to the next step, which is:
4b. Meet. Assuming your candidates are all local, meet with them. Sometimes this is referred to as a Needs Analysis meeting. The goal is to give the web designer enough information to prepare a proposal for you. You will also want to ensure that you are comfortable dealing with them, and a face-to-face meeting is the best way.
4c. Proposals. Get three of them. Any fewer and you are not exploring your options, any more and you are wasting your time. Three is the magic number. Ensure that the web designer gives you the proposal within a week of your meeting.
4d. Assess. Here is how to assess the proposal:
4e. Problem solving. They need to have proposed a solution to your problem that makes sense to you and is relatively free of geek-speak.
4f. Comprehensiveness. Did they cover off all of your issues?
4g. Follow up. What happens when the project is over? Will they help you market it? Train you? What about on-going maintenance? Do they guarantee their work? For how long?
4h. Ideas. A good web design company might have some really good ideas that you had not considered. These can demonstrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking.
4i. Timeline. Ensure that they tell you how long the project will take, and that you can live with that timeframe.
4j. Budget. You do not have unlimited funds, so be sure you can live with the costs.
Your ultimate goal is to get quotes from a few web designers that you feel good about. You want to compare apples to apples, and only by going through the above process can you weed out the oranges.
Web design as an industry is still very much in its infancy, so unfortunately this is not like shopping for a car or a pair of jeans. You will need to do a bit more homework to ensure that you find and choose the right web designer for your business. Good luck!
Source From SitePro News
Let me start by making a few assumptions about you and your business:
1. You either own or are part of a small business.
2. You are not trying to do this on the cheap.
3. You are looking for an experienced professional or organization.
4. You care enough about your business that you are willing to invest some time and money to get the job done right the first time (see the above two points).
Regardless of whom you choose to build your website you need to have, at the very least, a defined set of goals or objectives for your website. In other words, you need to figure out what you want your website to do.
Forget about PHP, ASP, CMS or any other acronyms you have heard; the right web designer will figure all that out for you. It is your job to create the wish list from the perspective of your business. Do you want the website to help sell your products or services? Recruit new employees? Stay in touch with clients? You define the problem and we will let the web designer propose the best solution. Armed with your high level requirements, here is how to identify the right web designer for you:
1) Decide on Geography.
A local designer/company will have more invested in ensuring that you are a happy customer. If things go poorly you can actually walk down the street and yell at them. That said a web designer who has a good reputation or comes to you through a referral should not be overlooked if they are not located where you are. Technology can greatly enhance communication and keep things running smoothly. Make a decision based on your comfort level.
2) Locate Candidates.
This is easy thanks to the nature of web design and Google. Do a search for 'web design city' where 'city' is your city. Pay attention to two different areas of the search results:
a) The first three to five listings in the natural or 'organic' results, and
b) The top three to five paid advertisers. Create a list of between five and ten possible candidates.
3) Go Surfing.
Visit each candidate's website and look for the following:
3a. Quality content. Are they interested in solving problems? Does the writing make sense to you as a consumer rather than a geek? If yes, good. Do they provide their services in 'packages' based on number of web pages and whether you want fries or a side salad? If yes, bad. The right web designer will be someone who understands your unique issues rather than trying to jam your business into a bronze, silver or gold package.
3b. Presentation. This is not only the design of their website, but the organization. Does it make sense to you? Do you like it? Would your customers like it? The design and layout of a web designer's website is typically indicative of their 'style'.
3c. Happy clients. Look for testimonials, a portfolio and case studies. Do they show an aptitude at being flexible enough to work with different industries? Ideally their testimonials include full names, which mean they are not trying to hide anything. Web designers without some sort of portfolio or client list are either bad or lazy; either way, they are not for you.
3d.Contact info. Are you forced to fill out an online form to get in contact? Is there a phone number listed? A physical address (other than a PO Box)? You will need to speak to someone before moving forward, so be sure you can actually call and get a hold of a human being. Companies without phone numbers or addresses are typically located in a basement.
4) Revise Your List.
Based on your surfing adventure, choose your top three candidates.
4a. Call. Ideally, do not email or fill out an online form; pick up the phone. You want to ensure that you are dealing with a professional, so call them up and see how they respond. A good web designer will get you talking about your business. They will listen to your problem, try to assess whether or not you are a good client for them, and take things to the next step, which is:
4b. Meet. Assuming your candidates are all local, meet with them. Sometimes this is referred to as a Needs Analysis meeting. The goal is to give the web designer enough information to prepare a proposal for you. You will also want to ensure that you are comfortable dealing with them, and a face-to-face meeting is the best way.
4c. Proposals. Get three of them. Any fewer and you are not exploring your options, any more and you are wasting your time. Three is the magic number. Ensure that the web designer gives you the proposal within a week of your meeting.
4d. Assess. Here is how to assess the proposal:
4e. Problem solving. They need to have proposed a solution to your problem that makes sense to you and is relatively free of geek-speak.
4f. Comprehensiveness. Did they cover off all of your issues?
4g. Follow up. What happens when the project is over? Will they help you market it? Train you? What about on-going maintenance? Do they guarantee their work? For how long?
4h. Ideas. A good web design company might have some really good ideas that you had not considered. These can demonstrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking.
4i. Timeline. Ensure that they tell you how long the project will take, and that you can live with that timeframe.
4j. Budget. You do not have unlimited funds, so be sure you can live with the costs.
Your ultimate goal is to get quotes from a few web designers that you feel good about. You want to compare apples to apples, and only by going through the above process can you weed out the oranges.
Web design as an industry is still very much in its infancy, so unfortunately this is not like shopping for a car or a pair of jeans. You will need to do a bit more homework to ensure that you find and choose the right web designer for your business. Good luck!
Source From SitePro News
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Does Google Have A Golden Rule?
As a full-time webmaster and site owner, figuring out just what Google wants has been the most challenging aspect of running an online business. For many webmasters Google is the eight ton elephant in the room and you only have two options: upset the elephant and get trampled or quickly find out what it likes to consume and try to feed it.
In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google's Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google's ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.
For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?
Ten years ago it would not have mattered what Google thought of your site for it was not even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.
Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic - you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.
Google does not as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it is getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it is up over 90%. But it is not only the search numbers which makes Google king - it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.
Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That is why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to "game" the system in order to get high rankings within Google.
Until now that is, maybe it is just me but does not appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just could not find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent when it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.
In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the "burning questions" webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for "Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups" if you want to find these sessions.
What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?
Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.
What is Google's Golden Rule?
Many experts believe it is related to relevancy. After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue... this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:
"Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site."
This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the "visitor's experience" and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product; it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they are happy, Google is happy. And if everyone is happy then the kingdom grows.
Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can not be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.
However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you are trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.
Source From SitePro News
In order to keep Google fed, webmasters have to jump through more than one set of hoops. When it comes to getting top rankings in Google's Index or SERPs, there are 200 of these hoops or ranking factors. And if you want to play in Google's ballpark, you have to try and master the majority of them.
For years, frustrated webmasters have been guessing and searching for these ranking factors. Asking what does Google want? How does Google rank pages and keywords? How does Google want you to build your site?
Ten years ago it would not have mattered what Google thought of your site for it was not even in the picture, but now when it comes to online search, Google is king of the hill. And as we all know, kings get whatever they want.
Besides, any webmaster worth his salt, knows Google is what counts when it comes to organic traffic - you can achieve #1 spots for a keyword in all three top search engines (Yahoo and MSN being the other two light-weight contenders) but Google will simply deliver the most traffic to your site.
Google does not as yet have a monopoly on web search, but it is getting close to 70% of U.S. traffic and in some countries it is up over 90%. But it is not only the search numbers which makes Google king - it is the prestige and power of the Google brand name. Google has truly permeated into popular culture and the public psyche like no other brand name in history.
Google brings respect and trust into the equation. Web users respect and trust Google to give them a quality answer to their question. That is why it was rather ironic, that for years webmasters have been asking Google about their ranking system, their algorithm, their practices for years Google remained for the most part silent. This was mainly to keep at bay, those who would like to "game" the system in order to get high rankings within Google.
Until now that is, maybe it is just me but does not appear that Google is suddenly opening up about its whole ranking procedures and what they expect from webmasters. Maybe the answers have always been there, we just could not find them. However, a more likely scenario is that someone high up within Google made the decision to be more transparent when it comes to webmasters and how much they would tell them.
In recent Webmaster live chats, Googlers Matt Cutts, Maile Ohye, among others have been honestly answering questions about what Google requires webmasters to do regarding their sites. These are Q&A sessions dealing with the "burning questions" webmasters have had for years concerning Google and what Google wants. Do a search in Google for "Google Webmaster Help | Google Groups" if you want to find these sessions.
What does Google want? What does Google expect of my site? How do I get ranked high in Google?
Mainly because my chief goal is to help these webmasters understand Google better in order to build a profitable site; I have struggled and puzzled over this question for years.
What is Google's Golden Rule?
Many experts believe it is related to relevancy. After you go through all the SEO checkmarks, take into account the quality and uniqueness of your content, factor in the credibility and authority of your site and backlinks, and factor in the relevancy issue... this was the simple Google Golden Rule I came up with:
"Always think of your visitor first when creating any content for your site."
This may or may not be what Google is expecting but all indications are pointing in the direction of the "visitor's experience" and how good you or your content make that experience? Google is serving up a product; it wants the user of their product to be happy with the results. If they are happy, Google is happy. And if everyone is happy then the kingdom grows.
Still anything as simple and as complicated as getting top rankings in Google can not be boiled down to a single catch phrase. You must do your homework and a good starting point would be to thoroughly read Google's Webmaster Guidelines. Studying and listening to the latest Google webmaster chats may also prove beneficial and helpful.
However, there are still those 200 hoops you have to jump through and you must be extremely careful of how you build your site if you are trying to please Google. Listen when the king speaks. Observe his rules. Be on your guard, and it helps to become just a little paranoid. And always, always remember, an elephant never forgets.
Source From SitePro News
Sunday, May 17, 2009
How to Begin Keyword Research
What is a keyword?
It is anything people type into a search engine. It could be made up of one word or several keyword phrases joined together. Every person uses their own method of searching, and that makes anticipating those keywords that will connect their websites with the right visitors very difficult. Keyword research starts with the understanding that finding lots of related keywords that deliver targeted traffic is the ultimate goal of any keyword research.
Sending thousands of visitors to a site who have no interest in your product, let alone in buying it, is just wasted effort and does not do any good for your business. If possible, we want to find the customer who has a clear knowledge of what they want and is close to buying something soon.
We would ideally want a few visitors who are seriously looking to buy in the near future. In order to achieve this, we want to find the least competitive keywords with the highest number of searches that are the most relevant to our website. If you are just starting out, it definitely would be to your advantage to target lower competition terms. Having success with low competition terms will lead to increased confidence to target more competitive terms with higher search volumes.
Thinking like your customers
Thinking like your customers is easier said than done. All merchants are guilty of thinking in terms of features and specs of the products and not thinking in terms of benefits it can provide to the customers.
You know your business and market too well. The industry jargons and slang are in your every day language. No wonder when you start your keyword research you have a very narrow keyword focus. You become your own worst enemy in exploring other ideas.
Here is an example: what is the most popular search term, "cheap flights," "cheap seats," "low fares" or "discount fares"? As you can see it is not that simple to pick the best keywords, is it?
The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can not get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often. There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.
Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages.
This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We will cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.
Keyword research is like a job interview process
In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widened first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it is almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.
Where and how to look for keywords
In order to find the best keywords for our website we need to gather information from a variety of resources. Some of these resources may include:
Brainstorming: Getting your brain to go on a magic carpet ride is one of the best ways to find relevant keywords for your website. Do not just settle for asking the obvious question, what does my website sell? Ask questions such as: "What is this product made up of?" or "Who is using my services?" or "What problems do my products solve?"
Free keyword research tools: You can gain access to the powerful and free Google external keyword tool to expand your keyword list. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search numbers. Another very valuable feature in Google external keyword tool is the "Site-Related Keywords" finder. By simply entering the website URL of your competitors, you can find out in seconds which keywords they target on their web pages.
Another free keyword research tool available without creating an account is the Overture keyword inventory.
Related search terms suggestion tools: One of the fastest ways you can find hundreds of related keywords is to use online lexical or thesaurus tools. Creating a large initial keyword list that includes a large number of synonyms and acronyms is essential to effective keyword research. Discovering related phrases that are not simply stemming from the original keyword term is a cornerstone of semantic latent indexing. Semantic indexing can be described as the grouping of related documents based on not only direct relationship between words, but the meaning of the words as well.
Finding the main and secondary keyword phrases should take less than a month for even 2 or 3 websites. This does not mean your keyword research has ended forever, but finding the 4-5 word long secondary key phrases can be done with the free keyword research tools if your budget is tight.
Some of the search engines provide a related search command list in their search results. Try Clusty by entering a search command and take a look at the "clusters" side bar. You can get dozens of ideas from the keyword clusters by playing with different combination of keywords. You can also visit Technorati a well known blog aggregator and social media tagging site to help unlocked your brain and generate new keywords. Enter a search term and observe the "Related tags" section directly under the search results.
The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can not get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often. There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.
Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages. This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We will cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.
Keyword research is like a job interview process
In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widenet first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it is almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.
Visitor statistic reports: These can be generated from web server log files or from script based visitor statistic programs. This can help you uncover new keywords for your website by discovering what the visitors are typing into the search engines to find your websites. In some cases, you will find keywords you did not expect to come up for in the search results. You should further research those keywords and uncover new keyword niches.
Site search engines: This can be a great source of new keywords and a potential data mining source. As well as further analysis of the average number of keywords, keyword length and other important keyword metrics.
Top ranking competitors: These websites are already well optimized and contain keyword rich web pages. Why not leverage their efforts and harvest the best keywords for your own website? With the help of the SEO Studio keyword analyzer you can extract hundreds of keywords from their META keywords and HTML page content in seconds.
A few examples of good keyword selection practices
Selecting the best keyword takes experience and a little knows how, but it is always helpful to see how the pros do it, so here are a few basic steps for keyword selection. Using your favorite keyword research tool Word tracker, Keyword Discovery or the Keywords Analyzer, type in the main keyword phrases. Start with the broadest possible search terms, this way there is less chance of missing keywords that might otherwise be overlooked.
Look for 2-4 word key phrases that have at least a daily search volume of 200 or more. Since the top 3 sites will receive 60 of all searches, it follows you can expect at least 120 or more unique visitors for those keywords phrases. In some cases, you may want to lower the minimum search volume threshold to as low as 50 if the search term is well targeted for your business.
At this point you should have at least 20-30 really good secondary keywords in your basket.
Hopefully most of the keywords you have selected will have little competition. Some of the keyword tools we have recommended will also tell you the amount of competition for each keyword, but you can also verify these numbers manually by typing the search terms into the search engines with quotes.
It is very important that you use quotes around the keywords to let the engines know you are looking for an exact match. The rule of thumb we use to assess keyword competitiveness is around "100,000" websites. Anything above a hundred thousand results is fairly competitive and requires a fair amount of optimization and link building.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
It is anything people type into a search engine. It could be made up of one word or several keyword phrases joined together. Every person uses their own method of searching, and that makes anticipating those keywords that will connect their websites with the right visitors very difficult. Keyword research starts with the understanding that finding lots of related keywords that deliver targeted traffic is the ultimate goal of any keyword research.
Sending thousands of visitors to a site who have no interest in your product, let alone in buying it, is just wasted effort and does not do any good for your business. If possible, we want to find the customer who has a clear knowledge of what they want and is close to buying something soon.
We would ideally want a few visitors who are seriously looking to buy in the near future. In order to achieve this, we want to find the least competitive keywords with the highest number of searches that are the most relevant to our website. If you are just starting out, it definitely would be to your advantage to target lower competition terms. Having success with low competition terms will lead to increased confidence to target more competitive terms with higher search volumes.
Thinking like your customers
Thinking like your customers is easier said than done. All merchants are guilty of thinking in terms of features and specs of the products and not thinking in terms of benefits it can provide to the customers.
You know your business and market too well. The industry jargons and slang are in your every day language. No wonder when you start your keyword research you have a very narrow keyword focus. You become your own worst enemy in exploring other ideas.
Here is an example: what is the most popular search term, "cheap flights," "cheap seats," "low fares" or "discount fares"? As you can see it is not that simple to pick the best keywords, is it?
The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can not get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often. There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.
Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages.
This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We will cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.
Keyword research is like a job interview process
In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widened first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it is almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.
Where and how to look for keywords
In order to find the best keywords for our website we need to gather information from a variety of resources. Some of these resources may include:
Brainstorming: Getting your brain to go on a magic carpet ride is one of the best ways to find relevant keywords for your website. Do not just settle for asking the obvious question, what does my website sell? Ask questions such as: "What is this product made up of?" or "Who is using my services?" or "What problems do my products solve?"
Free keyword research tools: You can gain access to the powerful and free Google external keyword tool to expand your keyword list. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search numbers. Another very valuable feature in Google external keyword tool is the "Site-Related Keywords" finder. By simply entering the website URL of your competitors, you can find out in seconds which keywords they target on their web pages.
Another free keyword research tool available without creating an account is the Overture keyword inventory.
Related search terms suggestion tools: One of the fastest ways you can find hundreds of related keywords is to use online lexical or thesaurus tools. Creating a large initial keyword list that includes a large number of synonyms and acronyms is essential to effective keyword research. Discovering related phrases that are not simply stemming from the original keyword term is a cornerstone of semantic latent indexing. Semantic indexing can be described as the grouping of related documents based on not only direct relationship between words, but the meaning of the words as well.
Finding the main and secondary keyword phrases should take less than a month for even 2 or 3 websites. This does not mean your keyword research has ended forever, but finding the 4-5 word long secondary key phrases can be done with the free keyword research tools if your budget is tight.
Some of the search engines provide a related search command list in their search results. Try Clusty by entering a search command and take a look at the "clusters" side bar. You can get dozens of ideas from the keyword clusters by playing with different combination of keywords. You can also visit Technorati a well known blog aggregator and social media tagging site to help unlocked your brain and generate new keywords. Enter a search term and observe the "Related tags" section directly under the search results.
The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can not get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often. There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.
Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages. This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We will cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.
Keyword research is like a job interview process
In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widenet first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it is almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.
Visitor statistic reports: These can be generated from web server log files or from script based visitor statistic programs. This can help you uncover new keywords for your website by discovering what the visitors are typing into the search engines to find your websites. In some cases, you will find keywords you did not expect to come up for in the search results. You should further research those keywords and uncover new keyword niches.
Site search engines: This can be a great source of new keywords and a potential data mining source. As well as further analysis of the average number of keywords, keyword length and other important keyword metrics.
Top ranking competitors: These websites are already well optimized and contain keyword rich web pages. Why not leverage their efforts and harvest the best keywords for your own website? With the help of the SEO Studio keyword analyzer you can extract hundreds of keywords from their META keywords and HTML page content in seconds.
A few examples of good keyword selection practices
Selecting the best keyword takes experience and a little knows how, but it is always helpful to see how the pros do it, so here are a few basic steps for keyword selection. Using your favorite keyword research tool Word tracker, Keyword Discovery or the Keywords Analyzer, type in the main keyword phrases. Start with the broadest possible search terms, this way there is less chance of missing keywords that might otherwise be overlooked.
Look for 2-4 word key phrases that have at least a daily search volume of 200 or more. Since the top 3 sites will receive 60 of all searches, it follows you can expect at least 120 or more unique visitors for those keywords phrases. In some cases, you may want to lower the minimum search volume threshold to as low as 50 if the search term is well targeted for your business.
At this point you should have at least 20-30 really good secondary keywords in your basket.
Hopefully most of the keywords you have selected will have little competition. Some of the keyword tools we have recommended will also tell you the amount of competition for each keyword, but you can also verify these numbers manually by typing the search terms into the search engines with quotes.
It is very important that you use quotes around the keywords to let the engines know you are looking for an exact match. The rule of thumb we use to assess keyword competitiveness is around "100,000" websites. Anything above a hundred thousand results is fairly competitive and requires a fair amount of optimization and link building.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Saturday, May 16, 2009
I'm a Standout in Life
We need to standout in our life, no matter what situation we face, how difficulty the daily tasks that challenging us.
Imagine walking into the reception area of the company you have dreamed of working for to interview with executives. You look around and find 20 other candidates already sitting there, dressed like you, as qualified as you, and are there for the same purpose. The competition is fierce, and you know it. How will you be different from everybody else? This is a question everyone must face including me; at the beginning of my second career in public relations, (I began as and am a clinical social worker), when I decided to launch my own agency.
There are hundreds of people out there who do what you do and want the job you want. So, how do you stand out? No doubt, you've heard typical advice, things like "look people in the eye when you speak to them," or "have a firm handshake." And while all that is true, I'm about to share with you ways you can change the game, bring more of yourself to the table, and use your humanity to take you further in your profession.
It is not always who you know, but how you treat people as a concept I like to call "people relations". It paid off for me big time when it brought Eddie Murphy, the biggest box office superstar in the whole world at the time into my path. My journey with Eddie began when I established a positive rapport with people in his circle. I sent them notes, letters, and interesting articles to connect with them. Then, after hearing on three separate occasions that Eddie was looking for a publicist, my professional preparation met the moment of opportunity. Having stayed in regular touch with the people around Eddie who passed on what I sent to him, I was able to gain access to him directly. I sent him a package laying out my credentials, accomplishments, and ideas for how I could represent him and, guess what, it worked! When Eddie and I spoke, the first thing out of his mouth was "I got your package and I would love to have you represent me." The miracle happened and it all started with honoring the friends in his circle and developing a relationship.
People have a lot going on, at work, at home, and constantly in their minds. So many of us are stressed out, overloaded, and juggling a million things at once. And sometimes, to be honest, we don't always handle that too well. Just as you may have a lot on your mind that is difficult to deal with, the people you work with might be struggling with some emotional challenge. Set yourself apart by being mindful and sensitive to that, and try to be as helpful as possible as you move throughout your days.
If you meet, or want to meet people that you would like to work with, reach out to them and maintain that relationship.
Finally, never under estimated yourself, always standout in life. Encourage yourself in your own way. I would probably motivate myself with the T-shirt.
This post is actually inspired by the Nuffnang and Tiger, that standout in your life.
More information about Standout in Life, please visit Nuffnang and Tiger.
Imagine walking into the reception area of the company you have dreamed of working for to interview with executives. You look around and find 20 other candidates already sitting there, dressed like you, as qualified as you, and are there for the same purpose. The competition is fierce, and you know it. How will you be different from everybody else? This is a question everyone must face including me; at the beginning of my second career in public relations, (I began as and am a clinical social worker), when I decided to launch my own agency.
There are hundreds of people out there who do what you do and want the job you want. So, how do you stand out? No doubt, you've heard typical advice, things like "look people in the eye when you speak to them," or "have a firm handshake." And while all that is true, I'm about to share with you ways you can change the game, bring more of yourself to the table, and use your humanity to take you further in your profession.
It is not always who you know, but how you treat people as a concept I like to call "people relations". It paid off for me big time when it brought Eddie Murphy, the biggest box office superstar in the whole world at the time into my path. My journey with Eddie began when I established a positive rapport with people in his circle. I sent them notes, letters, and interesting articles to connect with them. Then, after hearing on three separate occasions that Eddie was looking for a publicist, my professional preparation met the moment of opportunity. Having stayed in regular touch with the people around Eddie who passed on what I sent to him, I was able to gain access to him directly. I sent him a package laying out my credentials, accomplishments, and ideas for how I could represent him and, guess what, it worked! When Eddie and I spoke, the first thing out of his mouth was "I got your package and I would love to have you represent me." The miracle happened and it all started with honoring the friends in his circle and developing a relationship.
People have a lot going on, at work, at home, and constantly in their minds. So many of us are stressed out, overloaded, and juggling a million things at once. And sometimes, to be honest, we don't always handle that too well. Just as you may have a lot on your mind that is difficult to deal with, the people you work with might be struggling with some emotional challenge. Set yourself apart by being mindful and sensitive to that, and try to be as helpful as possible as you move throughout your days.
If you meet, or want to meet people that you would like to work with, reach out to them and maintain that relationship.
Finally, never under estimated yourself, always standout in life. Encourage yourself in your own way. I would probably motivate myself with the T-shirt.
This post is actually inspired by the Nuffnang and Tiger, that standout in your life.
"Fully utilize our potential to do the things we are capable of in our lives."
More information about Standout in Life, please visit Nuffnang and Tiger.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Should Small Businesses Invest In SEO During A Recession?
These are tough times, no doubt. The pinch is on every business to cut unnecessary costs and improve efficiency. Those businesses that were squeaking by to begin with are now in danger of closing their doors.
Advertising is usually one of the first items on the chopping block (though it should not be). You have got to cut costs, and you certainly do not want to lay off any employees if you can help it, so you start looking a bit more closely at your marketing budget to see where you can rein in ad spending. It is a natural reaction to a tightening budget, and there is a good reason for it.
Most business owners know that you need to advertise. Sure, word of mouth is great – there is nothing like a referral from a happy client to instill trust in a prospect - but you still need to be proactive in getting the word out. The trouble with advertising in the traditional sense is that it is difficult to know whether your efforts are working and what is generating the best value for your dollar. The uncertainty makes it hard to keep throwing money into your ad spend. When your budget tightens it is even harder to justify the cost when the benefits are fuzzy at best.
But marketing on the web is different. The costs are lower, return on investment can be much higher and traffic data allows you to chop out the dead wood and optimize your budget. Search engines are a primary driver of traffic on the web (second in use only to email according to a report by Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore). Search engine optimization (SEO), as a result, has received an increasing amount of well-deserved attention.
For most small businesses, SEO is new. Some have considered it, perhaps even done a bit of research on the topic, but have not yet invested in it. Others have invested in it in the past and found themselves disappointed with the results. A few have found real success.
In this economy, why should a company consider a new marketing channel like search when they are already looking to cut their budget? What about the risks involved in such a new endeavor? What if it does not work? These are all valid questions. For those who spend most of their time building and maintaining their businesses and systems, reading up on what makes search engines tick is unlikely. Understanding SEO enough to truly leverage it for growth can seem a long way off.
So Why SEO and Why Now?
1. Unparalelled ROI
A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email marketing to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
2. Targeted Traffic
Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement in a place where you are hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That is great, but the real question is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you are offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what kind of language they are using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them, you are addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you are offering. In short, SEO helps to drive high quality traffic to your website and gets your message in front of the right people at the right time.
3. Precise Tracking
Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it is free. Out of the box, Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities to optimize your marketing budget in real time.
How should you approach SEO?
If you are considering investing in SEO as a marketing channel there are two basic options:
1. Take the SEO work on in-house
2. Hire an agency or consultant and outsource SEO
The In-House Option
Hiring for an in-house SEO position is often out of the budget range for small businesses - in this economic climate especially. Existing employees, on the other hand, can play an important role - especially those who are already regularly updating your website. It requires careful research, planning and execution, but with the right training and guidance much of the work required can be handled in-house.
Search engines are very complex, but in the end the websites they reward with high rankings are those that get the simple things right: they feature interesting content on a regular basis, they stick around with the same domain name and with the same topic for years and they build links over time and from other relevant and trusted websites.
The Outsourcing Option
Hiring an SEO agency to either handle the full scope of work or to consult on research and strategy and delegate to your web developer makes sense in many situations. SEO agencies usually spend a great deal of time researching strategies and tactics and compiling resources - all of which can help you hit the ground running with your SEO campaign. But you need to find the right agency.
Let us be clear: no SEO agency can guarantee you rankings or growth. If they tell you they can, they are being either dishonest or foolish, or both. The bottom line is that SEO experts do not control the search engines. Changes to Google's algorithm can, and usually do, come unannounced. That is out of our hands.
The point is, it should be more of a partnership than a client/vendor relationship. That is as important now as it ever has been.
SEO is scalable - you do not have to throw everything and the kitchen sinks into it. Sometimes just taking a few small steps here and there over time add up to success. Other times you need a one-time overhaul of your site, or maybe a long-term relationship with an expert who can help chart the course. It will depend on the goals you set for your website and how realistic they are given the limits of time and resources. But search engines are going to remain the primary driver of traffic and sales on the web for the foreseeable future. SEO, for that reason, should not be an afterthought to your marketing plan, even in tough economic times - indeed, with such a high potential return on your investment, it should be a priority.
Source From SitePro News
Advertising is usually one of the first items on the chopping block (though it should not be). You have got to cut costs, and you certainly do not want to lay off any employees if you can help it, so you start looking a bit more closely at your marketing budget to see where you can rein in ad spending. It is a natural reaction to a tightening budget, and there is a good reason for it.
Most business owners know that you need to advertise. Sure, word of mouth is great – there is nothing like a referral from a happy client to instill trust in a prospect - but you still need to be proactive in getting the word out. The trouble with advertising in the traditional sense is that it is difficult to know whether your efforts are working and what is generating the best value for your dollar. The uncertainty makes it hard to keep throwing money into your ad spend. When your budget tightens it is even harder to justify the cost when the benefits are fuzzy at best.
But marketing on the web is different. The costs are lower, return on investment can be much higher and traffic data allows you to chop out the dead wood and optimize your budget. Search engines are a primary driver of traffic on the web (second in use only to email according to a report by Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore). Search engine optimization (SEO), as a result, has received an increasing amount of well-deserved attention.
For most small businesses, SEO is new. Some have considered it, perhaps even done a bit of research on the topic, but have not yet invested in it. Others have invested in it in the past and found themselves disappointed with the results. A few have found real success.
In this economy, why should a company consider a new marketing channel like search when they are already looking to cut their budget? What about the risks involved in such a new endeavor? What if it does not work? These are all valid questions. For those who spend most of their time building and maintaining their businesses and systems, reading up on what makes search engines tick is unlikely. Understanding SEO enough to truly leverage it for growth can seem a long way off.
So Why SEO and Why Now?
1. Unparalelled ROI
A 2006 MarketingSherpa survey of 3,053 client-side marketers determined that SEO was viewed as the most valuable marketing solution in terms of ROI, even higher than email marketing to in-house email lists. ROI is everything - especially in uncertain economic times.
2. Targeted Traffic
Traditional "push" marketing/advertising options often have you publishing an advertisement in a place where you are hoping it will get a lot of eyeballs. That is great, but the real question is: who owns those eyeballs? Are they the right people? Do they want or need what you are offering? With SEO, up front keyword research can tell you a lot about your market and what kind of language they are using. When you choose your keywords and optimize for them, you are addressing an existing need or desire - and you know that at least a good portion of visitors referred from search engines through your target keywords are looking for exactly what you are offering. In short, SEO helps to drive high quality traffic to your website and gets your message in front of the right people at the right time.
3. Precise Tracking
Web analytics allow you to track your users with a great deal of granularity. The most basic and easy to set up analytics platform is Google Analytics - and it is free. Out of the box, Google Analytics will tell you where visitors are coming from (including what search engines and keywords), what pages bring in the most users, what keywords have the lowest bounce rates (the measure of users who immediately leave your site after viewing one page), what keywords drive the most pages per visit and average time on site and a lot more. With basic conversion tracking you can even tie keywords to conversion rates - an incredibly valuable way to identify the most valuable keywords and focus on them. Bottom line: with web analytics you can identify the dead wood in your campaign and focus on better opportunities to optimize your marketing budget in real time.
How should you approach SEO?
If you are considering investing in SEO as a marketing channel there are two basic options:
1. Take the SEO work on in-house
2. Hire an agency or consultant and outsource SEO
The In-House Option
Hiring for an in-house SEO position is often out of the budget range for small businesses - in this economic climate especially. Existing employees, on the other hand, can play an important role - especially those who are already regularly updating your website. It requires careful research, planning and execution, but with the right training and guidance much of the work required can be handled in-house.
- There are also some simple things you can be doing in-house to improve your SEO.
- That company you partner with - do they have a website? If so, consider asking them to link to you (after you link to them). Links are a powerful way to improve your search engine rankings.
- That trade organization you belong to - do they have a directory on their website where they list and link to members? That could be the source of a quick and easy link.
- Thinking about starting a blog? It is a great way to build content on your site and bring in attention and links - just keep in mind you have got to be serious about it and actually post regularly.
Search engines are very complex, but in the end the websites they reward with high rankings are those that get the simple things right: they feature interesting content on a regular basis, they stick around with the same domain name and with the same topic for years and they build links over time and from other relevant and trusted websites.
The Outsourcing Option
Hiring an SEO agency to either handle the full scope of work or to consult on research and strategy and delegate to your web developer makes sense in many situations. SEO agencies usually spend a great deal of time researching strategies and tactics and compiling resources - all of which can help you hit the ground running with your SEO campaign. But you need to find the right agency.
Let us be clear: no SEO agency can guarantee you rankings or growth. If they tell you they can, they are being either dishonest or foolish, or both. The bottom line is that SEO experts do not control the search engines. Changes to Google's algorithm can, and usually do, come unannounced. That is out of our hands.
The point is, it should be more of a partnership than a client/vendor relationship. That is as important now as it ever has been.
SEO is scalable - you do not have to throw everything and the kitchen sinks into it. Sometimes just taking a few small steps here and there over time add up to success. Other times you need a one-time overhaul of your site, or maybe a long-term relationship with an expert who can help chart the course. It will depend on the goals you set for your website and how realistic they are given the limits of time and resources. But search engines are going to remain the primary driver of traffic and sales on the web for the foreseeable future. SEO, for that reason, should not be an afterthought to your marketing plan, even in tough economic times - indeed, with such a high potential return on your investment, it should be a priority.
Source From SitePro News
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A Beginner's Guide to Link Building
Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines. There, now that we have got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let us move on to what you can do to actually create them. Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them. Being a beginner guide this will not be an entirely complete list but it will be enough to get you going on the right path. Understanding what you are trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the "why" of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.
Why Are Links Important?
To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines. There, now that we have got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let us move on to what you can do to actually create them. Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them. Being a beginners guide this will not be an entirely complete list but it will be enough to get you going on the right path. Understanding what you are trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the "why" of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.
Why Are Links Important?
To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. Admittedly there are a number of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision – your odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned, but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to build far more than following the right methods.
So far we have covered briefly the why of link building, now let us get into the real-life, here is-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I am going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to build links is only limited by your imagination, however, and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive list. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I am trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.
Side Note: Reciprocal Link Building
I am not going to count this as one of my favorites and so it will not count as one of the three noted above and I will only touch on it briefly. There have been a number of assertions that reciprocal link building is dead. This is simply not the case. I have seen and competed against sites that were very successful with reciprocal links as their primary link source.
The problem with reciprocal links is not so much in their value which does seem to be a bit lower than non-reciprocal links however often more easily attained. No, my problem with reciprocal links is in the management. Unethical webmasters' removing links after you have put the link up to them, sites expiring and not being renewed, sites getting penalties of their own due to their bad tactics are all inconveniences the reciprocal link manager must deal with.
As an SEO company, a huge issue we faced was leaving our clients with this task after a campaign was over if they decided not to go on a maintenance package. Non-reciprocal links may be a bit harder to attain in some cases, however, that issue is much easier to overcome than the sum of all these issues.
Articles
If you are paying attention as you read this, you will probably have guessed that I am a fan of article writing as a link building method. You are an expert in your field. Who knows more about your business than you? So share. Writing an article may not be easy, but it is rewarding. If you can not think of a topic, think of what you get asked
Once the article is completed you need to get it syndicated. Using an article submission service such as Article Sender is a simple way to get your article out to a large number of publishers quickly. On top of this you would do well to seek out specific sites in your field using one or all of the major search engines to find highly relevant sites that accept articles and submit to them.
Directory Submissions
Directory submissions are likely the most painful of the link building tactics you will employ. Why? Because it is tedious and time-consuming work. To be done right directory submissions must be done manually. The titles and descriptions must be tailored to the specifications of the directory in question and often, you will have to decide if a review fee is worth it.
While there are a good many directories that accept free submissions there are also a large number that require a review fee. The fee can range from a few dollars to a few hundred. If you see that a directory has a low PageRank, is general in it is nature (i.e. it is not about your specific field) then it likely is not worth more than a couple dollars if that. If the site is strong, and strongly related to your site then it is obviously worth more.
There is no hard-and-fast set of rules for how much a listing is worth. I would recommend to start your hunt for directories (do not forget the topic and/or region specific ones), submit to all the free ones and make a list of all the ones that require a fee. After you have gotten a solid number in your "need to be paid list" you can get a general idea as to what is out there and what you can get and for how much. This will enable you to make solid choices knowing what all your options are.
Forum Posting
I just know I am going to get a couple comments and/or emails for listing this as a link building tactic, but if it is done right, there is nothing wrong with it. Forum and blog posting got a bad reputation as a link building tactic when it came under huge abuse by unethical webmasters spamming forums with useless garbage just for a link. They even went so far (and still do) as sending out spiders to automatically submit posts.
If you are seeking out forums related to your site, reading the threads and responding with solid advice or with questions and not just firing off some sales-pitch, then you are doing what you are supposed to be. Another perk to this is that, like articles, if you do this right, you are gong to see traffic as well and what more can you ask from a link building tactic than traffic as well as links.
Conclusion
Above we have covered the basics of link building. As I have noted repeatedly, once you hare done reading this and applying some of what you have read, you would do well to read other articles, forums and blogs. This is not a complete breakdown of everything link-related (that would be a full book) but it will keep you out of trouble and save you countless hours of wasted time getting poor links that have not held value since 2003.
Source From SEO News
Why Are Links Important?
To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines. There, now that we have got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let us move on to what you can do to actually create them. Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them. Being a beginners guide this will not be an entirely complete list but it will be enough to get you going on the right path. Understanding what you are trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the "why" of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.
Why Are Links Important?
To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. Admittedly there are a number of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision – your odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned, but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to build far more than following the right methods.
So far we have covered briefly the why of link building, now let us get into the real-life, here is-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I am going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to build links is only limited by your imagination, however, and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive list. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I am trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.
Side Note: Reciprocal Link Building
I am not going to count this as one of my favorites and so it will not count as one of the three noted above and I will only touch on it briefly. There have been a number of assertions that reciprocal link building is dead. This is simply not the case. I have seen and competed against sites that were very successful with reciprocal links as their primary link source.
The problem with reciprocal links is not so much in their value which does seem to be a bit lower than non-reciprocal links however often more easily attained. No, my problem with reciprocal links is in the management. Unethical webmasters' removing links after you have put the link up to them, sites expiring and not being renewed, sites getting penalties of their own due to their bad tactics are all inconveniences the reciprocal link manager must deal with.
As an SEO company, a huge issue we faced was leaving our clients with this task after a campaign was over if they decided not to go on a maintenance package. Non-reciprocal links may be a bit harder to attain in some cases, however, that issue is much easier to overcome than the sum of all these issues.
Articles
If you are paying attention as you read this, you will probably have guessed that I am a fan of article writing as a link building method. You are an expert in your field. Who knows more about your business than you? So share. Writing an article may not be easy, but it is rewarding. If you can not think of a topic, think of what you get asked
Once the article is completed you need to get it syndicated. Using an article submission service such as Article Sender is a simple way to get your article out to a large number of publishers quickly. On top of this you would do well to seek out specific sites in your field using one or all of the major search engines to find highly relevant sites that accept articles and submit to them.
Directory Submissions
Directory submissions are likely the most painful of the link building tactics you will employ. Why? Because it is tedious and time-consuming work. To be done right directory submissions must be done manually. The titles and descriptions must be tailored to the specifications of the directory in question and often, you will have to decide if a review fee is worth it.
While there are a good many directories that accept free submissions there are also a large number that require a review fee. The fee can range from a few dollars to a few hundred. If you see that a directory has a low PageRank, is general in it is nature (i.e. it is not about your specific field) then it likely is not worth more than a couple dollars if that. If the site is strong, and strongly related to your site then it is obviously worth more.
There is no hard-and-fast set of rules for how much a listing is worth. I would recommend to start your hunt for directories (do not forget the topic and/or region specific ones), submit to all the free ones and make a list of all the ones that require a fee. After you have gotten a solid number in your "need to be paid list" you can get a general idea as to what is out there and what you can get and for how much. This will enable you to make solid choices knowing what all your options are.
Forum Posting
I just know I am going to get a couple comments and/or emails for listing this as a link building tactic, but if it is done right, there is nothing wrong with it. Forum and blog posting got a bad reputation as a link building tactic when it came under huge abuse by unethical webmasters spamming forums with useless garbage just for a link. They even went so far (and still do) as sending out spiders to automatically submit posts.
If you are seeking out forums related to your site, reading the threads and responding with solid advice or with questions and not just firing off some sales-pitch, then you are doing what you are supposed to be. Another perk to this is that, like articles, if you do this right, you are gong to see traffic as well and what more can you ask from a link building tactic than traffic as well as links.
Conclusion
Above we have covered the basics of link building. As I have noted repeatedly, once you hare done reading this and applying some of what you have read, you would do well to read other articles, forums and blogs. This is not a complete breakdown of everything link-related (that would be a full book) but it will keep you out of trouble and save you countless hours of wasted time getting poor links that have not held value since 2003.
Source From SEO News
Monday, May 11, 2009
10 Ways to More Website Traffic
Every website needs more traffic. This traffic needs to be as targeted as possible to the site you are promoting, whether it is your own web site or an affiliate program. This is the lifeblood of the business.
No traffic - No business, more traffic - More sales
The question is - How do you get this highly targeted web site traffic.
I will list some of the most popular methods.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular.
This method, when done correctly, will increase your exposure, and give fast results. You must keep up to date with Google's rules, so be sure to read them. You pay a one off fee when you register and set up your campaign. You can have your campaign up and running in minutes. There is a minimum bid, but of course you will have to pay more than this. But the beauty of Adwords is you can set a daily budget of how much you are willing to spend. You can create as many campaigns as you want, and then test your ads (changing the headline for example). Google provide tools to help you with your campaigns, and have excellent tutorials that walk you through everything from signing up to creating your Adwords campaigns.
Link popularity
This is achieved when other sites have links to your site. If a high traffic site has links, the search engines perceive both sites must be popular. The important thing is to have quality web sites linking back to your site. Why should anyone want to link to your site? If you have quality content, this adds perceived value and makes your site popular, so others will want to link to you. The type of content could be:
1. Free downloads
2. Free reports, articles, ezine or newsletter
3. Video
4. Links to other good sites
Reciprocal Links
This is where you exchange links with other quality sites. You can create a links page on your site. This creates a resource that visitors will want to return to. Find quality (there is that word again) web sites related to your subject and contact the webmaster about exchanging links.
Ezine advertising
Most ezines accept advertising. Ezines are online or email newsletters. They are used to build a relationship between a webmaster and a web site visitor, with news, updates, special offers etc. But as always they should have quality content. You place an ad in ezines that are highly targeted towards your niche. Prices depend on the ezine, and also the position of the ad. The most expensive is the solo ad, where yours is the only ad.
Article Submissions
Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and web site visitors. Your articles can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters and ezines. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.
Two of the most popular places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.
Forum Posting
In order to be successful using forums there are some things that are required. Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary sales market. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow sig tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them. Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit yourself to one link, preferably to your main website. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This is a universal rule. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors, at worst, you will be banned. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an hour each day there. Get to know the users. Introduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum's topic. Use Your Sig file to the best advantage and within the rules. Some Forums have places where you can advertise and give special deals to members.
Social Bookmarking
In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.
Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Technorati, Digg, Reddit and Tailrank provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.
Bookmarking Accounts to check out:
http://digg.com/
http://technorati.com/
You can increase your Bookmarking using the free submission site http://www.OnlyWire.com to bookmark many accounts at once. When you signup to OnlyWire.com you can use many bookmark accounts and with one simple procedure bookmark your blog post to all your accounts at once.
OnlyWire.com interfaces with:
Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Blogmemes
Blue Dot
de.lirio.us
del.icio.us
Diigo
Furl
Jots
Linkroll
Looklater
ma.gnolia
Markaboo
Rawsugar
Shadows
Simpy
Spurl
Wink
If you do not have a Bookmark Account for the ones listed go and sign up.
Viral Traffic using free reports - ebooks etc.
Directory Submissions
Submit your website url's to the search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), is making web pages attractive to the search engines. The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results. So optimizing for the search engines focuses on techniques such as making sure that each web page is using the appropriate title tags and Meta tags, and that the keyword or key phrases for the particular pages are distributed throughout the content. Search engines find and catalog web pages using spidering software. These are just a few ways to get more web site traffic.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
No traffic - No business, more traffic - More sales
The question is - How do you get this highly targeted web site traffic.
I will list some of the most popular methods.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Of all the pay per click search engines, Google Adwords is the largest and most popular.
This method, when done correctly, will increase your exposure, and give fast results. You must keep up to date with Google's rules, so be sure to read them. You pay a one off fee when you register and set up your campaign. You can have your campaign up and running in minutes. There is a minimum bid, but of course you will have to pay more than this. But the beauty of Adwords is you can set a daily budget of how much you are willing to spend. You can create as many campaigns as you want, and then test your ads (changing the headline for example). Google provide tools to help you with your campaigns, and have excellent tutorials that walk you through everything from signing up to creating your Adwords campaigns.
Link popularity
This is achieved when other sites have links to your site. If a high traffic site has links, the search engines perceive both sites must be popular. The important thing is to have quality web sites linking back to your site. Why should anyone want to link to your site? If you have quality content, this adds perceived value and makes your site popular, so others will want to link to you. The type of content could be:
1. Free downloads
2. Free reports, articles, ezine or newsletter
3. Video
4. Links to other good sites
Reciprocal Links
This is where you exchange links with other quality sites. You can create a links page on your site. This creates a resource that visitors will want to return to. Find quality (there is that word again) web sites related to your subject and contact the webmaster about exchanging links.
Ezine advertising
Most ezines accept advertising. Ezines are online or email newsletters. They are used to build a relationship between a webmaster and a web site visitor, with news, updates, special offers etc. But as always they should have quality content. You place an ad in ezines that are highly targeted towards your niche. Prices depend on the ezine, and also the position of the ad. The most expensive is the solo ad, where yours is the only ad.
Article Submissions
Submitting articles is a great way to build back links and web site visitors. Your articles can become 'viral' when others want to re-publish them on their sites, or use them in their newsletters and ezines. You include links to your site in the author resource box offering more free information. The resource box is your chance to convince the reader to visit your web site.
Two of the most popular places to post your articles are http://www.goarticles.com/ and http://www.EzineArticles.com.
Forum Posting
In order to be successful using forums there are some things that are required. Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion's primary sales market. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this. Choose forums that allow sig tags. Read the rules before joining and pay attention to them. Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit yourself to one link, preferably to your main website. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This is a universal rule. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors, at worst, you will be banned. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an hour each day there. Get to know the users. Introduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum's topic. Use Your Sig file to the best advantage and within the rules. Some Forums have places where you can advertise and give special deals to members.
Social Bookmarking
In a social bookmarking system, users store lists of Internet resources that they find useful. These lists are both accessible to the public or a specific network, and other people with similar interests can view the links by category, tags, or even randomly. Some allow for privacy on a per-bookmark basis.
Social Bookmarking can bring immediate traffic to your website, as web 2.0 community websites such as Technorati, Digg, Reddit and Tailrank provide almost immediate information on various topics. These type of Bookmarking sites index and categorize content usually faster than the major search engines. People looking for the latest information on certain topics usually refer to these types of services.
Bookmarking Accounts to check out:
http://digg.com/
http://technorati.com/
You can increase your Bookmarking using the free submission site http://www.OnlyWire.com to bookmark many accounts at once. When you signup to OnlyWire.com you can use many bookmark accounts and with one simple procedure bookmark your blog post to all your accounts at once.
OnlyWire.com interfaces with:
Backflip
Bibsonomy
Blinklist
Blogmemes
Blue Dot
de.lirio.us
del.icio.us
Diigo
Furl
Jots
Linkroll
Looklater
ma.gnolia
Markaboo
Rawsugar
Shadows
Simpy
Spurl
Wink
If you do not have a Bookmark Account for the ones listed go and sign up.
Viral Traffic using free reports - ebooks etc.
Directory Submissions
Submit your website url's to the search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), is making web pages attractive to the search engines. The better optimized your web page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in the search engines. Most people searching the internet only look at the first couple of search results. So optimizing for the search engines focuses on techniques such as making sure that each web page is using the appropriate title tags and Meta tags, and that the keyword or key phrases for the particular pages are distributed throughout the content. Search engines find and catalog web pages using spidering software. These are just a few ways to get more web site traffic.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Marketing Blogs that Beg to be bookmarked
Let us face it, Blogs on the topic of Internet marketing are a dime a dozen. Everyone and their dog seem to have one. I will be the first to admit it takes a lot to impress me. Some blogs are just boring and uneventful. But then there are some that make me want to come back again and again.
So, what are the qualities of a great blog? Well, for me it is one that offers me something of value, whether that be in the form of valuable information, or points me in the direction of free products or services. It is all about me. By the same token, I do appreciate a bloggers with a sense of humor or strong personality. If you are stiff and mechanical it is just not for me. Show me who you really are and what makes you tick.
Do not forget about design. Blogs that are easy on the eyes, uncluttered and simple get my vote every time. If it has a black background and white text, I am out of there in a big hurry.
1) Willie Crawford:
An experienced online marketer, Willie is considered one of the world is leading Internet marketing experts. Listen to Willie, he "walks the talk" and can teach you a lot about the world of online marketing. He also has a radio show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WillieCrawford
2) Michael Fortin Blog:
Copywriting and marketing tips from a man who is too brilliant for words. Michael is an expert copywriter who has done work for John Reese and many of the other top marketers. Without good copy you can not sell a thing, so learning all you can about persuasive writing is a must for your to do list. Also see: http://www.copywritersboard.com
3) Skip Mcgrath:
If Ebay is your thing then Skip's blog is a must. An expert at selling items on Ebay, and an experienced author of several books, Skip covers all of the ins and outs of earning money with Ebay.
4) Jensense:
Jennifer helps you to make sense of contextual advertising and helps publishers to earn more money. Topics include Google Adsense and other similar contextual ad programs.
5) Marketing Pilgrim:
Originally launched by Internet marketer Andy Beal way back in 2005. This blog covers the latest marketing news, reviews and other items related to online advertising.
6) Yahoo Publisher Network:
Everything you ever wanted to know about Yahoo's Publisher Network but were afraid to ask. All of your questions are answered here.
7) Matt Cutts:
A Google employee since 2000, Matt discusses all things Google on his Blog. He also covers search engine optimization and other interesting gadgets he runs across online. If Google is your thing, all is revealed here.
8) Bruce Clay:
Since 1996 way before it was cool to be on the net Bruce Clay has been teaching those about search engine optimization and online marketing. He really knows his "stuff" and you can tell that by his concrete informative posts which go into great detail.
9) Clickz:
Clickz always has the latest dish on Internet marketing. Serving news and expert advice since 1997.
10) Jim Edwards:
Jim Edwards blog "I Gotta Tell You" is a multi-media blog. Covering numerous topics related to making money online, Jim always has a funny story to tell. He has a strong personality, so if you like that you will enjoy Jim's blog.
11) Marnie Pehrson:
Marnie is the creator of IdeaMarketers.com and covers all things related to article marketing and other online marketing strategies. Again, she has been online for years and has much wisdom when it comes to gaining traffic from your short articles.
12) Google Adsense:
If you use Adsense by Google to generate an income you will want to subscribe to this blog. Tons of tips and tutorials to improve your earnings.
13) Search Engine Diva:
Ginette Degner has been providing search engine optimization and Internet marketing consulting for over 16 years. She is good and also has a great sense of humor.
14) Income.com:
When you talk about Internet marketing you can not forget about John Reese. The only online marketer I know of who made a million dollars in one day when he launched his Traffic Secrets course.
15) Joel Osborne:
Joel has been making a living online for the past several years and has numerous web sites and products. Another expert when it comes to learning how to improve traffic and sell online.
16) Jonathan Leger:
Jonathan Leger has been earning a living online since 2004. His blog discusses search engine optimization, Adsense and online marketing.
17) Pay Per Click Journal:
This blog is written by the website marketing experts at Brick Marketing. They cover all aspects of pay-per-click search engine marketing.
When it comes to marketing online there are plenty of blogs that can keep you up to date on the latest and greatest trends. This is just a small sample of what is out there. Make sure that no matter whose blog you are reading, that they thoroughly know and understand the topic they are discussing. If not, you are just wasting your time, and if that is the case you might as well be reading your dog's blog. But who knows it just might be more interesting.
Source From SitePro News
So, what are the qualities of a great blog? Well, for me it is one that offers me something of value, whether that be in the form of valuable information, or points me in the direction of free products or services. It is all about me. By the same token, I do appreciate a bloggers with a sense of humor or strong personality. If you are stiff and mechanical it is just not for me. Show me who you really are and what makes you tick.
Do not forget about design. Blogs that are easy on the eyes, uncluttered and simple get my vote every time. If it has a black background and white text, I am out of there in a big hurry.
1) Willie Crawford:
An experienced online marketer, Willie is considered one of the world is leading Internet marketing experts. Listen to Willie, he "walks the talk" and can teach you a lot about the world of online marketing. He also has a radio show at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/WillieCrawford
2) Michael Fortin Blog:
Copywriting and marketing tips from a man who is too brilliant for words. Michael is an expert copywriter who has done work for John Reese and many of the other top marketers. Without good copy you can not sell a thing, so learning all you can about persuasive writing is a must for your to do list. Also see: http://www.copywritersboard.com
3) Skip Mcgrath:
If Ebay is your thing then Skip's blog is a must. An expert at selling items on Ebay, and an experienced author of several books, Skip covers all of the ins and outs of earning money with Ebay.
4) Jensense:
Jennifer helps you to make sense of contextual advertising and helps publishers to earn more money. Topics include Google Adsense and other similar contextual ad programs.
5) Marketing Pilgrim:
Originally launched by Internet marketer Andy Beal way back in 2005. This blog covers the latest marketing news, reviews and other items related to online advertising.
6) Yahoo Publisher Network:
Everything you ever wanted to know about Yahoo's Publisher Network but were afraid to ask. All of your questions are answered here.
7) Matt Cutts:
A Google employee since 2000, Matt discusses all things Google on his Blog. He also covers search engine optimization and other interesting gadgets he runs across online. If Google is your thing, all is revealed here.
8) Bruce Clay:
Since 1996 way before it was cool to be on the net Bruce Clay has been teaching those about search engine optimization and online marketing. He really knows his "stuff" and you can tell that by his concrete informative posts which go into great detail.
9) Clickz:
Clickz always has the latest dish on Internet marketing. Serving news and expert advice since 1997.
10) Jim Edwards:
Jim Edwards blog "I Gotta Tell You" is a multi-media blog. Covering numerous topics related to making money online, Jim always has a funny story to tell. He has a strong personality, so if you like that you will enjoy Jim's blog.
11) Marnie Pehrson:
Marnie is the creator of IdeaMarketers.com and covers all things related to article marketing and other online marketing strategies. Again, she has been online for years and has much wisdom when it comes to gaining traffic from your short articles.
12) Google Adsense:
If you use Adsense by Google to generate an income you will want to subscribe to this blog. Tons of tips and tutorials to improve your earnings.
13) Search Engine Diva:
Ginette Degner has been providing search engine optimization and Internet marketing consulting for over 16 years. She is good and also has a great sense of humor.
14) Income.com:
When you talk about Internet marketing you can not forget about John Reese. The only online marketer I know of who made a million dollars in one day when he launched his Traffic Secrets course.
15) Joel Osborne:
Joel has been making a living online for the past several years and has numerous web sites and products. Another expert when it comes to learning how to improve traffic and sell online.
16) Jonathan Leger:
Jonathan Leger has been earning a living online since 2004. His blog discusses search engine optimization, Adsense and online marketing.
17) Pay Per Click Journal:
This blog is written by the website marketing experts at Brick Marketing. They cover all aspects of pay-per-click search engine marketing.
When it comes to marketing online there are plenty of blogs that can keep you up to date on the latest and greatest trends. This is just a small sample of what is out there. Make sure that no matter whose blog you are reading, that they thoroughly know and understand the topic they are discussing. If not, you are just wasting your time, and if that is the case you might as well be reading your dog's blog. But who knows it just might be more interesting.
Source From SitePro News
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Social Media Optimization: The Power of Popular Opinion
Why should I care about Social Media Optimization?
You should care about Social Media Optimization (SMO), because you care about your company's image. There is an old saying that goes something like, "A happy customer will tell one other person about his good experience. A disgruntled customer will tell ten people about his bad experience." Good or bad, that is powerful marketing. Social Media Optimization gives you the power to take an active role in managing your brand by interacting with your current and potential clients by discussing your products, their comments and concerns and continually promoting your brand.
Social Media Optimization Defined
In its most basic form, Social media optimization is any method used to raise your website's online visibility through meaningful communication. SMO opens a dialogue between you and your clients, using the power of popular opinion to fuel your marketing campaign. The open format strengthens your search engine optimization efforts by fostering a mutual connection with your clients through the myriad of online communities, also called social media sites. Current examples of SMO include:
Not to incorporate unnecessary buzz words, but SMO is a very Web 2.0 approach to Search Engine Optimization. Of course, Web 2.0 merely refers to the perceived second generation of Web-based communities and hosted services - the social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies, which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. SMO allows you to become an active member of your online community, quite an important aspect of marketing your brand. Through participation, you establish yourself or your company as an industry leader and improve your online visibility.
As you can imagine, Social Media Optimization is most effective when the viral nature of the technique and its communities are utilized in a positive manner. Creating legitimate content, building relationships and instilling trust in your community is the very backbone of SMO. You may initiate the process, but effective SMO will take on a life all its own. A true forum is bred through the act of continual communication between your company and your online audience.
Of course, not everyone plays by the rules. In every aspect of life, you will find those who would cheat the system to receive short term gains. Like most schemes, the underbelly of SMO may seem attractive to anyone looking for a quick fix, but do not make that mistake. Just as it is true with SEO, erroneous SMO will backfire. Using questionable techniques will very likely yield the exact opposite results you were hoping to see.
SMO Etiquette
Legitimate SMO techniques are centered on sharing information and exposing your community to your interests. As such, you want to focus on promoting proper SMO etiquette. The MySpace super friend, the guy or gal who adds anyone and everyone, would be a good example of improper Social Media Optimization. The whole concept behind Social Media is to create a community with similar interests for meaningful discussion and let the power of popular opinion grow your online visibility. Of course, you may belong to several different communities and you may even have some of the same friends in those different communities. That is perfectly fine. The idea is to remain active in your communities by adding friends and contributing relevant content. Adding friends in bulk, for no reason, is no way to optimize.
Communal sites like MySpace and Facebook, or even YouTube and Flickr to some extent are indeed popularity contests. However, simply trying to catalog massive amounts of unrelated, uninterested "friends" is totally counterproductive. Let the high school kids worry about who is got the most friends. For the purpose of SMO, you should concern yourself with quality, not quantity.
Using unsavory SMO techniques is the Web 2.0 equivalent to spam. Unfortunately, we are all far too familiar with spam. Unsolicited bulk messaging and link heavy advertisements instead of useful comments are two of the more prevalent methods of Social Media spamming. However, Social Media spamming is even more atrocious than email spam, because the offending text is visible to everyone on the site. It does not hide in your inbox, so it can really dilute the appeal of the site. Your kindergarten teacher was on the right track. If you do not have something relevant to say, do not say anything at all.
Is SMO right for my firm?
There are many different types of Social Media sites currently available. To put it in perspective, think about all the different interests you have in life. Now, consider the possibility that there is at least one Social Media site for each of your interests. Of course, you are not the only person on the Internet, so it is a safe bet there are literally millions of sites dedicated to countless interests around the globe. Believe it or not, there is a group out there looking for your company, product or service. You just have to make it available. Therefore, understanding how to submit to and maintain your content on each community is absolutely crucial when developing a successful SMO strategy.
A few examples of the different Social Media genres include:
• News - These sites allow users to submit news articles. Once an article is published, users can submit their comments and vote to promote the story and/or author. Examples include: Digg, Propeller, Newsvine
• Media - These sites allow users to upload and share a variety of different media files. The overwhelming majority of these sites are dedicated mainly to photo and video files.
Examples include: YouTube, Flickr
• Wiki - These sites allow users to add and edit informational articles as determined by the individual users. Examples include: Wikipedia, WikiHow, Million Dollar Wiki
• Networking - These sites allow users to create profiles and network with others according to similar traits, tastes, and interests. Examples include: MySpace, Facebook, Virb
• Bookmarking - These sites allow users to compile public bookmark collections of sites they find interesting, informative, or helpful. The more a site is bookmarked, the higher the ranking.
Examples include: Stumble Upon, Technorat, Del.icio.us
When executed properly, Social Media Optimization can be quite a beneficial marketing tool. However, SMO may simply not be the right fit for your organization. Some questions you might like to consider before launching your SMO campaign are:
In summary
Social Media Optimization has become a successful marketing tool for one simple reason. It works. The gap between old media and new has gotten smaller and smaller with the majority of the prominent television and print media outlets finally embracing the Internet by launching sites of their own. The different Social Media sites, like MySpace and Facebook, have exploded with profiles for everything from 8th graders discussing their favorite bands to full scale ad campaigns for Blockbuster movies.
If done correctly, SMO can expose your brand to markets you did not think possible. Whether it is used alone to drive a campaign or in conjunction with your current interactive marketing strategy, Social Media Optimization offers you a significant advantage.
Source From SitePro News
You should care about Social Media Optimization (SMO), because you care about your company's image. There is an old saying that goes something like, "A happy customer will tell one other person about his good experience. A disgruntled customer will tell ten people about his bad experience." Good or bad, that is powerful marketing. Social Media Optimization gives you the power to take an active role in managing your brand by interacting with your current and potential clients by discussing your products, their comments and concerns and continually promoting your brand.
Social Media Optimization Defined
In its most basic form, Social media optimization is any method used to raise your website's online visibility through meaningful communication. SMO opens a dialogue between you and your clients, using the power of popular opinion to fuel your marketing campaign. The open format strengthens your search engine optimization efforts by fostering a mutual connection with your clients through the myriad of online communities, also called social media sites. Current examples of SMO include:
- Creating profiles in social media communities such as MySpace, Facebook, and VIRB.
- Participating in and/or creating blogs.
- Disseminating your blogs or articles using RSS feeds.
- Creating and sharing content through community based sites like Flickr, YouTube, and more.
Not to incorporate unnecessary buzz words, but SMO is a very Web 2.0 approach to Search Engine Optimization. Of course, Web 2.0 merely refers to the perceived second generation of Web-based communities and hosted services - the social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies, which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. SMO allows you to become an active member of your online community, quite an important aspect of marketing your brand. Through participation, you establish yourself or your company as an industry leader and improve your online visibility.
As you can imagine, Social Media Optimization is most effective when the viral nature of the technique and its communities are utilized in a positive manner. Creating legitimate content, building relationships and instilling trust in your community is the very backbone of SMO. You may initiate the process, but effective SMO will take on a life all its own. A true forum is bred through the act of continual communication between your company and your online audience.
Of course, not everyone plays by the rules. In every aspect of life, you will find those who would cheat the system to receive short term gains. Like most schemes, the underbelly of SMO may seem attractive to anyone looking for a quick fix, but do not make that mistake. Just as it is true with SEO, erroneous SMO will backfire. Using questionable techniques will very likely yield the exact opposite results you were hoping to see.
SMO Etiquette
Legitimate SMO techniques are centered on sharing information and exposing your community to your interests. As such, you want to focus on promoting proper SMO etiquette. The MySpace super friend, the guy or gal who adds anyone and everyone, would be a good example of improper Social Media Optimization. The whole concept behind Social Media is to create a community with similar interests for meaningful discussion and let the power of popular opinion grow your online visibility. Of course, you may belong to several different communities and you may even have some of the same friends in those different communities. That is perfectly fine. The idea is to remain active in your communities by adding friends and contributing relevant content. Adding friends in bulk, for no reason, is no way to optimize.
Communal sites like MySpace and Facebook, or even YouTube and Flickr to some extent are indeed popularity contests. However, simply trying to catalog massive amounts of unrelated, uninterested "friends" is totally counterproductive. Let the high school kids worry about who is got the most friends. For the purpose of SMO, you should concern yourself with quality, not quantity.
Using unsavory SMO techniques is the Web 2.0 equivalent to spam. Unfortunately, we are all far too familiar with spam. Unsolicited bulk messaging and link heavy advertisements instead of useful comments are two of the more prevalent methods of Social Media spamming. However, Social Media spamming is even more atrocious than email spam, because the offending text is visible to everyone on the site. It does not hide in your inbox, so it can really dilute the appeal of the site. Your kindergarten teacher was on the right track. If you do not have something relevant to say, do not say anything at all.
Is SMO right for my firm?
There are many different types of Social Media sites currently available. To put it in perspective, think about all the different interests you have in life. Now, consider the possibility that there is at least one Social Media site for each of your interests. Of course, you are not the only person on the Internet, so it is a safe bet there are literally millions of sites dedicated to countless interests around the globe. Believe it or not, there is a group out there looking for your company, product or service. You just have to make it available. Therefore, understanding how to submit to and maintain your content on each community is absolutely crucial when developing a successful SMO strategy.
A few examples of the different Social Media genres include:
• News - These sites allow users to submit news articles. Once an article is published, users can submit their comments and vote to promote the story and/or author. Examples include: Digg, Propeller, Newsvine
• Media - These sites allow users to upload and share a variety of different media files. The overwhelming majority of these sites are dedicated mainly to photo and video files.
Examples include: YouTube, Flickr
• Wiki - These sites allow users to add and edit informational articles as determined by the individual users. Examples include: Wikipedia, WikiHow, Million Dollar Wiki
• Networking - These sites allow users to create profiles and network with others according to similar traits, tastes, and interests. Examples include: MySpace, Facebook, Virb
• Bookmarking - These sites allow users to compile public bookmark collections of sites they find interesting, informative, or helpful. The more a site is bookmarked, the higher the ranking.
Examples include: Stumble Upon, Technorat, Del.icio.us
When executed properly, Social Media Optimization can be quite a beneficial marketing tool. However, SMO may simply not be the right fit for your organization. Some questions you might like to consider before launching your SMO campaign are:
- Most SMO sites share very specific information. Would your products benefit from this type of content specific market?
- The audience for most Social Media sites is more of a young, tech savvy group. Would your company, product or service appeal to their fickle nature?
- Does your web site contain a blog, or similar media outlet, you can regularly update with relevant content?
- Given the fact that community based sites focus on individual profiles and commentary, are you comfortable with developing unique profiles across multiple sites?
In summary
Social Media Optimization has become a successful marketing tool for one simple reason. It works. The gap between old media and new has gotten smaller and smaller with the majority of the prominent television and print media outlets finally embracing the Internet by launching sites of their own. The different Social Media sites, like MySpace and Facebook, have exploded with profiles for everything from 8th graders discussing their favorite bands to full scale ad campaigns for Blockbuster movies.
If done correctly, SMO can expose your brand to markets you did not think possible. Whether it is used alone to drive a campaign or in conjunction with your current interactive marketing strategy, Social Media Optimization offers you a significant advantage.
Source From SitePro News
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
All Websites Are International
Tip O'Neill, the late Speaker of The House of Representatives is often quoted as saying "All politics is local," meaning a politician that helps a constituent with a problem is likely to win that vote based on the personal assistance provided, irrespective of that politician is stance on the larger, weightier, geo-political issues.
Shopping Is An Experience
The world has changed dramatically since the days when neighborhood shopping was the main option, and people relied on their local merchants for products and services. The world of commerce today seems to be divided between two competing scenarios: on the one hand, people are more mobile than ever before, and more willing to travel to buy what they want, even with wildly fluctuating energy costs; and on the other hand, people are busier than ever and use the Internet to seek out the companies, products, and services they want and need. What seems to be consistent is the underlying need to feel something, to experience the process. The higher the value, the greater the psychological component to the buying experience. The same is true for products and services that are considered non-essential.
People Wonder Why They Can not Sell More Stuff
We all have our favorite stores and websites, where we know we will be looked-after with more than the ubiquitous and perfunctory, "have a nice day," but sadly that sense of service is all but lost in a misguided rush to pseudo efficiency. Brick and mortar stores with their part-time, minimum wage time-fillers whose only talent seems to be a vacant blank stare accompanied by "that is not my department" is bad enough. But what of websites that do not accept phone calls or any other kind of inquiry other than a form email that you can be assured will be answered in a week or two, along with a request for more information that generally corresponds to the information you have already provided – that is what passes for website service today. And people wonder why they can not sell more stuff.
The Web Is An International Venue
The Web of course presents one additional wrinkle to the service issue, one that puts a premium on communicating your message effectively: the Web is an international venue. No matter what you do, or where you are located, you can be sure people from all parts of the world are visiting your website if you have something of value to say. This then puts a premium on your ability to articulate a coherent message, one that eliminates the need for visitors to phone Mumbai, Beijing, or Lick skillet, Ohio.
English speaking companies have a hard enough time communicating effectively, but what of non-English speaking companies trying to break into the North American market? You find websites in many different languages, catering to local markets, but if you are looking for North American exposure, you best deliver your message in the language of the Web, and like it or not, that language is English.
Words Have Meaning
Far be it from me to criticize CBS news anchor Katie Couric, who generally does a fine job, but when she refers to the Democrats winning the House, Senate, and Presidency as "single party rule" it raises the hackles on the back of my neck. Words have meaning and presentation has impact. But I am not just talking about proper grammar, syntax, and usage, something many of us stumble over at times, but what of idiom, metaphor, and voice; elements that are just as important in effective marketing communication as proper usage.
Years ago while visiting London, England I passed a store with the sign that read "Fags and Mags," a disconcerting message until I got acclimatized to the British slang. When it comes to marketing, you can get away with a lot, but even countries that speak the same language have different patois, slang, and cultural references.
One of the great advantages of being from Canada with its proximity to the USA, its historical ties to the British Commonwealth, and its multicultural population is that we understand these differences and can translate them into effective North American marketing campaigns.
Crafting Your Web Marketing Message
What do you sell? A seemingly simple question any business executive should be able to answer, but can they answer it accurately? Ask yourself: do you sell a product, a service, or a concept? Does a shoe store sell shoes, or comfort and status? Does an accountant sell auditing services, or legitimacy and security? Does a politician sell tax cuts, or a better future?
When it comes to marketing you have to think concepts; if you build your advertising around products or services rather than concepts you will not ever be able to develop an effective campaign, let alone an effective website presentation.
Take Target and Walmart for example: they both sell similar products for the most part, a problem many retailers and most distributors have but refuse to face. Target markets itself as the leader in low priced, designer-styled merchandise, a distinct marketing position compared to Walmart that markets itself as the low priced leader and the heck with design. Each company delivers a unique marketing concept, one targeting consumers interested in price alone, the other aimed at shoppers who want a little style with their bargains: two different concepts, two different brand positions, and two different marketing strategies.
We All Sell Concepts Not Products and Services
One way or another we all sell a concept no matter what the product or service. When a client approaches us with the question "why are not we selling more stuff?" a quick review of their site usually provides the answer: their website is not articulating in any meaningful, memorable manner, the conceptual premium their product or service delivers.
Before you invest in a new website or Web marketing campaign, decide what concept you are actually delivering. That concept is the basis of your marketing strategy and it informs what you say and how you say it.
Selling Concepts Is All About The Presentation
Whether you are selling a political agenda or carbonated sugar water, you must learn to communicate your marketing concept in a way that people will understand, remember, and act upon.
Concepts Are Universal
The Web is an international venue. If you have something of value to say or sell, you will attract an international audience. Foreign companies that want to access the USA market must learn to speak "American" or hire a marketing communication company that does. American companies that want to grow beyond their local markets must learn to think concepts, the universal language of sales.
Source From SitePro News
Shopping Is An Experience
The world has changed dramatically since the days when neighborhood shopping was the main option, and people relied on their local merchants for products and services. The world of commerce today seems to be divided between two competing scenarios: on the one hand, people are more mobile than ever before, and more willing to travel to buy what they want, even with wildly fluctuating energy costs; and on the other hand, people are busier than ever and use the Internet to seek out the companies, products, and services they want and need. What seems to be consistent is the underlying need to feel something, to experience the process. The higher the value, the greater the psychological component to the buying experience. The same is true for products and services that are considered non-essential.
People Wonder Why They Can not Sell More Stuff
We all have our favorite stores and websites, where we know we will be looked-after with more than the ubiquitous and perfunctory, "have a nice day," but sadly that sense of service is all but lost in a misguided rush to pseudo efficiency. Brick and mortar stores with their part-time, minimum wage time-fillers whose only talent seems to be a vacant blank stare accompanied by "that is not my department" is bad enough. But what of websites that do not accept phone calls or any other kind of inquiry other than a form email that you can be assured will be answered in a week or two, along with a request for more information that generally corresponds to the information you have already provided – that is what passes for website service today. And people wonder why they can not sell more stuff.
The Web Is An International Venue
The Web of course presents one additional wrinkle to the service issue, one that puts a premium on communicating your message effectively: the Web is an international venue. No matter what you do, or where you are located, you can be sure people from all parts of the world are visiting your website if you have something of value to say. This then puts a premium on your ability to articulate a coherent message, one that eliminates the need for visitors to phone Mumbai, Beijing, or Lick skillet, Ohio.
English speaking companies have a hard enough time communicating effectively, but what of non-English speaking companies trying to break into the North American market? You find websites in many different languages, catering to local markets, but if you are looking for North American exposure, you best deliver your message in the language of the Web, and like it or not, that language is English.
Words Have Meaning
Far be it from me to criticize CBS news anchor Katie Couric, who generally does a fine job, but when she refers to the Democrats winning the House, Senate, and Presidency as "single party rule" it raises the hackles on the back of my neck. Words have meaning and presentation has impact. But I am not just talking about proper grammar, syntax, and usage, something many of us stumble over at times, but what of idiom, metaphor, and voice; elements that are just as important in effective marketing communication as proper usage.
Years ago while visiting London, England I passed a store with the sign that read "Fags and Mags," a disconcerting message until I got acclimatized to the British slang. When it comes to marketing, you can get away with a lot, but even countries that speak the same language have different patois, slang, and cultural references.
One of the great advantages of being from Canada with its proximity to the USA, its historical ties to the British Commonwealth, and its multicultural population is that we understand these differences and can translate them into effective North American marketing campaigns.
Crafting Your Web Marketing Message
What do you sell? A seemingly simple question any business executive should be able to answer, but can they answer it accurately? Ask yourself: do you sell a product, a service, or a concept? Does a shoe store sell shoes, or comfort and status? Does an accountant sell auditing services, or legitimacy and security? Does a politician sell tax cuts, or a better future?
When it comes to marketing you have to think concepts; if you build your advertising around products or services rather than concepts you will not ever be able to develop an effective campaign, let alone an effective website presentation.
Take Target and Walmart for example: they both sell similar products for the most part, a problem many retailers and most distributors have but refuse to face. Target markets itself as the leader in low priced, designer-styled merchandise, a distinct marketing position compared to Walmart that markets itself as the low priced leader and the heck with design. Each company delivers a unique marketing concept, one targeting consumers interested in price alone, the other aimed at shoppers who want a little style with their bargains: two different concepts, two different brand positions, and two different marketing strategies.
We All Sell Concepts Not Products and Services
One way or another we all sell a concept no matter what the product or service. When a client approaches us with the question "why are not we selling more stuff?" a quick review of their site usually provides the answer: their website is not articulating in any meaningful, memorable manner, the conceptual premium their product or service delivers.
Before you invest in a new website or Web marketing campaign, decide what concept you are actually delivering. That concept is the basis of your marketing strategy and it informs what you say and how you say it.
Selling Concepts Is All About The Presentation
Whether you are selling a political agenda or carbonated sugar water, you must learn to communicate your marketing concept in a way that people will understand, remember, and act upon.
Concepts Are Universal
The Web is an international venue. If you have something of value to say or sell, you will attract an international audience. Foreign companies that want to access the USA market must learn to speak "American" or hire a marketing communication company that does. American companies that want to grow beyond their local markets must learn to think concepts, the universal language of sales.
Source From SitePro News
Sunday, May 3, 2009
7 Steps to Greater Link Popularity and Higher Search Engine Rankings
Link Popularity is one of the most important factors affecting your Search Engine rankings. When your site is popular with other web-sites, the Search Engines love you, but if you are the new kid on the block, they ignore you - totally. It is great to be popular and improving your Link Popularity will also get you higher rankings on the search engines.
Why is Link Popularity important for Higher Rankings?
Search Engines are just software programs that try to analyze the utility and validity of your content with regard to certain keywords. They also try to understand the importance or ranking of your site against all competing sites in their indices.
Just how do Search Engines learn About the Utility and the Validity of Your Content?
Search Engines just love sites that users love to visit. They love it even more if users spend more time at the site before they browse away. Now how do they know which sites humans love? Obviously with the billions of web pages on the World Wide Web, the Search Engines cannot manually go to each site and check their content. They let other humans do that work for them. Then they watch as others link to your site. They watch your Link Popularity.
Link popularity simply means how popular you are on the World Wide Web. And your popularity is determined by the number of people linking to your website. The greater the number of external links pointing to your web-site, the greater you ranking.
Here is how to find YOUR link popularity: Go to Google.com and type in "link: followed by your URL". This returns all the sites that link to you in the Google index. eg. link:http://www.yourdomain.com.
How Do You Get a Lot of People to Link to You?
Getting people to link to you is easy if you establish your presence. Show that you are a master of your domain. Even if you deal in manure, and there are people out there wanting to know more about it, you have an audience. And if you establish your presence well enough, the links will automatically follow.
Here are a few ways you can grow your inbound links.
1) Articles: Almost anybody can write articles. This is the easiest way to get started on your way to Search Engine manna. It is just a question of putting down your thoughts in a coherent manner. As long as the information you are providing is useful and valid, your articles will be sought after by publishers out there. There are also hundreds of article directories on the net.
To find article directories, Google 'Article Directories'. You get nearly 53 million hits. There are also some awesome free tools available for this. For those with a morbid fear of writing, you can find 'Ghostwriters' as well as 'Virtual Assistants' on the Internet. Search on Google for those terms and you will find many a link to sites that provide you suitable services. You may also use sites like Elance.com and RentACoder.com for people who will write articles for you.
2) Blogs: Blogs are not as easy to do as Articles are. But they are a very useful tool, nevertheless. When you have a blog, you have an audience. It is like a fan base. They have certain expectations of you. They want you to churn out hit singles or albums. But they want you to give them more. Even though they started out as mere diaries or daily jottings of a few people, currently they are excellent link building, content management and search engine optimization tools.
In fact almost any industry can have a blog portal. As always run a search and you will find something in your industry. Or you can go to blogger.com or wordpress.com to start your own blog free of charge.
3) Free Products: The easiest way to do this is to write a tool and provide it for download. Or maybe even provide a service for free. The greatest example of building a business with free service that comes to mind is hotmail.com. Once your service becomes a must-have, it is only a matter of time before you can start making money from it. Also you can have people point to your site to give their customers access to your tool.
4) Trackbacks: This is the easiest way to get your links out there. What you do is go to other blogs (Authority Sites) in your industry and become a regular contributor. Or comment on the blogs. Along with your signature, most people provide a link to your web-site. And the more links you have pointing back to you, the more popular you get. Also, when you become a major contributor/commentor, people start valuing your opinion more.
5) Syndication: You can offer your articles to other sites for publishing for free or for payment. Your article links back to your site.
6) Reciprocal links: You provide a link to another peer site, in return for them linking back to you. This is a good way to get your target industry users to come to your site. Also you introduce your users to other sites that they may be interested in visiting. They will be thankful to you for pointing them in the right direction. And they come to trust you more.
7) Partner links: Your local Chamber of commerce, Suppliers, Resellers, Affiliates, Sites selling complementary products etc.
Study your competition. Google your product and study the linking strategy of top ranking sites. There are tools that help you do this. Webposition.com has a good tool but I prefer EliteSEOTool.com as it has some additional features that I love. These tools help you conduct an ongoing study of your competition and their rankings thereby helping you beat them consistently. Of course, no amount of link popularity will help you if do not have the content to keep visitors at your site. So start with good content.
A note of caution! Make sure that you are being linked to by Authority sites with a Good PageRank. Also the linking sites should somehow be relevant to your industry. If not, it only serves to confuse the Search Engines and your rankings will suffer.
Source From SEO News
Why is Link Popularity important for Higher Rankings?
Search Engines are just software programs that try to analyze the utility and validity of your content with regard to certain keywords. They also try to understand the importance or ranking of your site against all competing sites in their indices.
Just how do Search Engines learn About the Utility and the Validity of Your Content?
Search Engines just love sites that users love to visit. They love it even more if users spend more time at the site before they browse away. Now how do they know which sites humans love? Obviously with the billions of web pages on the World Wide Web, the Search Engines cannot manually go to each site and check their content. They let other humans do that work for them. Then they watch as others link to your site. They watch your Link Popularity.
Link popularity simply means how popular you are on the World Wide Web. And your popularity is determined by the number of people linking to your website. The greater the number of external links pointing to your web-site, the greater you ranking.
Here is how to find YOUR link popularity: Go to Google.com and type in "link: followed by your URL". This returns all the sites that link to you in the Google index. eg. link:http://www.yourdomain.com.
How Do You Get a Lot of People to Link to You?
Getting people to link to you is easy if you establish your presence. Show that you are a master of your domain. Even if you deal in manure, and there are people out there wanting to know more about it, you have an audience. And if you establish your presence well enough, the links will automatically follow.
Here are a few ways you can grow your inbound links.
1) Articles: Almost anybody can write articles. This is the easiest way to get started on your way to Search Engine manna. It is just a question of putting down your thoughts in a coherent manner. As long as the information you are providing is useful and valid, your articles will be sought after by publishers out there. There are also hundreds of article directories on the net.
To find article directories, Google 'Article Directories'. You get nearly 53 million hits. There are also some awesome free tools available for this. For those with a morbid fear of writing, you can find 'Ghostwriters' as well as 'Virtual Assistants' on the Internet. Search on Google for those terms and you will find many a link to sites that provide you suitable services. You may also use sites like Elance.com and RentACoder.com for people who will write articles for you.
2) Blogs: Blogs are not as easy to do as Articles are. But they are a very useful tool, nevertheless. When you have a blog, you have an audience. It is like a fan base. They have certain expectations of you. They want you to churn out hit singles or albums. But they want you to give them more. Even though they started out as mere diaries or daily jottings of a few people, currently they are excellent link building, content management and search engine optimization tools.
In fact almost any industry can have a blog portal. As always run a search and you will find something in your industry. Or you can go to blogger.com or wordpress.com to start your own blog free of charge.
3) Free Products: The easiest way to do this is to write a tool and provide it for download. Or maybe even provide a service for free. The greatest example of building a business with free service that comes to mind is hotmail.com. Once your service becomes a must-have, it is only a matter of time before you can start making money from it. Also you can have people point to your site to give their customers access to your tool.
4) Trackbacks: This is the easiest way to get your links out there. What you do is go to other blogs (Authority Sites) in your industry and become a regular contributor. Or comment on the blogs. Along with your signature, most people provide a link to your web-site. And the more links you have pointing back to you, the more popular you get. Also, when you become a major contributor/commentor, people start valuing your opinion more.
5) Syndication: You can offer your articles to other sites for publishing for free or for payment. Your article links back to your site.
6) Reciprocal links: You provide a link to another peer site, in return for them linking back to you. This is a good way to get your target industry users to come to your site. Also you introduce your users to other sites that they may be interested in visiting. They will be thankful to you for pointing them in the right direction. And they come to trust you more.
7) Partner links: Your local Chamber of commerce, Suppliers, Resellers, Affiliates, Sites selling complementary products etc.
Study your competition. Google your product and study the linking strategy of top ranking sites. There are tools that help you do this. Webposition.com has a good tool but I prefer EliteSEOTool.com as it has some additional features that I love. These tools help you conduct an ongoing study of your competition and their rankings thereby helping you beat them consistently. Of course, no amount of link popularity will help you if do not have the content to keep visitors at your site. So start with good content.
A note of caution! Make sure that you are being linked to by Authority sites with a Good PageRank. Also the linking sites should somehow be relevant to your industry. If not, it only serves to confuse the Search Engines and your rankings will suffer.
Source From SEO News
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