What does a website need? The simple answer is repeat visitors, this is what successful websites share in common, and this accounts for a major part of their traffic.
Why is this?
Well, experience shows that returning visitors are much easier to convert into paying customers because the more often they return to a site, the more trust they have in that site. The whole issue of credibility disappears.
So what do you need to do to keep your visitors coming back and visiting your site?
How about checking out some of the solutions below:
1) You could consider starting a forum, chat room or shout box.
Providing a forum, chat room or shout box, allows your visitors to have a voice where they can share their opinions and interact with their peers -- all of them visitors of your site.
Over time this develops into a sense of community and conversions will follow and your visitors will look forward to coming back to your site each and every day.
2) This probably goes without saying, but starting a blog can be a fantastic source for both new and recurring traffic. Having your own blog is like keeping an online journal, and human beings are curious and thirsty for information. You need to keep your blog frequently updated with your latest news, both business and personal. You will find that over time more and more people will come back to read your posts and with it you will develop credibility as an authority figure in your niche.
3) How about carrying out polls or surveys?
You will note that so far all the suggestions made have had some form of visitor interaction and conducting polls and surveys is no different. This is one that you should definitely consider adding to your site. They are a quick way for visitors to voice their opinions and to get involved in your website. It is important that you publish the results of any polls or surveys so that you keep the interest of your visitors to come back and see the results.
4) This is a little bit more innovative, but have you considered the use of puzzles, games and quizzes.
This will provide a yardstick as to how many people are willing to return to your site if you are maintaining their interest through entertainment. You can also hold competitions to award the high score winner to keep people trying continuously to earn the prize.
5) This may appear just plain common sense, but you need to update your site frequently with fresh content if you wish to attract multiple visits. Although this may appear to be the most likely of strategies it is also the most overlooked with some sites seemingly looking the same for years.
If you want returning visitors to the same message over time that message needs a refresh, a different approach or angle!
Maintaining the same approach continually will have the effect of changing nothing, so do not be lazy and add new fresh bites of information from time to time to increase your visitor's interest.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Improving Your Web Site Ranking With Powerful Title Tags
One of the most important factors in website optimization is your title tag. This is written in the HTML code for your page in the "head" section. Many companies make the mistake of simply using their company name on every page of their site. This is a costly error, since today, search engines use the title plus key words in your content, more than ever to determine your standings. Here are some tips for getting better standings through the proper use of title tags.
In addition to ranking, your title tag will appear in the title bar of web browsers for visitors who open your page. Having a descriptive title tag is important for visitors as well as for search engines.
What To Put In Your Tag
Many web sites just have the company name in the title tag. This is great if you are so well known that people will use your name to search when they want to find your site. For example, www.cocacola.com. However, if your company name is less well known than Coca Cola, GE, IBM and others you will do far better to put your name, your city and two or three of your primary keywords. An example for my company web-star.biz might be , "web-star marketing affordable consulting". This title has about 60 characters. It describes the prime keyword for the page and identifies the company name.
If you are going for a local market, we suggest you include your area such as Denver or Denver CO or CO because more and more searches on the Internet (about 30% in Nov 2008) are searches for local products and services. It is far easier to get to the top of the search engine pile for a city or state than for the world as there is less competition.
Proper Length
We suggest that you limit your title tag to 65 characters or less as that is the limit most search engines display. Do not waste any characters using "and" or other words that take up space in the prime area.
Critical Title Errors To Avoid
There are three common title errors that really cost. The first is no title. It is amazing to me how many sites have no title. This is very costly as the title is an important factor in telling the search engines what keywords to list you under. The second error is using just your company name. Unless you are world famous, people will not be keying in your name to find you. Use your name but also use two or three prime keywords. The third most common error is using the same title (usually the company name) on every page in your site. Many search engines penalize sites that do this by moving them down in the ranks. More importantly, using a unique title tag for each page allows you to get listed in the search engines for several keywords and make your page content very relevant to those keywords. This makes for better engine placement.
Other Considerations To Move Up
There are a few other things you can do to improve your ranking. When you put a hyperlink to another page, instead of using a phrase like "Click here", use a keyword. For example if you want a visitor to click on your upcoming seminar page, use a hyperlink like "upcoming seminars". Using the keyword in a hyperlink helps the search engines rank that page and your link higher and more specifically. Also, when you select file names for the pages on your site, use the appropriate keyword. For example, if you save your page on seminars as "p10345987.htm" you will not be as successful as if you assign a page name like "seminars.htm" which contains a prime keyword. These are a few simple ways to improve your title tag that will result in more visibility, more traffic and more sales.
Source From SEO News
In addition to ranking, your title tag will appear in the title bar of web browsers for visitors who open your page. Having a descriptive title tag is important for visitors as well as for search engines.
What To Put In Your Tag
Many web sites just have the company name in the title tag. This is great if you are so well known that people will use your name to search when they want to find your site. For example, www.cocacola.com. However, if your company name is less well known than Coca Cola, GE, IBM and others you will do far better to put your name, your city and two or three of your primary keywords. An example for my company web-star.biz might be , "web-star marketing affordable consulting". This title has about 60 characters. It describes the prime keyword for the page and identifies the company name.
If you are going for a local market, we suggest you include your area such as Denver or Denver CO or CO because more and more searches on the Internet (about 30% in Nov 2008) are searches for local products and services. It is far easier to get to the top of the search engine pile for a city or state than for the world as there is less competition.
Proper Length
We suggest that you limit your title tag to 65 characters or less as that is the limit most search engines display. Do not waste any characters using "and" or other words that take up space in the prime area.
Critical Title Errors To Avoid
There are three common title errors that really cost. The first is no title. It is amazing to me how many sites have no title. This is very costly as the title is an important factor in telling the search engines what keywords to list you under. The second error is using just your company name. Unless you are world famous, people will not be keying in your name to find you. Use your name but also use two or three prime keywords. The third most common error is using the same title (usually the company name) on every page in your site. Many search engines penalize sites that do this by moving them down in the ranks. More importantly, using a unique title tag for each page allows you to get listed in the search engines for several keywords and make your page content very relevant to those keywords. This makes for better engine placement.
Other Considerations To Move Up
There are a few other things you can do to improve your ranking. When you put a hyperlink to another page, instead of using a phrase like "Click here", use a keyword. For example if you want a visitor to click on your upcoming seminar page, use a hyperlink like "upcoming seminars". Using the keyword in a hyperlink helps the search engines rank that page and your link higher and more specifically. Also, when you select file names for the pages on your site, use the appropriate keyword. For example, if you save your page on seminars as "p10345987.htm" you will not be as successful as if you assign a page name like "seminars.htm" which contains a prime keyword. These are a few simple ways to improve your title tag that will result in more visibility, more traffic and more sales.
Source From SEO News
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Cunning Brilliance of PageRank
At first glance it seems a very wise, fair and indeed brilliant system for determining positioning within the search ranks. On closer inspection, however, it is even more brilliant and cunning than most are giving it credit.
In the past, creating good, unique and newsworthy content, coupled with intelligent onsite optimization strategies, was at least enough to get your website found. These days are now gone, regardless of what some naive or misleading SEO experts might still tell you.
Page Rank has now become the single most important factor in having your site found in the organic search results of the leading search engines. Page Rank is determined by the quantity and quality of websites that are linking to yours. Each website link acts as a kind of vote for the site it links to, and passes some of its own page rank to this site. The higher the page rank, and the more relevant the content of the site, the more significant the affect will be.
Since search engine bots cannot view your site in the same way a human views it, this strategy allows user popularity to have a significant affect on the algorithm these search engines are using. The belief is, of course, that the more quality and relevant sites that are voting for yours, the higher the probability that your site is a good one, and therefore deserving of a higher position.
Of course, this system is not perfect, and for obvious reasons, but it is certainly superior to deciding the importance of a site purely on onsite content. The reality is, there are thousands if not million of webmasters who can write unique, quality content. There are even more who know how to optimize this content for the search engines. However, millions of sites cannot be number one for a single keyword or phrase. Page rank must decide the difference.
The problem, however, is that the top search engines have now leaned so far away from onsite optimization, in preference of offsite optimization (i.e. page rank), that you are likely to find all kinds of lousy content and add riddled sites at the top of your searches. Putting a greater importance on links, however, plays significantly in Google's favor. This is especially true today, as reciprocal and 3-way link exchanges have now been significantly devalued, along with paid links and link directories.
Google's intent is that links should be entirely organic, occurring naturally when other webmasters like your site enough to add a link to it. This way of achieving links however, can take a very, very long time, as most Internet users do not know that they are supposed to do this. Most Internet users add the sites they like to their favorites; they do not create a keyword rich link to it from their own highly relevant site. Nevertheless, this is just one of the many ways Google favors older more time-proven sites over newer, get rich quick sites. The fact is, unless the content of your website has just revealed something of tremendous news importance, it could take years before your quality site acquires enough natural, keyword rich links from relevant sites to significantly boost you to the top of the search engines.
The conundrum, however, is that nobody will find your great content, and thereby link to it, unless you are on page one or two for at least one keyword or phrase (one that gets searched for that is). So if you do want to acquire natural one-way links, you pretty much have only one choice. You will have to advertise.
Google now provides the best online advertising available. Not only is it inexpensive, it is targeted towards your keywords. This means a much higher conversion rate. People will find your product or service when they are looking for it, not when they are looking for something else. And with around 80% of North American searches done on Google, it just would not make sense to concentrate your efforts anywhere else (unless your loyalty lies elsewhere).
Knowing this, guess who will reap the largest rewards of this new lean towards offsite optimization? The reality is, if you want your Internet site to one day make it to the top of Google (and Yahoo and MSN) for an important keyword or phrase, you will have to acquire a substantial number of natural links. Since this could take years, as most webmasters are selfish and do not link for nothing, and most Internet users do not know to do this, you are bound to spend a small fortune with Google before your site is able to stand on its own. Of course Google will not make as much of a profit from you once your site is on the top, but there will be millions of others who will still be vying for this position.
The bottom line is, you will need to spend money if you one day want to make money.
The only question is how much money can you afford to invest? Or should I say gamble, because no matter how much money you spend, there are no guarantees.
The results, of course, are purely organic, and Google's algorithm can change at any time. Besides, by the time you are actually on the top, your content and unique features will likely be outdated and not that impressive anymore.
Google insists that you cannot purchase or pay for the organic results located on the left side of the screen. If you are caught purchasing links that are intended to indirectly improve your search engine ranking position, you will either be significantly penalized or removed from Google entirely. However, the only significant way to increase naturally is to pay for advertising on the right side, so people can actually find your great content and unique features, and provide you with these natural links.
Of course, there are some other ways to promote your site, such as blogging, posting on forums, and creating videos on Youtube, etc. The catch is, however, that if you are not careful, you will be penalized for spamming (excessively promoting your site where you are not supposed to). This is why most forums these days have the no follow Meta tags added to their code. Otherwise, you will just have to get creative in achieving and maintaining high PR links that are relevant and keyword rich. Unfortunately, if you do find a way to attain these links in any way that Google considers unnatural, it will eventually update its algorithm and ensure you are penalized for your imaginative endeavors.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
In the past, creating good, unique and newsworthy content, coupled with intelligent onsite optimization strategies, was at least enough to get your website found. These days are now gone, regardless of what some naive or misleading SEO experts might still tell you.
Page Rank has now become the single most important factor in having your site found in the organic search results of the leading search engines. Page Rank is determined by the quantity and quality of websites that are linking to yours. Each website link acts as a kind of vote for the site it links to, and passes some of its own page rank to this site. The higher the page rank, and the more relevant the content of the site, the more significant the affect will be.
Since search engine bots cannot view your site in the same way a human views it, this strategy allows user popularity to have a significant affect on the algorithm these search engines are using. The belief is, of course, that the more quality and relevant sites that are voting for yours, the higher the probability that your site is a good one, and therefore deserving of a higher position.
Of course, this system is not perfect, and for obvious reasons, but it is certainly superior to deciding the importance of a site purely on onsite content. The reality is, there are thousands if not million of webmasters who can write unique, quality content. There are even more who know how to optimize this content for the search engines. However, millions of sites cannot be number one for a single keyword or phrase. Page rank must decide the difference.
The problem, however, is that the top search engines have now leaned so far away from onsite optimization, in preference of offsite optimization (i.e. page rank), that you are likely to find all kinds of lousy content and add riddled sites at the top of your searches. Putting a greater importance on links, however, plays significantly in Google's favor. This is especially true today, as reciprocal and 3-way link exchanges have now been significantly devalued, along with paid links and link directories.
Google's intent is that links should be entirely organic, occurring naturally when other webmasters like your site enough to add a link to it. This way of achieving links however, can take a very, very long time, as most Internet users do not know that they are supposed to do this. Most Internet users add the sites they like to their favorites; they do not create a keyword rich link to it from their own highly relevant site. Nevertheless, this is just one of the many ways Google favors older more time-proven sites over newer, get rich quick sites. The fact is, unless the content of your website has just revealed something of tremendous news importance, it could take years before your quality site acquires enough natural, keyword rich links from relevant sites to significantly boost you to the top of the search engines.
The conundrum, however, is that nobody will find your great content, and thereby link to it, unless you are on page one or two for at least one keyword or phrase (one that gets searched for that is). So if you do want to acquire natural one-way links, you pretty much have only one choice. You will have to advertise.
Google now provides the best online advertising available. Not only is it inexpensive, it is targeted towards your keywords. This means a much higher conversion rate. People will find your product or service when they are looking for it, not when they are looking for something else. And with around 80% of North American searches done on Google, it just would not make sense to concentrate your efforts anywhere else (unless your loyalty lies elsewhere).
Knowing this, guess who will reap the largest rewards of this new lean towards offsite optimization? The reality is, if you want your Internet site to one day make it to the top of Google (and Yahoo and MSN) for an important keyword or phrase, you will have to acquire a substantial number of natural links. Since this could take years, as most webmasters are selfish and do not link for nothing, and most Internet users do not know to do this, you are bound to spend a small fortune with Google before your site is able to stand on its own. Of course Google will not make as much of a profit from you once your site is on the top, but there will be millions of others who will still be vying for this position.
The bottom line is, you will need to spend money if you one day want to make money.
The only question is how much money can you afford to invest? Or should I say gamble, because no matter how much money you spend, there are no guarantees.
The results, of course, are purely organic, and Google's algorithm can change at any time. Besides, by the time you are actually on the top, your content and unique features will likely be outdated and not that impressive anymore.
Google insists that you cannot purchase or pay for the organic results located on the left side of the screen. If you are caught purchasing links that are intended to indirectly improve your search engine ranking position, you will either be significantly penalized or removed from Google entirely. However, the only significant way to increase naturally is to pay for advertising on the right side, so people can actually find your great content and unique features, and provide you with these natural links.
Of course, there are some other ways to promote your site, such as blogging, posting on forums, and creating videos on Youtube, etc. The catch is, however, that if you are not careful, you will be penalized for spamming (excessively promoting your site where you are not supposed to). This is why most forums these days have the no follow Meta tags added to their code. Otherwise, you will just have to get creative in achieving and maintaining high PR links that are relevant and keyword rich. Unfortunately, if you do find a way to attain these links in any way that Google considers unnatural, it will eventually update its algorithm and ensure you are penalized for your imaginative endeavors.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Search Engines are Not the Be All and End All for Internet Success
There is more to Internet exposure for your business than search engines.
Editor's Note: The author wrote this article with law firms as his target audience, but his points are applicable to any business or web site.
To be sure, Google, MSN, Yahoo and the like are all excellent ways of getting your name out there. But it can take a long time to get your site to the top of most of the major categories, and since the number of categories is only limited by the imagination of the typical Google user, getting the results that you want can sometimes take awhile. So while you are waiting to move up the rankings, what else can you do to improve the web presence of your law firm? What can you do to get more clients? What can you do to get better cases?
For one thing, you might want to take a look at what your kids are doing on their computers.
Facebook and MySpace are the scourge of teachers and employers everywhere. In many schools, a student caught looking at one of these sites during class ends up in detention, and younger employees caught on these sites during working hours can get reprimanded or worse. Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia site that gives brief or lengthy summaries of almost everything, is also the scourge of academics because, since it is updated by users, it can be inaccurate. Many are the lazy college students who have been caught cutting and pasting a Wikipedia entry on their term papers.
While these sites are ridiculously popular with teenagers, they are not the only ones using them. Adults have caught on to the Facebook and MySpace craze, seeing them as a great way to stay in touch with friends and to find old ones. In terms of finding old friends, it has been said in some quarters that Facebook and MySpace may be the end of the high school reunion, simply because the Internet makes it very easy to find and keep in touch with all of your old classmates.
YouTube, which is a site that allows people to post their own video content and others to view it free of charge, has enjoyed immense popularity, so much so that Google actually purchased YouTube in 2007 to the tune of about $2 Billion. So can you make these sites work for you? The answer is an emphatic yes, and the good news is that you can do it fairly simply.
Social Networking Sites
Signing up for Facebook and MySpace is absolutely free. What they allow you to do is to create a profile page, in which you can put whatever information you deem appropriate.
MySpace allows for more decoration and personal touch than Facebook, but as of right now Facebook is more popular. But considering that both are free, you should feel free to sign up for both. In the sections that you fill out to tell people about yourself, tell them that you are a personal injury attorney and tell them the practice areas that are your specialty. You are also given the opportunity to include links, so give them the link to your website.
In order to make the site truly work, it helps to have "friends," which is what happens when you link up to other members with their own pages. If your employees have accounts, become friends with them. If one of your clients has a MySpace or Facebook account, become friends with them. If your teenager can stand the utter embarrassment, be friends with him or her. All of this increases your profile and also gets picked up in Google and other search engines. MySpace offers you a blog to update, which is always good, and both sites allow you to post videos. This brings us to YouTube.
YouTube Video Sites
If you have already shelled out the money for a commercial to be aired, why not double up on the exposure by putting it on YouTube? And unlike paying for television air time, YouTube is completely free. If you do not have a commercial ready, you can certainly make one, or simply record the testimony of a satisfied client. You no longer need a high profile production team. These days, all you really need is a camera, some basic video editing software, and an imagination.
Wikipedia
Most people do not like the idea of writing about themselves in the third person, but Wikipedia gives you a great opportunity to post your professional biography and accomplishments online. Also, in the "references" section, you can link to your website, any articles that you might have written, or any newspaper articles describing cases that you have won. Also, due to its popularity, a Wikipedia page routinely pops up in the first page of Google for almost any subject that you can think of. These are only a few of the many ways that you can improve the web traffic of your law firm. It does not take much time, and the benefits greatly outweigh the effort that it takes to get started.
Source From SitePro News
Editor's Note: The author wrote this article with law firms as his target audience, but his points are applicable to any business or web site.
To be sure, Google, MSN, Yahoo and the like are all excellent ways of getting your name out there. But it can take a long time to get your site to the top of most of the major categories, and since the number of categories is only limited by the imagination of the typical Google user, getting the results that you want can sometimes take awhile. So while you are waiting to move up the rankings, what else can you do to improve the web presence of your law firm? What can you do to get more clients? What can you do to get better cases?
For one thing, you might want to take a look at what your kids are doing on their computers.
Facebook and MySpace are the scourge of teachers and employers everywhere. In many schools, a student caught looking at one of these sites during class ends up in detention, and younger employees caught on these sites during working hours can get reprimanded or worse. Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia site that gives brief or lengthy summaries of almost everything, is also the scourge of academics because, since it is updated by users, it can be inaccurate. Many are the lazy college students who have been caught cutting and pasting a Wikipedia entry on their term papers.
While these sites are ridiculously popular with teenagers, they are not the only ones using them. Adults have caught on to the Facebook and MySpace craze, seeing them as a great way to stay in touch with friends and to find old ones. In terms of finding old friends, it has been said in some quarters that Facebook and MySpace may be the end of the high school reunion, simply because the Internet makes it very easy to find and keep in touch with all of your old classmates.
YouTube, which is a site that allows people to post their own video content and others to view it free of charge, has enjoyed immense popularity, so much so that Google actually purchased YouTube in 2007 to the tune of about $2 Billion. So can you make these sites work for you? The answer is an emphatic yes, and the good news is that you can do it fairly simply.
Social Networking Sites
Signing up for Facebook and MySpace is absolutely free. What they allow you to do is to create a profile page, in which you can put whatever information you deem appropriate.
MySpace allows for more decoration and personal touch than Facebook, but as of right now Facebook is more popular. But considering that both are free, you should feel free to sign up for both. In the sections that you fill out to tell people about yourself, tell them that you are a personal injury attorney and tell them the practice areas that are your specialty. You are also given the opportunity to include links, so give them the link to your website.
In order to make the site truly work, it helps to have "friends," which is what happens when you link up to other members with their own pages. If your employees have accounts, become friends with them. If one of your clients has a MySpace or Facebook account, become friends with them. If your teenager can stand the utter embarrassment, be friends with him or her. All of this increases your profile and also gets picked up in Google and other search engines. MySpace offers you a blog to update, which is always good, and both sites allow you to post videos. This brings us to YouTube.
YouTube Video Sites
If you have already shelled out the money for a commercial to be aired, why not double up on the exposure by putting it on YouTube? And unlike paying for television air time, YouTube is completely free. If you do not have a commercial ready, you can certainly make one, or simply record the testimony of a satisfied client. You no longer need a high profile production team. These days, all you really need is a camera, some basic video editing software, and an imagination.
Wikipedia
Most people do not like the idea of writing about themselves in the third person, but Wikipedia gives you a great opportunity to post your professional biography and accomplishments online. Also, in the "references" section, you can link to your website, any articles that you might have written, or any newspaper articles describing cases that you have won. Also, due to its popularity, a Wikipedia page routinely pops up in the first page of Google for almost any subject that you can think of. These are only a few of the many ways that you can improve the web traffic of your law firm. It does not take much time, and the benefits greatly outweigh the effort that it takes to get started.
Source From SitePro News
Saturday, June 20, 2009
10 Vital Tips for Choosing the Right Web Hosting Company
The Web hosting firm you choose can make or break your small business. Good ones can run things smoothly, are easy to reach, and fix problems efficiently. But bad ones can have more problems than they are worth, be unreachable at critical times, and bring your business to a screeching halt. Finding a good one is crucial to your success.
Here are some tried and true ideas for how to select a host that will save you money, avoid technical snafus, and build your online platform for the future.
1. Choose a Service that Primarily Does Hosting
Although it might be tempting to sign-up with a firm that provides an umbrella of services in addition to website hosting, a good rule of thumb is that if a company overly-diversifies its services, it will not deliver top quality in any of them (e.g. tech support, updates, maintenance, etc.)
2. Choose a Host with a Great Record for Online Security
Most secure hosts will provide SSL Certificates to guarantee your security. Without an SSL Certificate on your site, visitors may come and go without identifying themselves, and this could put your site at risk. Make sure your host implements best practices when it comes to maintaining security architecture, updating security software, and responding effectively to breaches if and when they do occur.
3. Excellent Technical and Customer Service Support via Phone
Does the host provide phone support around the clock? Or can you only email for help during non-business hours? You definitely want the option to call a staffer. Studies show that over-the-phone tech and customer support systems are vastly more efficient than e-mail support centers, on average.
4. Solid Add-On Services
A number of great web hosting companies provide little extras to make sites more effective and user-friendly. These can include image upload galleries, blogs, control panels, order forms, support scripts, databases, and embedded video features. When evaluating various firms, examine sample sites and note what value add-ons you like and what value add-ons you feel are missing in each sample.
5. Do not Rely on Numbers Alone to Make the Decision
Many hosts promise uptime approaching 100%. But there is no way of verifying that kind of claim. If your website goes down, for instance, the company can easily explain it away as a statistically insignificant outliers. Similarly, a potential host may brag about oodles of bandwidth and space on servers, but if your online small-business needs are modest, these numbers should not be your incentive. Finally, be wary of online rating systems. These figures can be jiggered and re-jiggered to make a web host look better (or worse) than it actually is.
6. The Right Price for Your Needs
Sure, you can find a service for practically nothing. But there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to web hosting. If you are paying a dirt-cheap rate, chances are that the host is watering down services in some respect. Perhaps the host offers minimal security protections or charges clients "pay per play" for technical support. Or maybe the site charges a sky-high maintenance fee or other monthly fee. The point is, you need to read the fine print and to price-compare before making a decision.
7. Flexible Features and Enough Elbow-Room
You have no idea how your online platform might evolve. That is why you need a hosting company that boasts flexible features, supports many different languages, offers Linux and Windows options, and supports an array of scripts (PHP, Pearl, Java, etc.) A good rule of thumb for determining space is to "buy big". In other words, even if you do not have tens of thousands of files to upload and store, leave yourself some wiggle room to anticipate future growth.
8. An Easy-To-Use and Safe Shopping Cart
According to numerous estimates, U.S. and U.K. consumers will be spending nearly $150 billion per year online by the year 2010. Your site's e-commerce options should be simple, safe, battle-tested, and easy-to-use.
9. Protection Against Spam, Viruses, Trojan Horses, and the Like
Most creditable web hosting sites provide solid e-mail protection. Make sure to check for compatibility, however. For instance, if you use Microsoft Outlook, make sure that the host has the tools and services to shield your Outlook e-mail effectively -- without blocking key notifications from clients or suppliers.
10. Important Questions to Consider:
Here are some tried and true ideas for how to select a host that will save you money, avoid technical snafus, and build your online platform for the future.
1. Choose a Service that Primarily Does Hosting
Although it might be tempting to sign-up with a firm that provides an umbrella of services in addition to website hosting, a good rule of thumb is that if a company overly-diversifies its services, it will not deliver top quality in any of them (e.g. tech support, updates, maintenance, etc.)
2. Choose a Host with a Great Record for Online Security
Most secure hosts will provide SSL Certificates to guarantee your security. Without an SSL Certificate on your site, visitors may come and go without identifying themselves, and this could put your site at risk. Make sure your host implements best practices when it comes to maintaining security architecture, updating security software, and responding effectively to breaches if and when they do occur.
3. Excellent Technical and Customer Service Support via Phone
Does the host provide phone support around the clock? Or can you only email for help during non-business hours? You definitely want the option to call a staffer. Studies show that over-the-phone tech and customer support systems are vastly more efficient than e-mail support centers, on average.
4. Solid Add-On Services
A number of great web hosting companies provide little extras to make sites more effective and user-friendly. These can include image upload galleries, blogs, control panels, order forms, support scripts, databases, and embedded video features. When evaluating various firms, examine sample sites and note what value add-ons you like and what value add-ons you feel are missing in each sample.
5. Do not Rely on Numbers Alone to Make the Decision
Many hosts promise uptime approaching 100%. But there is no way of verifying that kind of claim. If your website goes down, for instance, the company can easily explain it away as a statistically insignificant outliers. Similarly, a potential host may brag about oodles of bandwidth and space on servers, but if your online small-business needs are modest, these numbers should not be your incentive. Finally, be wary of online rating systems. These figures can be jiggered and re-jiggered to make a web host look better (or worse) than it actually is.
6. The Right Price for Your Needs
Sure, you can find a service for practically nothing. But there is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to web hosting. If you are paying a dirt-cheap rate, chances are that the host is watering down services in some respect. Perhaps the host offers minimal security protections or charges clients "pay per play" for technical support. Or maybe the site charges a sky-high maintenance fee or other monthly fee. The point is, you need to read the fine print and to price-compare before making a decision.
7. Flexible Features and Enough Elbow-Room
You have no idea how your online platform might evolve. That is why you need a hosting company that boasts flexible features, supports many different languages, offers Linux and Windows options, and supports an array of scripts (PHP, Pearl, Java, etc.) A good rule of thumb for determining space is to "buy big". In other words, even if you do not have tens of thousands of files to upload and store, leave yourself some wiggle room to anticipate future growth.
8. An Easy-To-Use and Safe Shopping Cart
According to numerous estimates, U.S. and U.K. consumers will be spending nearly $150 billion per year online by the year 2010. Your site's e-commerce options should be simple, safe, battle-tested, and easy-to-use.
9. Protection Against Spam, Viruses, Trojan Horses, and the Like
Most creditable web hosting sites provide solid e-mail protection. Make sure to check for compatibility, however. For instance, if you use Microsoft Outlook, make sure that the host has the tools and services to shield your Outlook e-mail effectively -- without blocking key notifications from clients or suppliers.
10. Important Questions to Consider:
- Does the host provide good references and testimonials?
- Does the company employ best-of-breed firewalls and routers?
- Has anyone filed complaints against the company through the Better Business Bureau or other organization?
- What services do small businesses similar to yours use for web hosting?
- Can the company provide any statistics to back up claims regarding reliability and technical support?
- Can you use the host for a trial period before paying full price?
- How expensive is it to upgrade or downgrade plans?
- How do blogs and customer forums rate your candidate hosting services?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Useful Tips for User - Friendly Web Designing
A website is a handy and trendy marketing tool for business. For a good website, the visual web design must be attractive and must be able to grab the attention of a large number of visitors.
Web designing is an art and has to be done with interest and involvement. When done with involvement, the user-friendly feature will automatically get incorporated in the design. Stunning web design with good programming and marketing strategies will greatly increase the visibility of the website to the Internet browsers.
From this introduction it can be easily understood that web design is the key aspect of a website. For designing a user-friendly website here are a few tips which I gained through my experience in web designing. These useful tips, when implemented, will yield good user-friendly web designs.
1). What does the website convey?
Your answer to the question will lead you all the way to a good and meaningful web design. For designing a website, one should have a theme. On getting to know more of what the website is about, as a designer or as a webmaster, it will be easy for you to design accordingly.
2). Planning for the web design
Planning makes work proceed smoothly. The first step in planning is research. Surf through the web to find sites similar to yours. Do a simple yet meaningful research to understand the pulse of the visitors. On doing so, your first impression will always be the best one.
3). Setting theme and layout
After your research and planning, the vital part of your web design is the collection of assets. The first step will be theme selection and webpage layout. There are personal websites, informational websites, e-commerce websites and service providing websites. It is all in the hands of a designer to select a matching theme to satisfy the need and implement it attractively.
4). Web Page Design
Neat and informative web pages are the most visited pages on the net. To design such a web page, the important elements to be taken note of are the header, footer, text area and the navigational area. Avoid using animated/flashy headers and navigational icons. Use a uniform header and footer to give a professional look to the website. These, when designed with care and when followed, will result in good web design.
5). Site Map and Navigation
In web designing, the term navigation is very much apropos with user-friendly. Navigation within the website should be very clear and easy. Always try to implement normal links for moving around, and avoid animated buttons. The column to the right of the webpage should have good navigational links. The site map is another important and easy way for finding web pages in the website. So, never forget these as these are the principal tips to be remembered while designing.
6). Usage of images and text
Web designing is all about expressing the ideas of the business to people. For it to be a success, use of correct images for communicating the content of the website to the visitors is a must. The text in the webpage must be search engine optimized and must convey the message clearly.
7). Page Size and Download Time
After placing the images, links and the text, the complete page should not exceed 30 KB. This size will ensure that the page is downloaded quickly, within 5 to 6 seconds. This time is crucial time because either it may bring visitors or divert them to another website of the same type.
The above are a few important tips to be considered while designing a website. You can follow them or modify them to suit your need. But the fact is that designing is about presenting the information in an elegant, decorative and user-friendly way.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Web designing is an art and has to be done with interest and involvement. When done with involvement, the user-friendly feature will automatically get incorporated in the design. Stunning web design with good programming and marketing strategies will greatly increase the visibility of the website to the Internet browsers.
From this introduction it can be easily understood that web design is the key aspect of a website. For designing a user-friendly website here are a few tips which I gained through my experience in web designing. These useful tips, when implemented, will yield good user-friendly web designs.
1). What does the website convey?
Your answer to the question will lead you all the way to a good and meaningful web design. For designing a website, one should have a theme. On getting to know more of what the website is about, as a designer or as a webmaster, it will be easy for you to design accordingly.
2). Planning for the web design
Planning makes work proceed smoothly. The first step in planning is research. Surf through the web to find sites similar to yours. Do a simple yet meaningful research to understand the pulse of the visitors. On doing so, your first impression will always be the best one.
3). Setting theme and layout
After your research and planning, the vital part of your web design is the collection of assets. The first step will be theme selection and webpage layout. There are personal websites, informational websites, e-commerce websites and service providing websites. It is all in the hands of a designer to select a matching theme to satisfy the need and implement it attractively.
4). Web Page Design
Neat and informative web pages are the most visited pages on the net. To design such a web page, the important elements to be taken note of are the header, footer, text area and the navigational area. Avoid using animated/flashy headers and navigational icons. Use a uniform header and footer to give a professional look to the website. These, when designed with care and when followed, will result in good web design.
5). Site Map and Navigation
In web designing, the term navigation is very much apropos with user-friendly. Navigation within the website should be very clear and easy. Always try to implement normal links for moving around, and avoid animated buttons. The column to the right of the webpage should have good navigational links. The site map is another important and easy way for finding web pages in the website. So, never forget these as these are the principal tips to be remembered while designing.
6). Usage of images and text
Web designing is all about expressing the ideas of the business to people. For it to be a success, use of correct images for communicating the content of the website to the visitors is a must. The text in the webpage must be search engine optimized and must convey the message clearly.
7). Page Size and Download Time
After placing the images, links and the text, the complete page should not exceed 30 KB. This size will ensure that the page is downloaded quickly, within 5 to 6 seconds. This time is crucial time because either it may bring visitors or divert them to another website of the same type.
The above are a few important tips to be considered while designing a website. You can follow them or modify them to suit your need. But the fact is that designing is about presenting the information in an elegant, decorative and user-friendly way.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Want A Sticky Site? Forget Content
An interesting debate is raging among copy writers, web designers and content developers about the differences, if any, between writing copy for the web versus writing content.
The Internet is not a traditional medium — at least not in the broadcast sense. It is intimate, dynamic and interactive. People are more involved when reading the content of a website than reading a conventional print publication, watching a show on TV or listening to a program on the radio.
And with the Internet, people have a powerful weapon that they do not have with other types of media, and they usually do not think twice about using it when the need confronts them: their mouse. So, the idea is this: forget about writing content, at least in the traditional sense. Think copy. Think words and expressions that compel the reader to do something, even if it is just to continue reading.
According to online dictionary Answers.com, "copy" is defined as "the words to be printed or spoken in an advertisement." (And "advertisement" is defined as "a notice or announcement designed to attract public patronage." It is calling for some kind of action. It is selling something, in other words.)
But the word "content," on the other hand, is defined as "the subject matter of a written work, such as a book or magazine." And keep in mind that there is no mention of the Internet, here.
Nevertheless, this is why I submit that, with its multitude of links, scripts and hypertexts, the Internet transforms the passive reader into an active, responsive participant. (Or make that "response-able.") And she must therefore be treated as such - as a participant, not a reader.
Look at it this way: a book is limited by its front and back covers. When the book is done, it is done. The web, however, is not.
If your content does not strive at getting the reader to do something, whether it is to buy, subscribe, join, download, call, email, fill out a form, click or whatever, then you need to seriously rethink your content and the words you use.
Here is my explanation of the difference between content and copy. Content informs. Copy invites. Even if content invites a reader to keep reading, it is still selling an idea. It is still calling for action. And it is still copy.
If your web page is only meant to inform people like some kind of book, then it is content. (And like closing a book once it is read, the only action left is to exit the website or close the browser.) But if it contains links or more content, then it is copy. And you need to write content with that mindset.
Ultimately, incorporate within your content a direct response formula that compels your readers to do something. Do not leave them hanging. Integrate a call for some kind of action, in other words. Ask your reader to "buy now," "join today," "get this," "download that, and so on.
Source From SitePro News
The Internet is not a traditional medium — at least not in the broadcast sense. It is intimate, dynamic and interactive. People are more involved when reading the content of a website than reading a conventional print publication, watching a show on TV or listening to a program on the radio.
And with the Internet, people have a powerful weapon that they do not have with other types of media, and they usually do not think twice about using it when the need confronts them: their mouse. So, the idea is this: forget about writing content, at least in the traditional sense. Think copy. Think words and expressions that compel the reader to do something, even if it is just to continue reading.
According to online dictionary Answers.com, "copy" is defined as "the words to be printed or spoken in an advertisement." (And "advertisement" is defined as "a notice or announcement designed to attract public patronage." It is calling for some kind of action. It is selling something, in other words.)
But the word "content," on the other hand, is defined as "the subject matter of a written work, such as a book or magazine." And keep in mind that there is no mention of the Internet, here.
Nevertheless, this is why I submit that, with its multitude of links, scripts and hypertexts, the Internet transforms the passive reader into an active, responsive participant. (Or make that "response-able.") And she must therefore be treated as such - as a participant, not a reader.
Look at it this way: a book is limited by its front and back covers. When the book is done, it is done. The web, however, is not.
If your content does not strive at getting the reader to do something, whether it is to buy, subscribe, join, download, call, email, fill out a form, click or whatever, then you need to seriously rethink your content and the words you use.
Here is my explanation of the difference between content and copy. Content informs. Copy invites. Even if content invites a reader to keep reading, it is still selling an idea. It is still calling for action. And it is still copy.
If your web page is only meant to inform people like some kind of book, then it is content. (And like closing a book once it is read, the only action left is to exit the website or close the browser.) But if it contains links or more content, then it is copy. And you need to write content with that mindset.
Ultimately, incorporate within your content a direct response formula that compels your readers to do something. Do not leave them hanging. Integrate a call for some kind of action, in other words. Ask your reader to "buy now," "join today," "get this," "download that, and so on.
Source From SitePro News
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Search Engine Optimization: 11 Basic SEO Strategies for Beginners
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process getting your website ready to be found in organic web searches. By organic searches, I am referring to web searches that appear naturally as the result of a search for a particular keyword or phrase, rather than appearing in the sponsored links (pay-per-click advertising) section of a search page.
I am not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.
Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:
1. Page title tags: This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.
2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. if your keyword is Internet marketing.
3. Meta tags: These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description meta tags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites that is no longer the case. However, you should not ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your Meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.
4. Header tags: Header tags are the HTML code that indicate a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword once in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.
5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image is not able to be displayed. The best use of any ALT tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.
6. Content formatting: Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.
7. Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% - 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.
8. Anchor text: Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to "click here" in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in "click here for dog training tips."
9. Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I will link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services.
A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listing your site in search engine-friendly directories in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.
10. New content: Content is still king, so one way to improve your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.
11. Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.
Search engine optimization strategy is not as difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you do not have to?
Source From SEO News
I am not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.
Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:
1. Page title tags: This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.
2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. if your keyword is Internet marketing.
3. Meta tags: These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description meta tags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites that is no longer the case. However, you should not ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your Meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.
4. Header tags: Header tags are the HTML code that indicate a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword once in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.
5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image is not able to be displayed. The best use of any ALT tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.
6. Content formatting: Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.
7. Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% - 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.
8. Anchor text: Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to "click here" in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in "click here for dog training tips."
9. Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I will link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services.
A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listing your site in search engine-friendly directories in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.
10. New content: Content is still king, so one way to improve your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.
11. Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.
Search engine optimization strategy is not as difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you do not have to?
Source From SEO News
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
10 Free and Easy Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking
If you want a more technical definition, Alexa explains it like this:
"The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)."
In April 2008 Alexa revised its methodology so as to "aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users".
How accurately this method reflects the actual surfing patterns of all Internet users is open to question. However, if you bear in mind that by the end of 2005 the toolbar had been downloaded well over 10 million times you will realize why many people still think that Alexa offers one of the best approximations that we have of website ranking, especially for the top 100,000 or so websites.
That is why Alexa remains an important measure of a website's status and is used as a quick way to assess the popularity of a website by advertisers looking for the maximum exposure for the their money. Websites with a higher Alexa ranking also tend to be trusted more than those with a low ranking, so it is in the interest of website owners to get their sites ranked as highly as possible with Alexa.
Here are some quick and easy tips to help you do that without spending a single dollar!
1. Install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as your homepage.
2. Copy and paste an Alexa rank widget onto your website. You can get the widget code at http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup. As well as informing your visitors about your Alexa rank, it will also keep Alexa updated about the number of unique visitors surfing your site.
3. Create a customized version of the Alexa tool bar, Then place a link on your site to the download page and invite your visitors to download it. You will also earn Amazon commissions every time a user shops on Amazon via the toolbar link.
4. If you have a Wordpress blog there is a plug-in for Alexa Ranking (wp-Alexa-redirect-0.3plug-in) that you can use. Editor's Note: This plugin may no longer work.
5. Submit your site to web directories. Although a lot of directories charge a registration fee, you can still find many that are willing to list your site free of charge or in exchange for a reciprocal link. A lot of the webmasters who browse web directories have the Alexa bar installed, so if they click your link it will help your Alexa traffic rank.
6. Become an active participant on Internet marketing and SEO forums. Again, a lot of those forum participants are already webmasters and a high percentage will use the Alexa toolbar when they surf. Place a link to your site in your signature and your rank will improve when any of those people click through.
7. A lot of Asian and Australian websites feature in the Alexa top 100,000 and you can bet that a lot of website owners will have the Alexa toolbar installed, so it makes sense to join social networking sites that are popular in those regions, such as:
orkut.com - Orkut is owned by Google and is the second most visited site in India.
hi5.com
8. Become an Alexa expert and post articles that discuss Alexa ranking and SEO tips. This will attract people to your site who may be interested in downloading your toolbar, or people who have already done so. Either way, it will be good for your Alexa ranking. You could even build a whole category of articles on your website devoted to this theme.
9. Set up a freebie page on your website and post a list of useful tools to attract other website owners to your site. Include another link to your Alexa toolbar download page.
10. Get into the habit of using Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites to spread the word whenever you post a new article on your website or blog. Set up a group of fellow website owners so that you can have run reciprocal stumbling campaigns for better results.
If you apply these ten quick and easy methods you will definitely see an improvement in your Alexa rank and you should also start to attract more traffic to your site!
Source From SitePro News
"The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)."
In April 2008 Alexa revised its methodology so as to "aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users".
How accurately this method reflects the actual surfing patterns of all Internet users is open to question. However, if you bear in mind that by the end of 2005 the toolbar had been downloaded well over 10 million times you will realize why many people still think that Alexa offers one of the best approximations that we have of website ranking, especially for the top 100,000 or so websites.
That is why Alexa remains an important measure of a website's status and is used as a quick way to assess the popularity of a website by advertisers looking for the maximum exposure for the their money. Websites with a higher Alexa ranking also tend to be trusted more than those with a low ranking, so it is in the interest of website owners to get their sites ranked as highly as possible with Alexa.
Here are some quick and easy tips to help you do that without spending a single dollar!
1. Install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as your homepage.
2. Copy and paste an Alexa rank widget onto your website. You can get the widget code at http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup. As well as informing your visitors about your Alexa rank, it will also keep Alexa updated about the number of unique visitors surfing your site.
3. Create a customized version of the Alexa tool bar, Then place a link on your site to the download page and invite your visitors to download it. You will also earn Amazon commissions every time a user shops on Amazon via the toolbar link.
4. If you have a Wordpress blog there is a plug-in for Alexa Ranking (wp-Alexa-redirect-0.3plug-in) that you can use. Editor's Note: This plugin may no longer work.
5. Submit your site to web directories. Although a lot of directories charge a registration fee, you can still find many that are willing to list your site free of charge or in exchange for a reciprocal link. A lot of the webmasters who browse web directories have the Alexa bar installed, so if they click your link it will help your Alexa traffic rank.
6. Become an active participant on Internet marketing and SEO forums. Again, a lot of those forum participants are already webmasters and a high percentage will use the Alexa toolbar when they surf. Place a link to your site in your signature and your rank will improve when any of those people click through.
7. A lot of Asian and Australian websites feature in the Alexa top 100,000 and you can bet that a lot of website owners will have the Alexa toolbar installed, so it makes sense to join social networking sites that are popular in those regions, such as:
orkut.com - Orkut is owned by Google and is the second most visited site in India.
hi5.com
8. Become an Alexa expert and post articles that discuss Alexa ranking and SEO tips. This will attract people to your site who may be interested in downloading your toolbar, or people who have already done so. Either way, it will be good for your Alexa ranking. You could even build a whole category of articles on your website devoted to this theme.
9. Set up a freebie page on your website and post a list of useful tools to attract other website owners to your site. Include another link to your Alexa toolbar download page.
10. Get into the habit of using Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites to spread the word whenever you post a new article on your website or blog. Set up a group of fellow website owners so that you can have run reciprocal stumbling campaigns for better results.
If you apply these ten quick and easy methods you will definitely see an improvement in your Alexa rank and you should also start to attract more traffic to your site!
Source From SitePro News
Monday, June 8, 2009
How Social Media Getting Popular than CNN
Online viewers the world over were inundated with live, up to the second footage and news items channel to their computer screens, literally as it unfolded. Several bloggers residing in India's financial capital were live-blogging events as they happened and many others who could not get online were on the phone feeding updates to news agencies and social media sites.
"If newspapers can not compete with blogs and online news sites in terms of speed and variety, perhaps they can trump them in terms of depth or trust. After all, feature-length content with solid, investigative reporting is not something you will often find on most blogs or personal sites on the web."
Blogging is the ultimate equalizer. Just like brick and mortar businesses had to come to terms with e-commerce, writers need to adapt to the digital medium and morph their skills to suit, not throw tantrums and claim that the sky is falling.
The cachet of being a journalist is no longer restricted to the tertiary-educated, long-suffering newspaper cadet. Global Internet uptake and the advent of Web 2.0 has ensured that news can be reported instantly anytime, anywhere, by anyone.
Social media sites provide the channels to reach a mass audience and blogs provide the content. Blogging - even on a micro scale like Twitter - unlocks the journalist inside everyone and that is not a bad thing.
Source From SitePro News
"If newspapers can not compete with blogs and online news sites in terms of speed and variety, perhaps they can trump them in terms of depth or trust. After all, feature-length content with solid, investigative reporting is not something you will often find on most blogs or personal sites on the web."
Blogging is the ultimate equalizer. Just like brick and mortar businesses had to come to terms with e-commerce, writers need to adapt to the digital medium and morph their skills to suit, not throw tantrums and claim that the sky is falling.
The cachet of being a journalist is no longer restricted to the tertiary-educated, long-suffering newspaper cadet. Global Internet uptake and the advent of Web 2.0 has ensured that news can be reported instantly anytime, anywhere, by anyone.
Social media sites provide the channels to reach a mass audience and blogs provide the content. Blogging - even on a micro scale like Twitter - unlocks the journalist inside everyone and that is not a bad thing.
Source From SitePro News
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Properly Submitting Your Website To Search Engines
If you have a web-based business or if a significant portion of your business is performed on the Internet through your website, then the best advertising and marketing is completed by submitting your website to a search engine. No amount of press releases, newspaper or radio ads, banner ads, spam emails or newsletters will achieve the same results, although it may be effective in a small proportion.
Beware of companies that promise an automatic submission of your website to hundreds of search engines which are most times nothing more than false promises. The best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and inclusion is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine companies and directories.
As with many things, researching or getting referrals from other companies that have had great success with an SEO company is always the safest way to ensure that your website is going to be in genuinely caring hands. There are so many websites on the Internet trying to make a quick buck by any means necessary.
Business dealings with the wrong types of people can be very cut-throat if you are not careful in considering and researching where you decide to go in finding your marketing partners for life.
Before you begin to submit your website to search engines, it is best to ensure that your websites are thoroughly designed to a professional quality using the right key words, good graphics and pictures and appropriate, relevant content. Do not submit websites that are incomplete. While submitting to a search engine, make sure to provide information about your website, keywords and any other information that may be pertinent, including the name and contact information of your business.
The creation and growing life of your website in the infancy stages are always going to come with many great challenges. But once you have overcome those challenges and beaten the odds, you will most likely be able to repeat this pattern over and over if you wanted to do so. You could also decide to become a consultant and help others to become better with their dealings online. They could learn from your mistakes and discoveries just as you had with your wonderful mentors.
Mere submissions alone to search engine companies will not guarantee that your site would be immediately listed and the ranking will be at the very top. Because there are thousands of new websites coming up every day and it may take quite some time before they take up your site for review by human editors. One important factor to remember while submitting your website is to include a site map of your website which makes the crawling easy for the web robots. Search engines like Google hardly consider submissions without sitemaps.
It just makes sense to do everything that you can think of to make the robot's job in crawling your website as easy as it can possibly be from your end. It can also be referred to as optimizing your website to just flow very smoothly without hardly any interruption at all from the search engine programs that hit all kinds of dead ends and errors as people place businesses online.
There are many online companies that accept search engine submission services. You can choose to do it yourself with software packages available all over on the Internet. The best way, as with anything, is to get to know your prospective source of help and information as much as you can. Over some time this will develop in your mind as a trustworthy source that you can always depend on for a very long time, you hope.
You will hear from many users online that you should stay as far away as you can get from these automatic submission companies. This is very much the case in most of what you may stumble onto online.
There are a few good, solid and dependable companies that you can find by knowing the right people and being associated with a good network of business minded people.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Beware of companies that promise an automatic submission of your website to hundreds of search engines which are most times nothing more than false promises. The best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and inclusion is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine companies and directories.
As with many things, researching or getting referrals from other companies that have had great success with an SEO company is always the safest way to ensure that your website is going to be in genuinely caring hands. There are so many websites on the Internet trying to make a quick buck by any means necessary.
Business dealings with the wrong types of people can be very cut-throat if you are not careful in considering and researching where you decide to go in finding your marketing partners for life.
Before you begin to submit your website to search engines, it is best to ensure that your websites are thoroughly designed to a professional quality using the right key words, good graphics and pictures and appropriate, relevant content. Do not submit websites that are incomplete. While submitting to a search engine, make sure to provide information about your website, keywords and any other information that may be pertinent, including the name and contact information of your business.
The creation and growing life of your website in the infancy stages are always going to come with many great challenges. But once you have overcome those challenges and beaten the odds, you will most likely be able to repeat this pattern over and over if you wanted to do so. You could also decide to become a consultant and help others to become better with their dealings online. They could learn from your mistakes and discoveries just as you had with your wonderful mentors.
Mere submissions alone to search engine companies will not guarantee that your site would be immediately listed and the ranking will be at the very top. Because there are thousands of new websites coming up every day and it may take quite some time before they take up your site for review by human editors. One important factor to remember while submitting your website is to include a site map of your website which makes the crawling easy for the web robots. Search engines like Google hardly consider submissions without sitemaps.
It just makes sense to do everything that you can think of to make the robot's job in crawling your website as easy as it can possibly be from your end. It can also be referred to as optimizing your website to just flow very smoothly without hardly any interruption at all from the search engine programs that hit all kinds of dead ends and errors as people place businesses online.
There are many online companies that accept search engine submission services. You can choose to do it yourself with software packages available all over on the Internet. The best way, as with anything, is to get to know your prospective source of help and information as much as you can. Over some time this will develop in your mind as a trustworthy source that you can always depend on for a very long time, you hope.
You will hear from many users online that you should stay as far away as you can get from these automatic submission companies. This is very much the case in most of what you may stumble onto online.
There are a few good, solid and dependable companies that you can find by knowing the right people and being associated with a good network of business minded people.
Source From Entireweb Newsletter
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Move Over Google!
MSN gets about twenty to twenty five percent of the traffic Google does and most of that is from credit card carrying adults who are ready to buy. Think about it this way; if you could be number one on Google one full week of every month, what would that be worth to you? That is what MSN is worth, at the very least.
Here is the formula, step by step:
Step 1: Target just one keyword per Website (do not worry it is just a one page Website anyway.) And do not even bother with long tail keywords. Go for the ones that are impossible on Google. This formula nails them on MSN.
Step 1a: If you want to see exactly how much traffic potential each keyword has on MSN you can use their keyword tool at https://adcenter.microsoft.com/Research/KeywordResearcher.aspx. Unfortunately you need to be an AdCenter member to access it. But on the plus side, it only costs five dollars to join up. Clicking the above link will redirect you to the signup page if you are not a member.
Step 1b: If you do not want to bother you can just use Google's free keyword tool at as a max estimate and do a little guesstimating as to what MSN's searches for the same keyword might be. There is no hard and fast rule but I find that dividing Google's search volume by a number between four and seven is usually close to MSN's numbers.
Step 2: Register a new domain name that is as close as possible to your keyword. Use hyphens as much as you like. If your keyword is a single word there is a 99.9 percent chance it is taken as a domain name so add a hyphen between each letter or add a double hyphen between two words. Be original.
Step 2a: Do not bother with any domains that do not end in .com, .net, or .org. Those are the ones MSN likes best (the original big three TLD's.)
Step 3: Build a one page Website as follows...
Step 3a: Put your title at the top of the page and use your keyword once. Do not bother with H1 and H2 tags. Just bold, underline or italicize it.
Step 3b: Write 250 to 350 words, broken out into three or more paragraphs. Use your keyword once in each paragraph (no more than four uses on the page.)
Step 3c: Use at least two instances of your keyword as anchor text linking back to the same (home) page.
Step 3d: Use as many images as you like but make sure at least one third of your text is above the first image. And if you find 350 words is not enough to say all you want, make images of your offer text and post those on the page as well. Just keep the actual text (search engine readable) to 350 words or less and have no more than four mentions of your keyword.
Step 3e: Limit your outbound links to one that leaves the site. This should go to your main offer page, payment processor, etc. All other links should simply link back to the same page. By the way, if you need to post a privacy policy or disclaimer, create an image of it and post it as an image if possible to cut down on page text.
Step 4: Use your Title and Description META tags. MSN still likes them. Here is how.
Step 4a: Make your title tag in two parts with a separator between. First is the keyword. Then place a separator like a pipe (above enter key) or colon. Then add a few words that complement the keyword. Try not to go over seven words in the title.
Step 4b: Make your description up to 250 characters long (or longer if you wish but anything beyond 250 will likely not count.) Use your keyword within the first five words of your description if possible and do not use it more than twice at most.
Step 5: Get links from other Web sites. This is important! GPR or Google PageRank does not matter at all and neither does the site theme matching yours. Just get plenty of links. Here is how I did it before buying a software tool...
Step 5a: Submit your site to as many directories as possible. DMOZ.org and Yahoo.com are the largest.
Step 5b: Do relevant blog and user group postings with a link back to your site.
Step 5c: Write and submit articles. The resource box from a single article can bring in dozens or even hundreds of links. It is easiest to use an article submission service like SubmitYourArticle.us or another with similar advanced distribution features.
Step 6: Consider investing in a software tool. Then spend $167 for SE0elite.com and it does all you need and more. Of course, there are dozens of choices out there so shop around.
Source From SEO News
Here is the formula, step by step:
Step 1: Target just one keyword per Website (do not worry it is just a one page Website anyway.) And do not even bother with long tail keywords. Go for the ones that are impossible on Google. This formula nails them on MSN.
Step 1a: If you want to see exactly how much traffic potential each keyword has on MSN you can use their keyword tool at https://adcenter.microsoft.com/Research/KeywordResearcher.aspx. Unfortunately you need to be an AdCenter member to access it. But on the plus side, it only costs five dollars to join up. Clicking the above link will redirect you to the signup page if you are not a member.
Step 1b: If you do not want to bother you can just use Google's free keyword tool at as a max estimate and do a little guesstimating as to what MSN's searches for the same keyword might be. There is no hard and fast rule but I find that dividing Google's search volume by a number between four and seven is usually close to MSN's numbers.
Step 2: Register a new domain name that is as close as possible to your keyword. Use hyphens as much as you like. If your keyword is a single word there is a 99.9 percent chance it is taken as a domain name so add a hyphen between each letter or add a double hyphen between two words. Be original.
Step 2a: Do not bother with any domains that do not end in .com, .net, or .org. Those are the ones MSN likes best (the original big three TLD's.)
Step 3: Build a one page Website as follows...
Step 3a: Put your title at the top of the page and use your keyword once. Do not bother with H1 and H2 tags. Just bold, underline or italicize it.
Step 3b: Write 250 to 350 words, broken out into three or more paragraphs. Use your keyword once in each paragraph (no more than four uses on the page.)
Step 3c: Use at least two instances of your keyword as anchor text linking back to the same (home) page.
Step 3d: Use as many images as you like but make sure at least one third of your text is above the first image. And if you find 350 words is not enough to say all you want, make images of your offer text and post those on the page as well. Just keep the actual text (search engine readable) to 350 words or less and have no more than four mentions of your keyword.
Step 3e: Limit your outbound links to one that leaves the site. This should go to your main offer page, payment processor, etc. All other links should simply link back to the same page. By the way, if you need to post a privacy policy or disclaimer, create an image of it and post it as an image if possible to cut down on page text.
Step 4: Use your Title and Description META tags. MSN still likes them. Here is how.
Step 4a: Make your title tag in two parts with a separator between. First is the keyword. Then place a separator like a pipe (above enter key) or colon. Then add a few words that complement the keyword. Try not to go over seven words in the title.
Step 4b: Make your description up to 250 characters long (or longer if you wish but anything beyond 250 will likely not count.) Use your keyword within the first five words of your description if possible and do not use it more than twice at most.
Step 5: Get links from other Web sites. This is important! GPR or Google PageRank does not matter at all and neither does the site theme matching yours. Just get plenty of links. Here is how I did it before buying a software tool...
Step 5a: Submit your site to as many directories as possible. DMOZ.org and Yahoo.com are the largest.
Step 5b: Do relevant blog and user group postings with a link back to your site.
Step 5c: Write and submit articles. The resource box from a single article can bring in dozens or even hundreds of links. It is easiest to use an article submission service like SubmitYourArticle.us or another with similar advanced distribution features.
Step 6: Consider investing in a software tool. Then spend $167 for SE0elite.com and it does all you need and more. Of course, there are dozens of choices out there so shop around.
Source From SEO News
Monday, June 1, 2009
Your Website does not need a Traditional Call to Action
Sales people are taught, you always need 'a call to action', a request to act or lose the opportunity of a lifetime. I am sure you have seen the infomercials, website presentations, online direct marketing come-ons, and even high-pressure seminar and trade show presentations that will never be repeated, so you better act now. You are familiar with the language used: "act now and we will send you two pieces of junk you do not need, but wait there is more, call in the next ten minutes and we will add a third useless item."
Does any intelligent person really respond to this kind of pitch, and what self-respecting business would actually behave in this manner? The fact is, if you sell something of value at a reasonable price, and you treat your customers with some respect, you will get your share of business. You may not get all the business, nobody does, but the business you do get, will result in more satisfied customers, more word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately more sales. High-pressure tactics, and demands for instant commitment, frighten off as many potential clients as they ensnare.
Lies and Statistics
Statistically it may be true that if someone leaves your website without ordering, the chances of them returning to order are low, but as Shakespeare's Cassius said, "the fault, dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." The problem is NOT the customer; it is what you are saying, how you are saying it, and the expectations you have set for determining your site’s performance.
Success is not a question of attracting more traffic, especially if your message is weak, unfocused, and lacking in emotional context. Success is a question of how many people you connect with both directly and indirectly, and how many people come back to your site because they are intrigued by what you have to say.
To start, many products and services are either too complex or too high valued to expect people to make an instant decision; and demanding one just frightens people away. Asking for an order is asking a lot, and leads to resistance. Inviting someone to call or email is reassuring and friendly; it is an invitation to communicate, provide assistance, advice, and information, and it is easily accepted.
Orders are the result of building relationships and relationships are built on communication. You may not be able to speak to everyone who comes to your website but that only means that your website's primary job is to communicate what needs to be said so that it makes a memorable impression, and provides something more meaningful than a 'buy now' button.
E-Commerce Gone Bad
The e-commerce industry with it is easy to implement technical solutions has created a class of entrepreneurs who think all they have to do is display a product photo, description, price, and order button, and the sales will follow. This approach may work for large sites like Amazon.com but it is not going to work for you. You have got to be smarter than that.
When small and medium sized companies try to emulate major corporate business models, they are looking for trouble. It is one reason why so many websites are so bad, and why so many under perform.
Tom Peters and Robert Waterman did not do entrepreneurs a favor when they wrote, "In Search of Excellence." What they should have written was 'In Search of Failure,' since we learn more from things that do not work than from things that do. In the world of Internet marketing, creating websites that are nothing more than online catalogs, digital brochures, or direct marketing come-ons, is a waste of time and money, not to mention all that effort devoted to attracting website traffic.
Redefine Successful Website Performance
Orders are not the true measure of a website's success. Nor is the volume of traffic a site attracts. You can have loads of traffic, but little of it ever gets turned into business, and you can even get some orders, but few long-term clients. The primary objective of your website should be to initiate contact either by email, phone, or in the case of brick and mortar companies, store traffic. In order to achieve that objective, your website presentation must be engaging, enlightening, and above all memorable. Potential clients want a little foreplay, a little respect, and an understanding that you are asking them to put their faith in you.
Marketing Is More Art Than Science
Marketing is about human nature, and the idea that all aspects of human nature can be quantified, and that meaningful results can be extracted and formed into an action plan guaranteed to produce results, is simply over-reaching. The human brain is far too complex, and human motivation is the result of far too many interdisciplinary factors to be boiled down into a unified mathematical formula. The movie and music industries have been trying for years, and still neither one can accurately predict what will be a hit.
In an effort to always maximize productivity, business has bowed-down to the false idol of statistical razzle-dazzle, and succumbed to its faux extrapolations. As a consequence business, and especially Web-business, has forsaken insight, intuition, and the linking together of principles from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory approach to marketing, one built on continuous creative experimentation and implementation.
Three Website Ingredients Needed To Motivate Action
Donna Flagg of the Krysalis Group is quoted in the article, 'For the Love of Sales,' published in the online magazine "Selling Power": "Good selling comes down to three things: communication, education, and the ability to affect others."
"Video is importance transcends the customer experience. It can transform every aspect of an organization, from sales, marketing and communications to investor relations, employee training and education." - David Dutch's MediaPost "Online Video: Redefining How Business Connects With Their Customers".
1 Communication - Engage
Your website serves no purpose unless it engages your viewer and communicates a meaningful, memorable message. A video presentation uses sights, sounds, and performance to produce psychological persuasion.
2 Education - Enlighten
A message delivered using creative video presentation techniques is seen, heard, and embedded in the audience's mind. It informs, explains, clarifies, and focuses attention on the key decision making elements that produce leads, and ultimately sales.
3 Affect Your Audience - Create An Experience
A properly crafted Web video makes a human connection, it affects the viewer on a psychological as well as rational level, so that the message delivered resonates and impacts the decision making process.
About Those Emails
You may be wondering how I answered the emails mentioned earlier; the simple answer is if a marketing presentation is intriguing enough, your audience will respond, and in this case, both visitors did exactly what our website is designed to do, get people to email or phone so that we can open a dialog with them, so we can get to know each other, so we can start to build a productive business relationship, and we do it using video - the media is the message.
It is time businesses employ a new Web-philosophy, one that is aimed at turning advertising into content, and content into an experience. And I know of no better way to create an online experience than to employ Web video.
Source From SitePro News
Does any intelligent person really respond to this kind of pitch, and what self-respecting business would actually behave in this manner? The fact is, if you sell something of value at a reasonable price, and you treat your customers with some respect, you will get your share of business. You may not get all the business, nobody does, but the business you do get, will result in more satisfied customers, more word-of-mouth referrals, and ultimately more sales. High-pressure tactics, and demands for instant commitment, frighten off as many potential clients as they ensnare.
Lies and Statistics
Statistically it may be true that if someone leaves your website without ordering, the chances of them returning to order are low, but as Shakespeare's Cassius said, "the fault, dear Brutus lies not in the stars, but in ourselves." The problem is NOT the customer; it is what you are saying, how you are saying it, and the expectations you have set for determining your site’s performance.
Success is not a question of attracting more traffic, especially if your message is weak, unfocused, and lacking in emotional context. Success is a question of how many people you connect with both directly and indirectly, and how many people come back to your site because they are intrigued by what you have to say.
To start, many products and services are either too complex or too high valued to expect people to make an instant decision; and demanding one just frightens people away. Asking for an order is asking a lot, and leads to resistance. Inviting someone to call or email is reassuring and friendly; it is an invitation to communicate, provide assistance, advice, and information, and it is easily accepted.
Orders are the result of building relationships and relationships are built on communication. You may not be able to speak to everyone who comes to your website but that only means that your website's primary job is to communicate what needs to be said so that it makes a memorable impression, and provides something more meaningful than a 'buy now' button.
E-Commerce Gone Bad
The e-commerce industry with it is easy to implement technical solutions has created a class of entrepreneurs who think all they have to do is display a product photo, description, price, and order button, and the sales will follow. This approach may work for large sites like Amazon.com but it is not going to work for you. You have got to be smarter than that.
When small and medium sized companies try to emulate major corporate business models, they are looking for trouble. It is one reason why so many websites are so bad, and why so many under perform.
Tom Peters and Robert Waterman did not do entrepreneurs a favor when they wrote, "In Search of Excellence." What they should have written was 'In Search of Failure,' since we learn more from things that do not work than from things that do. In the world of Internet marketing, creating websites that are nothing more than online catalogs, digital brochures, or direct marketing come-ons, is a waste of time and money, not to mention all that effort devoted to attracting website traffic.
Redefine Successful Website Performance
Orders are not the true measure of a website's success. Nor is the volume of traffic a site attracts. You can have loads of traffic, but little of it ever gets turned into business, and you can even get some orders, but few long-term clients. The primary objective of your website should be to initiate contact either by email, phone, or in the case of brick and mortar companies, store traffic. In order to achieve that objective, your website presentation must be engaging, enlightening, and above all memorable. Potential clients want a little foreplay, a little respect, and an understanding that you are asking them to put their faith in you.
Marketing Is More Art Than Science
Marketing is about human nature, and the idea that all aspects of human nature can be quantified, and that meaningful results can be extracted and formed into an action plan guaranteed to produce results, is simply over-reaching. The human brain is far too complex, and human motivation is the result of far too many interdisciplinary factors to be boiled down into a unified mathematical formula. The movie and music industries have been trying for years, and still neither one can accurately predict what will be a hit.
In an effort to always maximize productivity, business has bowed-down to the false idol of statistical razzle-dazzle, and succumbed to its faux extrapolations. As a consequence business, and especially Web-business, has forsaken insight, intuition, and the linking together of principles from different disciplines especially when forming a comprehensive theory approach to marketing, one built on continuous creative experimentation and implementation.
Three Website Ingredients Needed To Motivate Action
Donna Flagg of the Krysalis Group is quoted in the article, 'For the Love of Sales,' published in the online magazine "Selling Power": "Good selling comes down to three things: communication, education, and the ability to affect others."
"Video is importance transcends the customer experience. It can transform every aspect of an organization, from sales, marketing and communications to investor relations, employee training and education." - David Dutch's MediaPost "Online Video: Redefining How Business Connects With Their Customers".
1 Communication - Engage
Your website serves no purpose unless it engages your viewer and communicates a meaningful, memorable message. A video presentation uses sights, sounds, and performance to produce psychological persuasion.
2 Education - Enlighten
A message delivered using creative video presentation techniques is seen, heard, and embedded in the audience's mind. It informs, explains, clarifies, and focuses attention on the key decision making elements that produce leads, and ultimately sales.
3 Affect Your Audience - Create An Experience
A properly crafted Web video makes a human connection, it affects the viewer on a psychological as well as rational level, so that the message delivered resonates and impacts the decision making process.
About Those Emails
You may be wondering how I answered the emails mentioned earlier; the simple answer is if a marketing presentation is intriguing enough, your audience will respond, and in this case, both visitors did exactly what our website is designed to do, get people to email or phone so that we can open a dialog with them, so we can get to know each other, so we can start to build a productive business relationship, and we do it using video - the media is the message.
It is time businesses employ a new Web-philosophy, one that is aimed at turning advertising into content, and content into an experience. And I know of no better way to create an online experience than to employ Web video.
Source From SitePro News
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