Internet Affiliate Marketing

Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Web Site?

2008-04-26T09:33:00.001+07:00

While it's true that "nobody's perfect", I think the same goes for small business web sites as well - no web site is absolutely perfect. Even the best of the best often have room for improvement!

But there are some basic web site mistakes that many small companies make that can end up hurting business instead of helping it. Do any of these mistakes show up on your web site?

Not enough content.
Often, small businesses will put minimal information along with their contact information on their web sites and think that's probably good enough. But today's web visitors are looking for something more, and lots of good quality content is a great way to deliver value to your visitors and build credibility for your business.
Old or outdated content.
If you want visitors and search engines to pay attention to your web site, you need to keep adding new content and updating the existing information on your web site regularly. If your site never changes, the search engines will ignore your site, and visitors will not have a reason to come back. It's also unlikely that visitors will recommend your site to their friends and colleagues, too.
Not being search engine friendly.
Speaking of search engines, what happens if a search engine spider visits your site, but can't read your web pages? Nothing happens, and that's a problem. If a search engine spider cannot read your web pages, it just moves on to the next site, and your information is completely ignored. Your web site must be search engine friendly in order to be included in the search engine databases.
Not monitoring your site in the search engines.
Even if your web site is search engine friendly, there are constant changes going on with the search engines and also with your competitors. If you aren't monitoring how your site is performing in the search engines, how will you know if these changes are affecting your rankings or if you are losing traffic? Monitoring your web site means that you can react to changes and take appropriate steps to make sure your site shows up in the search results and that web traffic keeps flowing.
The site is built using Frames or Flash.
Not too many web sites still make this mistake, but there are still some small business web sites out there using one or both of these methods. Sites built with Frames or Flash intro pages cannot easily be read by the search engines, and web visitors typically hate using them as well. These are older web techniques that don't reflect well on your business, they don't perform well in the search engines, and today's web visitors expect better.

Making your web site the best it can be is a very effective and affordable marketing option for most small businesses. Of all the other types of advertising and marketing that you do each year, your web site has the potential to be seen by more customers, can continue to promote your company perpetually through links, is always accessible to customers, and can instantly reflect changes and provide fresh information to draw people in.

Avoiding basic web site mistakes will help your site perform better, making it a "perfect" marketing strategy for your small business.

Reliable, Respected, Revered or Feared

2008-04-05T15:44:00.001+07:00

by: John Mehrmann

What is most the most important attribute to developing your reputation? Would you prefer to be known as reliable, respected, revered or feared? Is it possible to be all of these things over time? Constructing your reputation is like solving a Rubik's Cube puzzle. It takes time, several steps and the right combination of twists and turns. It is also important to know what it should look like when you are done. When you have the goal in your mind, then you can go about solving the puzzle.

The GOAL

The goal of developing your reputation is to be true to yourself. Be consistent with your principals and your personal values. Your actions, your decisions and your interaction with others should be a reflection of the way that you live your life. If you attempt to disguise your intentions or beguile your associates, you will not be able to maintain trust or confidence. If your intentions are to help your customers, look for other individuals with similar intentions. If you are content with your own situation, then enjoy the camaraderie of your peers and help them to achieve their goals. If your intention is personal advancement or promotions, be open about searching for people who will support your efforts.

If you define and share your goals, you will either find supporters or other individuals with similar goals. At the same time, be cognizant and supportive of the goals of those around you. Be prepared to listen intently and understand the aspirations of coworkers and customers. You person who listens the most is heard loudest.

RELIABLE

First, establish a reputation for being reliable. Regardless of your position, title or tenure, the foundation of your reputation should be reliability. If you are the leader, manager, director, clerk, associate or representative, maintain a dedicated focus on being consistently reliable. It is equally important to be a reliable customer as it is to be a reliable vendor or supplier. No matter how powerful or seemingly unimportant you may perceive your responsibilities, there are other people who rely on you. Be consistently reliable for the people you report to, to the people who look up to you, the people that you support and to the people who support you.

Even if some people respect you, revere you or fear you, you will have no value to anyone if you are not reliable. Do not forget this basic foundation in the search for power or prestige. You may be respected for your capability, but what good is it if you can not be counted on as a reliable individual? This is based on your ability to perform consistently and to be supportive of others.

RESPECTED

You do not have to be the president or a brain surgeon to be respected. Take a look at the positions and the people that you respect most in your life. Then look to see what these people have in common. School teachers and police officers are respected for their individual sacrifice and dedication to their profession in the service of others. Respect can be earned by great achievements through consistent effort, self-sacrifice and being someone that other people can count on, being reliable. A leader or a coach does not earn respect for the position, but rather by what they do with the authority and responsibility of the position. A coworker may earn respect by diligence, effort or self-sacrifice. Winning the lottery may achieve instant wealth, but it does not earn instant respect.

What can you do to earn respect? You might be respected for your talent, for your character or for your perseverance. Respect may be earned by the way that you use your experience, knowledge or previous achievements. If you want to be respected and do not know how to begin, start by being reliable.

REVERED or FEARED

For centuries there has been a debate regarding the benefits of being revered or being feared. One dimensional leaders often choose one of these attributes for their reputation and dedicate their ambitions toward a single goal, to be revered or to be feared. Machiavelli described the importance of being feared, and many dictators who embraced this approach were eventually rewarded with revolution. On the other hand, individuals who take extreme measures to be liked or revered may run the risk of being taken advantage of, and thereby losing much more than respect.

In the balance of leadership, individuals are more likely to make perform or make sacrifice for something and somebody that they believe in. When performance and sacrifice is demanded through fear, the output is reluctant and can not be sustained. From a personal perspective, are you more likely to repeat a task and improve your personal performance when doing something that you enjoy, or for someone that you want to please? Are you more or less likely to expend extra effort consistently for a job or a person that you resent?

Good decisions are made when clear purpose and goals are established and shared. The predominance of fear impairs good decisions, or even worse, may precipitate a culture that lacks any decisions for fear of being ostracized. Avoiding a decision is the same as making a decision to allow unmanaged consequences.

It is possible to be both revered and feared. By virtue of being respected as a reliable individual, you will become both revered and feared. Some individuals will appreciate consistency, predictability, direction and reliability. By the same token, if you are consistent with your own personal goals and values, you may be feared by other individuals. If your values are self-serving, you will be revered by a small group of like-minded individuals and feared by many. If your values are self-sacrificing toward the greater good, then you will find yourself revered by many and feared by the self-serving. In any case, consistency of purpose and character will create circumstances that cultivate opportunities to be revered, feared or both. This depth of character is far superior to a hollow one dimensional approach of choosing to be only revered or feared.

What does all this mean? Stop worrying about your reputation and concentrate on doing those things that reputations are built on. Listen intently to others. Be willing to make sacrifices for others. Be consistently reliable, and be true to yourself. Do your job with the same principles and passions that you live your life, and your reputation will take care of itself. By coincidence, if you can achieve this dedicated diligence to your values, you will discover an inverse relationship that your reputation will grow as your care less about it.

Words of Wisdom

"Conscience and reputation are two things. Conscience is due to yourself, reputation to your neighbor." - Saint Augustine

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." - Henry Ford

"Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of - for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear." - Socrates

"There are two modes of establishing our reputation: to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter." - Charles Caleb Colton

Personalized Search - All's Well or Orwell?

2008-03-29T16:21:00.001+07:00

by: Scott Buresh

You go to Google and enter your search term. Big Brother, the totalitarian character from George Orwell's novel 1984, watches with detached interest. You see, to Big Brother, you are only a number - but he'd like to know as much about you as he can. Knowing you allows Big Brother to do many things - both good and evil.

Alright, enough of the "Big Brother" comparison - it's been done many times before (and done many times better). However, there is an important central point to be made about personalized search. Google is now (and has been for some time) collecting data on individual users, and they are assuming that users will trust them with this data to "Do No Evil," as their famous slogan goes. Only time will tell whether the trust is well-placed, or if people are willing to trust search engines with this type of data at all.

The basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over time. With this information, Google can understand more about your interests and serve up more relevant search results.

For instance, let's say that you have shown an interest in the topic of sport fishing in your search queries, while your neighbor has shown an interest in musical instruments in his search queries. Over time, as these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized search results for the term "bass" will largely be comprised of results that cover the fish while your neighbor's results for "bass" will be comprised of results that primarily cover the musical instrument.

At present, you need to have signed up for a Google service for your results to be personalized. Such services include Gmail, AdWords, Google Toolbar, and many others. By default, as long as you are signed in to one of these programs, your personal search data will be collected. The term "at present" is used because Google certainly could implement personalized search on any user of the engine, regardless of whether he or she has a Google account. Google already places a cookie, or unique identifier, on the machine of anyone who types in a search query on Google - it would not be hard for them to use that information, rather than the Google account, to collect individual user data and personalize results. It is quite possible that Google is testing the waters of personalized search with people who have opted in to one of its services and will expand the system to all users if there is limited uproar or government intervention.

For search engine optimization firms, the major shift brought about by personalized search will be in how they report on Google ranking data to clients. When collecting this data, they will have to run from a "clean" machine - that is, one that has no Google programs or cookies on it. The baseline results that are reported to the client will essentially be a snapshot of what a search engine user would see if they had no Google software installed. The good news is that Google account holders who have shown an interest in certain products and services will likely have results more favorable to the client than the baseline results indicate since personalized search assures that their search histories will be reviewed and the results likely skewed toward the client's industry. The bad news is that the search engine optimization firm will be hard-pressed to demonstrate this - not to mention that the results that the client using a Google program has on its own personal machines will almost certainly not match up with the results that the firm is reporting (although the client machines should have better results, for the same reasons cited above).

Some people find the practice of storing information for personalized search purposes disturbing; others find the end result to be useful (still others find themselves experiencing an odd combination of both reactions). In defense of the engines, it is not as if they are building a dossier on individuals - again, you are only a number to them. However, the potential for misuse of the data is fairly high.

There are many advertising firms out there already that go through the cookies on your machine to figure out which ads will have the best effect on you. If you've ever been on a website and seen a banner ad that is directly related to something you have been doing research on lately, it is most likely not a coincidence. The ad platform simply browsed through the cookies on your machine to find out what topic held your interest, and dropped in a related ad once it determined what that topic was. Search engines have been buying firms with this technology lately; notable recent purchases include that of DoubleClick by Google and aQuantive by Microsoft. There seems to be little doubt that your search history will be combined with existing ad-serving technology to deliver even more relevant ads. Whether this constitutes misuse seems to be debatable - some people seem to have no problem with it, while it makes many others fairly uneasy.

Privacy issues that arise from personalized search are also a big question. The EU recently announced that it is probing into how long Google stores user information (this probe was subsequently extended to include all search engines). AOL recently committed a serious blunder when it released search data from 500,000 of its users, and it was discovered that it was fairly easy to identify many people by the search terms that they use (anybody ever "ego surf" - that is, type your own name into a search engine to see what comes up? If so, you wouldn't be hard to spot). In addition, since the IP address of the computer creating the query is also reportedly tracked, a court order forcing the engine and the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to provide specific search data on individuals is a distinct possibility - the technology required to deliver upon such a demand is already in use.

Unless the government intervenes, the question will probably be decided by personal preference. As it becomes more common knowledge that Google (and other engines) store this type of data to enable personalized search, many users will take measures to block its use.

Are the search engines that collect this data "Doing No Evil?" The answer, I believe, will depend on each individual's definition of evil. In the meantime, don't be surprised when you type in a search query, and the engine seems to be reading your mind. It isn't, really - it's merely parsing through your memories. (C) Medium Blue 2007

Affordable Solutions For Internet Marketing

2008-03-08T14:04:00.001+07:00

by: Jim Pretin

Do you have a website that is getting very little or no traffic at all? Well, there are ways that you can change that even on a small marketing budget. We will review each of the strategies you can use to promote your website, and then we will try to assimilate them into a single, uniform strategy that is both highly effective and affordable.

First of all, TV commercials, radio ads, and print advertising are very expensive. This is undoubtedly the best way to launch a business, but the costs are prohibitive. A full page ad in a prominent magazine or other publication can run as high as $50,000 per ad. TV commercials can run just as high; if the commercial runs during a popular television show or sporting event, the cost will be enormous.

So, if you do not have enough money in the coffers for traditional advertising, you will likely have to use online marketing. This is not a bad thing. Offline advertising (i.e. radio, TV, print ads) is sometimes not effective. Marketing on the internet is cheaper, and if done correctly, can give you much more bang for your buck.

Obviously, the cornerstone of internet marketing is search engine submission and optimization. There are hundreds of different search engines and directories on the internet where you can submit your web site for a listing. This is fairly easy to do. Simply sign up for a monthly submission plan with a credible search engine submission service. There are literally hundreds of these submission services on the internet; you can find them by performing a search on Google.

However, be wary of submitters that claim to be able to submit your site to 75,000 search engines. Such services are scams, and they will submit your web page to FFA pages and bogus link pages that can actually get you banned from the search engines. You should only do business with submission services that submit to the major search engines and directories.

Now that we have covered submission, we need to talk about search engine optimization (SEO), which is even more important. To optimize a site, you need to maximize keyword density and optimize the positioning for the words or phrases that best characterize the subject matter of your site, and you need to use proper Meta tags so that the search engines can interpret your web pages.

If you do not know how to optimize your web site, you should search for an optimization professional on Google. Steer clear of SEO experts who want to charge $1,000 per month or more. Their goal is to bleed you dry before you figure out that they really can not help you get to the top of the rankings. Stick to providers who will optimize your site for a one-time fee.

More important than SEO is link popularity. Link popularity is the number of web sites that currently link to your site. The more inbound links you acquire, the higher your search engine ranking will be. There are more than a few ways to acquire links, but I have a certain strategy that worked well for me.

My advice to you is to write articles and press releases and submit them to article directories and press release distribution services who will then distribute your articles and press releases to other websites who will publish them and in return link back to you. Also, you can submit your site to bloggers through a popular service called Blogitive (Blogitive will get blogs to post one-way anchor text links to your site in their blog, which will greatly enhance your search engine ranking).

If you are not patient enough to wait for your search engine ranking to improve, you can attract visitors to your web site instantly by using pay-per-click advertising (PPC). With PPC, you pay a certain cost per click to have an ad for your web page run at or near the top of the search engine listings for certain keywords. This can be extremely costly and ineffective. It is not uncommon for webmasters to blow thousands of dollars on PPC advertising and make only a few sales.

The best way to promote your site, if you are actually selling something, is through an affiliate program. You need to provide an affiliate code to other online merchants so that they will place your banner on their site; every time you make a sale that resulted from an affiliate referral, the affiliate gets a commission. Some internet companies have thousands of affiliates, and get all the business they would ever need or want this way; and it costs you nothing.

To recruit affiliates, you should submit your affiliate program to as many directories as possible (there are directories where you can list your affiliate program for free). The best way to find affiliates is by listing your program on forums or message boards visited by webmasters who are looking to generate additional revenue for their online business. You will have to consult with an experienced programmer who can set up the affiliate program so that the codes used to track sales for each affiliate will work properly.

So, to summarize, you should first optimize your website and submit it to search engines. You should then begin submitting articles and press releases to article directories and press release distribution services. You should also submit your site to Blogitive so that bloggers will write a review of your site and link to it, further boosting your link popularity. You might want to join a link exchange, but trading links often proves fruitless. Also, you should set up an affiliate program. And finally, you should budget a small amount of money to spend each week on pay-per-click.

If you are persistent and use all of these methods, you will continually increase your traffic over a period of time. It will probably take approximately 3 years of performing each of the tasks outlined in this article, on a daily basis, to get where you want to be. Just stick with it and your efforts will be rewarded in the long run.

Keyword Research for Organic SEO

2008-02-17T17:06:00.001+07:00

by: Scott Van Achte

So you have decided to venture out into the world of SEO. The first thing you will need to do is determine the direction of your campaign in relation to the key phrases you are choosing to target. This article will focus on how to find keywords for your organic campaign, as the process is slightly different for PPC.

Many site owners know immediately what phrases they want. If you feel like you know what you want, before you start take a brief step back and assess if this really is the best phrase for your site. Yes, it just may very well be the perfect phrase, but if it isn't, you could wind up spending a lot of time and money pursuing a ranking that either will never happen, or will provide very little value to your site.

There are a few key areas to look at when choosing a target phrase:

Relevance - Is this phrase even relevant to your site and its content?
Search Frequency - Are people even searching for this phrase?
Competition - How competitive is this field? Is it even a feasible target?

Where to start – Create a List of Phrases

So where do you even start with all this keyword research. Before looking up search frequencies and competition you need to create a list of relevant phrases. Open up an excel sheet and type out all relevant phrases that come to mind, do a little brainstorming as there are no wrong answers at this state.

After you have exhausted your thoughts, move over to your website. Open it up and navigate throughout recording any keyword phrase ideas that spring up checking your title tags and body content. Once this is done, do the same thing with your competition. Visit some sites that you know are in direct competition with you and go through them recording any relevant phrases you see.

By now you should have a long list of potential targets, a list that will grow further as you look into their search frequencies.

Find a Keyword Tool

The next step is to open up your favorite keyword research tool. There are many to choose from, two of the more popular being WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, although many still use the free, Overture tool. It is important to note that no keyword tools give you 100% accurate search figures. In most cases you will get numbers representing a sampling from various search engines. These numbers are best used in comparing one phrase to another to find out which is more popular, rather than determining specifically how much traffic to expect.

Check the Search Frequency

Once you've opened up a keyword tool, begin entering your keyword phrases and record their noted search frequency. Be sure to scroll through the results recording any additional phrases that are both relevant and have acceptable search frequencies. The exact number of searches required to make a phrase acceptable depends widely on industry, and even the search tool being used. A phrase with only 100 searches per month may be perfect for a secondary target, but in most cases may not be the best bet for a primary phrase.

Sorting Your List

You now should have a very exhaustive list of potential target phrases and their corresponding search frequencies. Sort this list in descending order based on the number of searches, so that the most popular phrase is at the very top. In many industries, the top few phrases may be completely impractical to target due to the competition, but we'll determine that a bit later.

Check the Competition

The next step is to get a feel for how competitive these phrases are. In the next column in your spreadsheet, place the number of results returned by Google for each individual phrase. The lower the number of competing pages, in most cases, the easier it may be to achieve rankings. (Note: this is not always the case, but it is an indicator).

At this point, you will have a long list sorted by search frequency, along with the number of competing pages. If you are fortunate, you will see one phrase immediately that jumps out - solid searches with low competition. This just may be the most ideal target phrase.

Does this phrase fit well with the theme of your site? If so, go to Google and take a closer look at the ranking websites. Does your site fit in with the general feel of these results? In some cases it may not, as your phrase could have different meanings (especially true if using acronyms). This phrase may represent a completely different part of the world if geographically targeted, or simply may be littered with mega competitors such as eBay, Amazon, WikiPedia, and others. If you can see your site fitting in with these results, it's time to assess the general feasibility of this phrase.

Take a look at the number of back links, and indexed pages each site has. Do your numbers compare? If you find that the top 10 ranking sites all have back links well into the tens of thousands, and your site has a dozen or so, you may want to consider a different phrase. If the ranking sites are in the high tens, or low hundreds, and your site has a dozen links, then you have something to work with, if you are willing to work on increasing your link counts. The number of pages indexed is less important than links, but if you have a 6 page site and you are planning on competing with thousand page sites, your chances of success will be much lower.

The real key is to try to find a phrase that offers relevance, decent searches, and competition that is not way out of your league.

Pick a Phrase to Drive Qualified Traffic

For organic SEO it is usually best to focus on one primary phrase that best suits your site, while targeting more specific secondary phrases for relevant sections of your site. With organic SEO, how many phrases you should target is somewhat limited by the size of your site, the larger the site, the more phrases you will have the ability to work towards.

The phrase with the most searches is not always the best fit. This is largely true with the real estate market.

Because everyone has free access, I will use the Overture Keyword Selector Tool for an example. The phrase "real estate" saw 3,057,037 searches in January of 07. On the surface this phrase seems like a dream come true, but you have to consider the geographic issues.

If your office serves the Seattle area, is someone searching in Orlando likely to be a qualified visitor to your site? In most cases no. Targeting the phrase "Seattle real estate" with 12,441 searches, seems like a much better choice as it would deliver more qualified traffic. While this phrase is still quite competitive, it is not nearly as difficult as simply "real estate". Take a look at the big picture and determine not only how likely it is that you may achieve rankings, but whether the traffic generated from such a ranking would actually have a positive impact on sales.

Conclusion

Doing some research to find the best target phrase is the groundwork for your SEO campaign. Without it you’ll be flying blind with no clear direction on goals. Take the time up front to do a little research and determine whether the dream phrase you have in mind is a worthwhile target or not. If it turns out that it’s not, its better to find out before you invest your time and money on an SEO campaign. Knowing the level of competition and search frequencies for a target phrase beforehand will help you make informed decisions and give you the best chances for success.

Seven Tips for Successful Keyword Research

2008-02-02T23:44:00.001+07:00

by: Mike Tekula

Before you set out to march your way to the top of search rankings you'll need to take a good survey of the terrain ahead. You need to do a good amount of keyword research. Surprisingly, many webmasters seem to have stepped past this important starting point, and doing so has most definitely set obstacles, some impassable, in their path. Keyword research is the only way to approach SEO with informed expectations. How competitive are the keywords you are optimizing for? What keywords are you including in your link building efforts? What will it take to succeed? Answering these questions ahead of time makes all the difference.

Here are seven key tips for successful keyword research.

1. Use a proper tool.

Sure, there's a lot of free stuff available out there, but when it comes to keyword research free tools are few and far from powerful. If you're considering investing either money or time into SEO for your web site look at a solid keyword research tool as a necessity.

Some of the better keyword research tools:

a. SEOmoz's Keyword Difficulty Tool - this tool from one of the great SEO innovators gives you a good general idea of how competitive your keyword/phrase is.

b. Trellian's Keyword Discovery Tool - user-friendly, simple, and feature-rich. One of the best keyword research tools available.

c. WordTracker Keywords - second to none, WordTracker has been a leader in keyword research for years. A great value.

2. Identify *viable* targets.

We'd all love to rank well for the most general and all-encompassing search phrase related to our topic, but only a handful ever will. Targeting some ultra-competitive keywords is as good as shooting yourself in the foot unless you've got massive amounts of time and resources to throw at the problem.

Finding long-tail (three words and more) and targeted search phrases that are actually getting traffic can mean the difference between SEO success and failure. Be reasonable in your expectations, and fight the big guys by researching long-tail search phrases that have slipped beneath the radar. You might also find that long-tail search phrases bring better conversion rates for your topic.

3. Keep it relevant.

You may find keywords and phrases that offer inroads to high search rankings, but it's important to remember that the ultimate end is traffic and how you utilize it. In other words, you need to be sure your keywords relate to your web site. If you get a page to rank well enough to bring in some search traffic, but when users actually view that page they either can't make sense of the content or find the page unrelated to your topic (or worse - spammy) that search traffic will do you no good. Not only will off-topic or spammy content affect your brand and drive users from your site, but there's a chance Google could catch on to your irrelevant content or spammy techniques and penalize your domain for it.

4. Don't be too wordy.

No, really. A common mistake is to choose your keywords based on your own perspective rather than that of your target users. Sure, you know your topic inside and out. You know the buzz words, the technical details and a whole lot more, but do your users? What if the user isn't sure what they're looking for? Maybe they know the function but not the name. Keep this in mind when researching keywords, and make sure you consider your choices from the perspective of someone very new to your topic.

5. Consider local search.

One area small to mid-sized web sites can really find a competitive edge is in locally-specific search phrases. These are inherently less competitive and therefore are easier to rank well for. However, go back to #3 and think it through - if your web site is locally specific or if users will want to know your location this is a good strategy, but optimizing pages for local keywords that will look out of place to users can be a mistake.

6. Monitor your web analytics.

One of the great benefits of web analytics is that it allows you to monitor keyword referrals. In other words, you can find out what visitors are searching for when they land at your site. For brand new sites there won't be too much data, but if your site has been around at all and is getting some organic search traffic you will find that your analytics reports are a great source of keyword information. Referring search phrases can be surprising - sometimes including misspellings and other abnormalities. Keep an eye on your analytics, and you might find a keyword worth optimizing for.

7. Constantly reevaluate your position.

While keyword research is definitely the first step in developing your site content from an SEO standpoint it should also be a recurring one. Internet trends shift quickly. While a lot of your core keywords will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future some buzz words will get attention while others fall from the spotlight. Stay on top of your keyword research and you can make the most of new opportunities while recognizing the less-than-ideal keywords that are either too competitive or don't bring in enough traffic.

Google Analytics

2008-01-26T12:32:00.001+07:00

by: Sasch Mayer

Having used a large number of web site visitor trackers over the years, I first approached Google Analytics some time ago, with the somewhat jaded attitude of someone who's 'seen it all' or at least 'seen most of it'. What could possibly make this particular utility stand out in such a large crowd of competitors?

But first... What is Google Analytics?

Analytics is Google's very own visitor tracking utility, allowing webmasters to keep tabs on traffic to their site, including visitor numbers, traffic sources, visitor behaviour & trends, times spent on the site and a host of other information gathered via two pieces of JavaScript embedded in the source-code.

Unlike other free visitor trackers, which insist on displaying annoying and often amateurish badges or buttons when they are being used, Google Analytics simply runs quietly in the background, gathering the necessary information without any visible signs of its presence.

Which brings me quite neatly to Analytics' first major plus-point; the price. What webmasters are effectively getting, is a fully fledged visitor tracking utility without all the irritations and limitations normally associated with free products of this type.

Ok, so its free; but is it any good?

In a word; yes.

The sheer depth of information gathered, really leaves very little to be desired. From search engine analysis to page views, bounce-rates and more, the available data is presented so as to give users an easy overview of the most essential elements, with the ability to 'drill down' to less commonly accessed or more in-depth statistics and figures.

Additionally, on the 18th of July 2007, the Google Analytics old user interface was discontinued, making way for a newer, more ergonomic look which makes reports more accessible and the interface itself more intuitive for the user.

The new Dashboard provides 'at a glance' visitor statistics for the previous month, as well as a graphical breakdown of your visitor's geographical locations in the form of a world map. A pie chart clearly shows what proportion of visitors reached the site through search engines, by referral or through direct access, whereas the 'Content Overview' provides a list of the most commonly accessed pages.

What makes Google Analytics special though?

Although Analytics boasts all the features and statistical data to be expected from a top-class keyword analysis and statistics tracker, it also features a number of additional tools which put it ahead of the most of the pack where ease-of-use and depth-of-information is concerned.

1. The Map Overlay

Essentially, this feature brings up a map of the world, highlighting the countries a site's visitors stem from. Clicking on a country produces a close-up view, along with a geographical breakdown according to the region and/or city from which visitors accessed the site. This tool in itself is invaluable for all those webmasters with geo-specific sites, concentrating on a particular catchment area.

2. The Site Overlay

This is conceivably Google Analytics' single most important feature from a webmaster's or online business owner's perspective, as it provides a hands-on view of visitor behaviour. When clicked, 'Site Overlay' opens the tracked web site in a new window and, after a moment's loading time, overlays each link on the screen with a bar, containing information about clicks to the target page and goal values reached [more about goal values in a moment]. Since it allows the webmaster or site owner to navigate his or her site and see exactly how visitors flow through it, it is difficult to imagine a more effective tool than this as far as raising a site's conversion rates is concerned.

3. Goals and Funnels

Unless the site being tracked is an information site which does not rely on generating sales or enquiries, conversion rates are as important as sheer visitor numbers. The 'Goals & Funnels' feature allows users to set up specific goals for their site, such as tracking a visitor to the 'Thank you for your enquiry' page for instance. It also allows the user to set up specific monetary values for each goal, and thus track the site's financial performance and profitability during any given period of time.

The term 'Funnels' refers to the specific path a visitor takes to reach the goal's target page. Since most web sites sell a number of different product ranges or feature a number of ways to enquire, all of which lead to a single 'Thank You' page, the funnel allows for the tracking of each individual path with a minimum of fuss.

4. Graphical Representations

A great many visitor trackers out there will present the collected information in a certain way, be it a list, graph, pie chart, flow-chart or whatever. Whilst all these methods of presentation are of course valid, it is nevertheless a fact that most users are different, and a pie-chart is not necessarily ideal for those users preferring to work with graphs or vice versa. Google Analytics however, allows users to choose between views on many of its reports. Although this may seem like a relatively minor point, it nevertheless makes things easier, as it allows the user to work with the view he or she is most comfortable with.

In Conclusion:

Google Analytics provides webmasters and site owners with a highly effective means of tracking visitors and analysing statistical data, easily the equal of most subscription based services in the industry.

Although some concerns have been voiced amongst more paranoid internet users, that Google puts everyone's collective data to its own evil demographic uses, there really are precious few reasons not to recommend this fantastic tool as one of the best means to boost any web promotion and marketing campaign.

Striking Keyword Gold

2008-01-12T17:55:00.001+07:00

by: Penny C. Sansevieri

Keywords are all the buzz these days, but the migration of keywords from what they were a year or two years ago to where they are now is a different thing altogether. Authors, entrepreneurs and business owners know they need keywords in their web site, in their press releases and in their articles but they don't often know how to find these keywords or what the best keywords are to use.

When your web designer says to you: "Pick your keywords for your web site" the first thing you think of are the root or "gut feel" keywords. These are almost always wrong. Why? Let's dig into this further and find out.

Let's say you're looking for a doctor. Are you going to go online and search for the keyword: "Doctor" Doubtful. You'll probably go online and search for doctor + internal medicine + San Diego, meaning that you want to find a doctor in your specific area and for your focused needs. If, as the doctor, you used the keyword "doctor" you'd end up with a mishmash of traffic to your site and, if you were using these keywords for articles or press releases, neither of those would bring up much in the search engines.

Why keywords?

The long tail has really forced us to dig further into our markets than ever before. In fact research has shown that regardless of the type of search someone is conducting, a consumer who uses focused, finite language is much more likely to buy than a search based on "gut feel" words. Let me give you an example.

Let's say you're looking for a red car, you want a new car and it has to be red. On a fluke you think: "Hey, Lexus makes a nice ride, let me see what comes up when I do a quick search." So you plug in the keywords: red + Lexus, what do you find? A hodgepodge of sites related to everything from the Lexus that someone is trying to sell on eBay to the guy so in love with his car he's created a MySpace page about it.

Chances are it doesn't really matter because you weren't that interested in the red car to begin with. But if you search on more finite terms, let's say red + Lexus + 4WD + sunroof, now we're talking a consumer who is 95% closer to a buy than the guy Googling "red + Lexus". In order for you to find your audience in the maze of traffic and the enormity of messages online, you'll need to get very, very focused.

Getting clear, getting focused

So how can you get focused? Well first, why not try surveying your customers or readers? Ask them to fill in a quick little survey and see what search terms come to mind when they think of your book, message, or product (to get more "buy in" to this survey, offer them a freebie if they do it).

Other ways to gain access to keywords are keyword search tools like Wordtracker and Overture. Both of these sites have a learning curve and Wordtracker does have a monthly fee (but if you have all your data together they offer a free one day trial that might get you started). But buyer beware! According to AME's keyword expert, Susan Gilbert: "If you go to http://inventory.overture.com and type in your keyword, you will get the results from search in Yahoo for that term only for the prior month.

"However, these numbers are not accurate.(Every time someone types a keyword into yahoo for SEO purposes, it counts as a search). Search numbers are only part of the equation, however. You have to evaluate the "results" aspect (how many pages of information are available in that search engine for that term). It's finding the perfect relationship between a keyword that has enough searches with low(er) competition that will tell you the best keyword terms for your purpose."

As you're navigating through a site like Overture, they key is to look for supply vs. demand. Ideally you want a keyword that's being searched on that doesn't have a ton of supply. Let's take the diet industry as an example, if you're trying to promote your message of diet and healthy living, using the word "diet" in your article, press release or web site keywords probably won't get you much ranking. Why? Well everyone in this market is using this same word, but if you dig even further into this market you'll find that the search term: "Lose weight fast" is getting a lot of searches but very few returns. When that's the case those are the keywords you want to zero in on.

So how do you know if your keywords are working? Test them. You'll see very quickly if they're working or if they're too general to matter. Sometimes the only way you can find out is if you test, test, test. Web 2.0 strategies are always growing, building and changing. And speaking of changing, you might wonder how long keywords will last. Well, that depends. According to Gilbert: "Keywords could work for months or years. There's no telling because the WWW is constantly filled with new sites and new information. Use the keywords immediately, and for as long as you are getting results."

Once you finalize your keywords you'll want to use them, but not overuse them. I'd recommend using your keywords in the article or press release title, then once in the first paragraph and once in the last paragraph. This will tie in your words nicely without overusing them.

The key with keywords is to understand that the more focused you can get, the better your results will be. Yes, it's a lot of work but the benefits can be enormous and like anything on the 'Net, it's growing and changing and if you can adapt and learn, you can grow your campaigns and your success!

To Web or not to Web?

2008-01-09T15:13:00.001+07:00

by: Stuart Ayling

Do I need a web site? That is the question often asked by business owners.

The answer will usually depend upon the type of product or service offered and what the business is trying to achieve. Some products/services are more suited to the web than others. Plus, a well designed web site can be a superb tool for communicating with customers, prospective customers, suppliers and the wider community.

For most service businesses, I'd say "Yes, you do need a web site."

There are many ways to be 'on the net', with ISP's, web designers and web hosting companies offering businesses many options in how this can be achieved. However there are also advertising and sponsorship opportunities that may be cost effective for businesses, either through web sites or email communication.

Is the web for you?

As use of the Internet matures it appears that company/branded web sites are particularly important for products and services that are high-involvement purchases. Examples are cars, finance, computer equipment, and professional services where a buyer will actively seek details for comparison prior to making a purchase.

Conversely, for products that are typically low-involvement or commodity purchases a dedicated web site may not be the best answer. It may be more cost effective to concentrate on building brand awareness via advertising and sponsorships on web pages (or email newsletters) that have content relevant to the target audience for the product.

But the Internet does lure businesses with the potential of trading on a larger scale. It is up to individual business operators to decide how important this opportunity is for them. If you are thinking about creating or expanding your web site it is suggested you focus on being either a major force in your local/regional area, or gear up for servicing a national or global market.

If you decide to join the growing number of businesses using a web site, you must also give thought to the type of site you will use. Apart from the 'look' of the site, content and functionality must be considered.

Your options

Web site options range from a single page (long or short) with contact details, to information sites and brochure-ware layouts that incorporate basic product images and descriptions. At the top end are full scale ecommerce sites that process credit card payments online, track your previous purchases, allow interactivity with the site and other customers, and provide personal login facilities to access data.

In many cases the development costs for hand-coded web sites with custom built shopping carts, custom product database and online payment capability starts at around $8,000. For larger sites requiring complex coding and special functionality it's easy to go over this figure.

However, there are now less expensive options available, including the use of Content Management Systems (CMS). A CMS makes it easy to create a site and make changes. No special programming knowledge is required. The CMS interface is very much like using a word processor. And you usually pay by the month. It's like renting your web site. Depending upon your level of skill, you may still need help to create your own graphics or pictures for use on the site. An example of a CMS is www.sitezero.com.au.

Another option is to use a "virtual" web site designer. These are simply web designers that work on a remote basis (i.e. virtual). The virtual designer will create a site to your your individual needs dealing with you by phone, fax and email. They often offer low-cost monthly update services so you never need to worry about learning the technical side of your web site. An example of this type of service is www.bizmagic.com.au.

Some major web directories (e.g. Yahoo) also offer a do-it-yourself online store facility.

Is the web for you?

Your options

Some major web directories (e.g. Yahoo) also offer a do-it-yourself online store facility.

Don't Get Burned By Web Designers

2007-12-23T12:08:00.001+07:00

by: Steve Chittenden

If you bring up the subject of web design with small business people, it wouldn't take long to find someone who has been burned by a web designer. Perhaps they have even come to the conclusion that a web site is not worth the expense. Let's look at how and why that happens, and outline some success principles that will help you when you need web design services. Since so many web designers get it wrong, the web design principles that actually work may surprise you.

One of the problems with web design is that software programs have made it seem easy to create a web site. If you have the software, it would not take you long to build a web site. There are an abundance of inexpensive templates available to make it even easier to put together a web site. Getting a professional looking web site is not difficult at all. So you may wonder, why is that a problem?

The process of creating a web site does not end with making it look professional. In fact, that could very well be one of the least important aspects of a web site design. Let's face it, there are ugly web sites that make a lot of money. Since life is not fair, there are great looking web sites that make little or no money. I'm not saying the professionalism of your web site is not important; I am saying it's not enough.

There is a serious flaw in the web design industry, and small business owners are especially prone to fall victim to it. The problem is that usually, very little business planning goes into a web site design. Too many web designers are more concerned with selling web design than taking the time to build an effective web site.

This deficiency stems from the fact that very few web designers are marketing people. Small business people do not have big advertising budgets, so they are easily attracted to the low rates of average web designers. Good marketing means setting priorities and effectively using your resources to accomplish goals.

The one element I find seriously missing in web design is the very thing that is fundamentally important; that element is uniqueness. A Unique Selling Point (USP) is one of the basic tenets of marketing. You must answer the questions: why should I buy from you, and, what makes you different from my other choices? If you fail in this area, your web site visitor will not be kind to you. They will leave and not come back; they will probably not tell you why they left either.

Read your web site copy to see if it contains another common error. Does it say, "We this," and, "We that?" Do not "we" on your web site visitors! Your web site copy should speak to the visitor, address their needs, and solve their problem. It must compel them in some way. You need to draw them in and sell them on your solution.

When you take notice of how many web sites violate these basic marketing principles above, you will begin to see how you have the opportunity to rise above your competitors. Just think, if the majority of business web sites are violating even these most basic principles, how much more could you benefit from hiring a web designer who understands marketing?

There is a lot of emphasis placed on search engine optimization (SEO), and there should be, because this is very important if you want to have your web site found by people using the search engines. For most web sites, search engines account for 80% to 95% of all visitors. However, as important as SEO is, if you have a web site that is not creating sales with the visitors you are already getting, SEO is the wrong priority.

The next principle is the one you will probably find the most surprising. People actually read web sites! Yes, they do have a short attention span, and we will look at that point next, but they do read. There have been many studies done to document the way people use web pages. Even though so much attention is given to graphics, the studies show that well over 75% of the time, web page users read the text before they notice graphics.

This does not mean that graphics are unimportant. Visual elements are one of the many advantages a web site can provide. When you consider that people use the Internet to seek information, then it does makes sense that they will read your web site's content. Providing the right information can mean the difference between winning a customer, or surrendering them to your competition.

I also promised to cover the short attention span issue. It is often called the 3 second rule. According to web studies, if you cannot capture the attention of your visitor in approximately 3 seconds, that's how fast they usually leave your web site. I suspect the reason is because so many web sites are such a horrible waste of time, that people's patience has been worn down. The solution is to have a fast loading page that quickly clues them in that you can solve their problem. If they can "skim" in a few seconds, and you grab their attention, you have successfully drawn them in so they will stay a while.

Statistically, it takes 7 visits before you make a sale. If your web site is not done correctly, you will have dismal results because you can't get them to come back seven times. That is why so many web site owners are disappointed with their success. That is why some web designers provide what seems to be a bargain, while other web designers have to charge more to give you a better value. It takes more time to plan and create a good web site design.

The good news is that most of your competitors will go for the bargain and suffer the same fate as everyone else who does not realize the value of an effective web site design. Very few of them will invest the resources needed for success. If you do, you can win. This does not mean you need the big budget of a major corporation, or that it has to be expensive, it just means you need to be willing to do better than average. The rewards are much greater when you stretch beyond the norm.

Should You be Advertising Your Services

2007-12-23T11:58:00.001+07:00

by: Stuart Ayling

You offer a reliable, quality service. You know that if more people knew what you can do, you'd increase sales. So you advertise in the most likely media for potential clients to read about you. But there's no response. Why?

If this scenario is familiar to you there's a few likely causes.

Maybe your ad's aren't designed well - poor layout, inappropriate offer, etc.
Maybe you have selected the wrong media, placement or timing.
Maybe you shouldn't be advertising your services.

Now I know there's a lot to consider when writing advertisements - creating "killer headlines", long copy versus short copy arguments, using white space, etc - and I could give you some tips on how to buy media. But I'm not getting into that today. I'm going to talk about the third point - maybe you shouldn't advertise.

But wait! (I hear you ask)... Why shouldn't I advertise my business?

Put simply, some services are not suitable to be advertised in the usual fashion. Most advertising is to stimulate action, usually a purchase or decision to place an order. If you're selling a 'product' this is relatively easy to achieve. Customers know what they are buying. There's usually some sort of benchmark, or product criteria, customers use to judge whether your product will do what they want.

But when it comes to services, many potential customers (or clients - I use both terms interchangeably) may not be able to make the same sort of judgement. This is particularly the case for services where the specific outcome is hard to predict, or where there is a large degree of emotional involvement or risk in the customers decision making process.

Think about it this way. Services can be broadly classified under the following headings: People Processing (eg hairdresser, medical) Possession Processing (eg computer repairs, dog obedience training) Knowledge Processing (eg education, entertainment) Information Processing (eg accounting, investment advice)

Generally speaking, possession and people processing services are more tangible than knowledge or information processing. For possession and people processing services, clients can see/touch/feel the outcomes, and they may even be personally involved in the delivery of the actual service. Additionally, tangible services usually incorporate a higher level of personal contact (intensity or frequency) between the provider and the customer.

So, for more tangible services, clients often have more reference points on which to base a future purchase decision.

If your business provides services with less tangible, and more variable, outcomes then media advertising may not be the best answer for you. For your type of services customers will be very interested to understand 'how' you deliver your service and will need to develop a suitable degree of trust in you before they will make the decision to use your services. These criteria cannot be fully met through advertising alone.

So what should you do to get more business? Here are a few ideas: Perform your service to an excellent standard - surpassing mere customer satisfaction. Provide information to educate your potential clients. Develop sales processes that identify real problems you can solve. Make sure you address the true concerns and risks of your clients. Understand the clues customers use to decide whether they will use you. Create a network of related service providers who may refer prospects to you. Develop mutually beneficial joint-promotional activities with well-respected businesses in complementary fields.

Please don't misunderstand my message. Advertising can be very productive. If you can clearly state specific benefits (i.e. outcomes) and overcome the initial concerns of prospective clients, then advertising may work for you. That's why possession processing services such as lawn mowing can be easily advertised. For your average lawn the customer can recognise and understand what they are buying.

However, if your business provides relatively intangible services that deliver outcomes dependent upon a variety of factors, then media advertising should not be high on your list of marketing activities.

Do You Want To Learn About Internet Marketing?

2007-12-02T21:24:00.001+07:00

by: Jim Pretin

If you have a struggling internet business, you are probably facing the difficult task of how to attract visitors to your website at a price you can afford. Indeed, internet marketing is a challenge, and it takes years of persistence. There are many affordable ways to get traffic to your site. For now, we will outline the most practical ways for you to market your online business without having to spend a great deal of money.

The most important task is search engine submission and optimization. There are many different search engines and directories on the internet where you can submit your web site. You need to sign up for a monthly submission plan with a credible search engine submission service. There are hundreds of these submission services on the internet; you can find them by doing a search on Google.

However, be wary of submission services that claim to be able to submit your site to 75,000 search engines. These unscrupulous submitters will submit your website to FFA pages and bogus link pages that can actually get you banned permanently from the search engines. You should only do business with submission services that submit only to the major search engines and directories.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is even more important. To optimize a site, you need to maximize your keyword density and optimize the positioning for the words or phrases for which you want to be listed. And, you need to use proper Meta tags so that the search engines can interpret your web pages.

If you do not know how to optimize your web site, you should search for an optimization consultant on Google. Avoid SEO experts who want to charge you $1,000 per month or more. Their goal is to bleed you dry before you figure out that they really can not help improve your ranking. Stick to providers who will optimize your site for a reasonable fee.

There are several ways you can increase your number of inbound links. You can submit your site to free directories, or join a link exchange and trade links with other sites, or, you can author articles and press releases and submit them to article directories. When webmasters looking for free content place your article on their site, they must link back to your website.

If you are not patient enough to wait for your search engine ranking to improve, you can attract visitors to your web site right away by using pay-per-click (PPC). With PPC, you pay a certain cost per click to have an ad for your web page run at or near the top of the search engines. This can be extremely costly and ineffective. It is not uncommon for webmasters to blow thousands of dollars on PPC advertising and make only a few sales.

The best way to promote your site, if you are actually selling something, is through an affiliate program. You need to provide an affiliate code to other online merchants so that they will place your banner on their site; every time you make a sale that resulted from an affiliate referral, the affiliate gets a commission. You will have to consult with an experienced programmer who can set up the program so that the affiliate codes can be tracked properly.

Some internet companies have thousands of affiliates, and get all the business they would ever need or want this way; and it costs you nothing. To recruit affiliates, you should submit your affiliate program to directories where you can list your affiliate program for free or for a small price. The best way to find affiliates is by listing your program on forums or message boards frequented by webmasters who are looking to generate additional revenue for their online business.

I hope this information will help you with your internet marketing efforts. No website can become an overnight sensation; it takes time and effort. But, if you work diligently and follow each of the procedures outlined in the article, you should do fine.

25 Tips to Increase Conversion Rates

2007-11-25T12:40:00.001+07:00

by Frederick Townes

Site owners spend so much time and money on search engine optimization that they often leave conversion optimization to chance. They're happy with a 1% - 2% conversion rate, the typical rate for smaller sites. Converting visitors to buyers is part science, part art. No one formula fits all sites but here are 25 tips that will boost conversion rates on most.

Keep it simple. The simpler it is for visitors to complete a purchase the more purchases (and fewer shopping cart abandonment's) you'll see. Make it simple to find the product and go through the checkout process.

Provide complete contact information including a telephone number. Buyers want to know you're real and they want to know how to reach you in case of a problem.

Provide encouragement throughout the checkout process. The best way to do this is to let buyers know what stage of checkout they've reached, and to provide them with highlighted signage to let them know what to do next.

Use product pictures in shopping carts. This reminds visitors what's in their carts. It also reinforces, in the visitor's mind, the reason(s) for the purchase.

Link back to the product page. After an item has been placed in the shopping cart, the visitor should be able to click on the item and be directed back to the product page in a new window for example. This makes buying comparisons easier and ensures the visitor has the right item for his/her needs without leaving the shopping cart.

Don't keep shipping costs a secret. Nothing kills a conversion faster than a $19.95 shipping and handling charge on a $10 item. Provide shipping cost information on the first page of the checkout.

Is it backordered? The visitor finally reaches the end of the checkout only to discover that the item isn't in stock. Do you think they'll come back when the item comes in? They won't.

Provide complete product information including sizes, colors, styles and other product descriptors. This will cut down on product returns because buyers will know what they're actually purchasing. Avoid hyping products for the same reason.

Keep terms of service (TOS) simple and unambiguous. What's your guarantee? What's your return policy? Eliminate the boilerplate and give them the facts.

Provide a menu of payment gateways. Not all buyers want to pay by credit card. Some don't even have a credit card. Buyers should be given the option to pay by debit card, personal check (snail mail), PayPal and other similar services, bank transfer and, if the want to stop by to pick it up, you'll even take cash.

Never blame the buyer. When a potential buyer clicks on the wrong link, or forgets to enter all data fields, put up a message explaining the problem and how to fix it. The customer is always right and it's always your fault. Period.

Offer gift cards. Some buyers just don't know what to buy as a gift. A gift card solves the problem.

Use real testimonials. If you're doing it right, you've gotten good feedback from some buyers. Ask permission to use their testimonials. Don't use fake testimonials signed by Diane E., California. It's an obvious fake testimonial.

Provide a customer service line. Outsource it if it isn't part of the budget but buyers want to know there's help in setting it up, whatever "it" is.

Avoid distracting links. If your home page is crammed with PPC ads and links to other sites, it's distracting and you'll see a lot more bounces (visitors who never get past the home page).

Offer incentives. Free shipping encourages buyers. So do upgrades, i.e. "Spend at least $50 and receive 10% off your entire purchase." Some buyers will do the math and figure out they're getting something for half price.

Welcome repeat visitors by name. Your customer data base is filled with solid gold information including names, purchase amounts, items purchased and so on. First, welcome a return buyer by name. Then, offer suggestions for purchase based on individual buying histories. (See Amazon.com for examples of using data base information to boost conversion ratios.)

Provide a currency converter. Not all buyers will be using your country's currency. Make it easy to convert from euros to drachmas to dollars.

Offer a free newsletter. Your regular buyers will appreciate it when they're notified ahead of time of upcoming specials, new product launches and other site related information.

Add a forum. This is a great way for buyers to share information, make recommendations and complain. It's also a great way for you to handle complaints quickly, with the resolution posted right there on the complaint thread.

Provide informational content on your site. This establishes your credentials and credibility as an authority, whether you're selling kayaks or bake ware.

Learn from your competitors. Visit the sites of more-established competitors to see what they're doing to convert. How is the homepage designed? Navigation? Checkout? You can't copyright an idea so you might as well "borrow" from the best.

Improve site stickiness. In other words, give buyers a reason to return. Some suggestions? The Sale of the Day, Tip of the Day, Your Horoscope, This Day in History, etc. This keeps your site green and visitors returning.

Let buyers post product reviews. Nothing sells better than a positive review from another buyer. Of course, the converse is true, too. Nothing will kill a sale faster than a bad review. And if a product receives lots of bad reviews, drop it from your product line.

Target your site's skin to your demographic. If you're selling collectible knives, your site should have a certain "look" and that look doesn't include pastels and prissy type. Big, bold and manly — that's the way to go. On the other hand, if you're selling needlepoint patterns, a nice pastel background with little flowers works perfectly.

Search engine optimization is designed to attract search engine spiders. It's also intended to ensure that your site is accurately and completely optimized. But, once traffic arrives on site, conversion optimization takes over.

Keep it simple. Keep it easy. Keep it honest. Not only will you see a boost in conversion ratio, you'll also see a nice pop in return buyers. And they're the best buyers any web site owner could ask for.

Online Business Ethics

2007-11-03T16:15:00.001+07:00

By: Ruth Harris

Very simple: Be a source of integrity. Don't be phony, people will know and not come to visit your site again. Even worse, they will post a bad review somewhere on the web and others will not even come to see for themselves. If you don't know about something, don't pretend that you do.

Respect your customers, or prospective customers, and offer them something of value. Give good information that will draw your customers' attention and this will help to build trust. It also gives them a reason to stay or come back again for more. Follow-up with your customers, but don't be a pest. Basically, don't spam, don't steal, and don't lie.

Just as in an offline business, there are ethics and standards that should be followed. If you are starting an online business, you've probably spent some time online already and can see that there are hundreds of thousands of businesses trying to sell their products and information and services to you. Study how they do it. Spend some time visiting the websites of your competitors, much like you would when preparing a business plan for an offline business. Look for and evaluate the following characteristics to determine the integrity of the business as a whole:

What are they selling?

When you first come to their index page, can you quickly and easily figure out what they are selling? Is it a real product, an information product, a membership or a service? Do they offer something of real value right off the bat for free such as informative content or a related e-book? If you cannot determine within the first 30 seconds what they are selling or why they are in business, chances are that they are just a hodgepodge of links put together to make the owner affiliate revenue. However, if you do see something of value, stay a bit longer and evaluate further.

Can you contact them directly?

Look on the main page. Contact information could be in the top nav bar, on the side nav bar or at the bottom of the page. Also, look for a direct link such as Contact Us. Click this link and see where it takes you. Do they provide a physical address, a contact name or email, and a phone number? These three things are a must for a legitimate business. If an owner is not confident in his business enough to put an address and contact phone number on his site, he must be hiding something. The final test is to send an email to the company and see who responds and how long it takes to get a response. Most one-person web businesses should be able to answer your email within 1-2 business days.

Is the content valuable and correct?

One of my biggest pet peeves is spelling and grammar. If the owner has done his research and knows what he is talking about, this should show in the quality of the information on his site. A professional image depends on attention to details. Presentation is everything. If you are going to put out information, it has to be presented in an organized fashion with no mistakes. When I see more than one misspelled word or grammar mistake on a website or page, I move on. If the owner has not proofread his own material or verified the information on his site is correct and presented professionally, I won't be trusting that his products are much higher in quality.

Is there a free trial or guarantee on the products and services being offered?

Those businesses that have developed a quality product or service and are confident in it will not hesitate to put a guarantee on it. They will stand behind it 100%. Even better are those companies that let you try the product or service for free. This way you can test it out to see if it is indeed what you need and meets the quality standards of a legitimate business.

How do they advertise?

Look at the other links on the website. Visit some of them to see the quality of partners associated with the first business. Do the links take you somewhere valuable and helpful? Is the business partnered with other legitimate businesses? Also, how did you find out about the website in the first place and what in their ad drew you in? Did the ad lie to you? Make sure that when you advertise that you don't misrepresent what you are offering. In addition, don't be a spammer. Make sure to develop a double opt-in email list that you can use to send valuable follow up information to your customers. This will help to build loyalty as well as word of mouth referrals.

Visit forums and pay-per-click sites to see the companies who are advertising the same products and services that you are to find out what promotion methods they are using. Use them as a starting point and try to set your standards of quality and honesty a step above when developing your ads.

The bottom line is, there is good karma and bad. Even though we all know those people in life whose bad karma hasn't caught up with them yet, don't join the crowd. Be a leader, be a source of integrity, and provide a quality product or service that you can stand behind. In the long run, this will help you build a profitable, long-standing business rather than a fly-by-night get rich quick scheme.

How People Buy - The 4 Steps From Problem to Purchase

2007-10-14T19:35:00.001+07:00

by: Daryl Cowie

Did you know that every single time we make a purchase we do the same four things? Did you also know that the world's most successful businesses are now organizing their corporate structures around helping customers with these 4 basic steps? It is no longer enough to just understand the value of your products and services. You must understand the actions people take once they decide to find a solution to their problem to ensure you are not missing out on big opportunities to satisfy your customers, and build customer loyalty.

Let's assume for the moment that someone knows they have a problem, and they've decided they want to solve it. There are 4 steps to finding a solution that people always follow:

Search for things that could address the need or want;
Decide on a solution and set out to get it;
Take it and get it ready to use; and
Use it.

All problem solving can be broken down into these four basic stages. Here's a more familiar way to look at it:

Go shopping;
Place an order;
Take delivery; and
Start using it.

Let's look at the four stages in a little more detail.

Go Shopping

Think about the last time you needed something. What did you do first? I was fixing the brakes on my son's bicycle the other day, and needed an extra hand to pull the brake handle. "Hey Logan, can you come pull the brake handle?" I asked someone around me for help. I wanted a new cell phone plan because I learned that my bill was regularly twice as high as my fiancés. "Honey, what company do you use again?" Her response: "I think I have a pretty good plan, but why don't we go the mall and ask someone who actually knows. There are at least 4 cell phone stores there". So we did.

Searching for solutions generally starts with asking your friends, family or co-workers. If you're still not sure you seek out an expert for more advice. You may even test-drive, or try on a few things to see what you like best. Finally you pick something you either like, trust or recognize from the suggestions offered.

Place an Order

Placing an order can be as simple as "I'll take this one". It can also be a complex series of decisions on options, delivery methods and payment options. When I placed an order for my new cell phone, they wanted to know if I would like to add a case, how I wanted to pay, and if I would like them to transfer my contacts over from my old phone to my new phone. When I worked with equipment for utilities and industrial plants there were dozens of ordering options for different voltage levels, cabinet types, communications equipment options, system configurations or configuration services, wiring harnesses, the list goes on. The sales people didn't even know all of the available options. There was a separate orders team to guide customers through the ordering process and ensure they got a solution that fit their needs correctly.

Take Delivery

So after the order has been placed, someone needs to fill your order. With my recent cell phone purchase the same person who sold it to me and took the order then took my old phone, went to the back room, and came out a few minutes later with my new phone. It was all set up complete with all the contacts from my old copied onto it. I have no idea whether he did it himself or handed it to a technician to do. Frankly, I don't care. I just know my salesman took care of it.

In the industrial world, taking delivery is a little more complicated, but it follows the same basic steps. Instead of going into the back room, the equipment is ordered from a factory, and team of people are engaged in building and configuring the equipment. Shipping is then arranged with the customer including transport and cross-border customs clearing. On first deliveries the customer often comes to the factory to do some tests and provide formal acceptance. Some changes are almost always made at this point. After shipping the first ones to the installation site, an engineer is often deployed to help set it up and ensure everything is working correctly. All part of the delivery process.

Use It

And finally you get to use it. But the story doesn't end here, there's more. Remember when you got that brand new PC home? You got it set up, you started using it, and then you tryed to print out that first piece of paper and nothing happened. You tried everything you could think of and still nothing happened. Enter Customer Service.

Even after things are delivered and paid for, people still need help. If you get good help you are happy, and you go back to that store and recommend them to your friends. If you get bad help, or no help, you may never go back there. You will also probably make sure everyone you ever meet looking for something similar knows to stay away from that company because they will cause them nothing but pain. After all, that's what happened to you.

A pleasant experience with the Customer Service team after you buy something is often the difference between loving and hating the people that sold it to you.

Summary

Whether we realize it or not there are 4 steps we all go through every time we purchase a product or service.

Shop for potential solutions;
Decide and order something;
Get it; and
Use it.

It is not enough to have a great product, or friendly customer support. You must address all four stages of the customer decision making process if you hope to build a long term relationship, and a long term business. Remember all successful businesses help themselves by helping others.

Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing

2007-09-25T00:38:00.000+07:00

by Ross Dunn

Do it Yourself Social Media Marketing - A StepForth Whitepaper

SEO Meet SMM (Social Media Marketing) was the most information-dense seminar that I attended at SMX Advanced, a multi-day conference geared for advanced web marketing professionals. As a result, it has taken a while to view my footage and pick out all of the best tips to share with you. The SEO Meet SMM seminar was paneled with an all-star cast of Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel and Cindy Krum. Between these three incredibly bright people, and my own experience and research I have put together this whitepaper on how to use social media marketing (SMM) to your advantage. I believe this is the most current (timely), accurate and cutting edge information available for those who want to start marketing in this field.

The Concept

Social media marketing is a method of promoting your brand (be it yourself, a product, a service, or a company) by strategically making your presence known across various social media networks (such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Myspace, etc). This may seem overly elementary but "making yourself known" is the kicker because each category of social media has a different, sometimes intricate method for effective promotion.

Business from Social Marketing is Indirect

A key concept to social marketing is that it is not designed to immediately provide business but instead it provides the visibility your brand needs to ultimately convert fans into buyers. I often get clients saying "I don't think being on MySpace will sell anything". The truth is that often they are correct. Having a commercial presence on MySpace that provides great content and interesting free tools (aka. widgets) serves to raise the awareness of your brand so that users remember your service for later and/or provides you with a podium to share the benefits of your brand. In short, it is important not to forget this essential concept: social media marketing drives brand awareness which later translates into sales.

Social Media Categories and Associated Strategies

Here is an introduction to the various top portals segregated into their appropriate categories and mated with a recommended strategy. Please keep in mind the following is only a partial listing of some social media sites. If you want a more comprehensive (but unorganized) list check out this list of web 2.0 sites which includes social media properties (very extensive list).

I have organized Social Media Marketing into the following categories or themes:

A. Social Networking Sites
B. Business Networking Sites
C. Social (Collaborative) Bookmarking Sites
D. Content Voting Sites
E. News Sharing Sites
F. Collaborative Directories
G. Video Sharing Sites, and
H. Photo Sharing

We will discuss parts A through D in this segment and parts E through F in the following.

A) Social Networking Sites

The following social networking sites experience a volume of activity unrivaled in the social media marketplace. These sites provide it all; personal blogs, videos, music, classifieds, mail, and much, much more.

1.	MySpace	:	this site offers the widest variety of tools and social networking capabilities.
2.	Facebook	:	great for connecting with old classmates and creating a personal profile.

Associated Marketing Strategy

Each of these sites allow you to create a powerfully diverse and engaging web presence complete with photos, articles, and bookmarks. MySpace even provides the ability to 'skin' your profile! In other words you can actually brand it to make it totally unique; a powerful marketing capability (To view a great example see [url=http://www.myspace.com/starbucks]Starbuck's MySpace account[/url]. Assuming the site is already done it is best to then start linking to the site from key areas of the Internet so the search engines will have no problem finding and indexing it. You can do this by linking to it from a social media section of your website; a section that I believe will be part of the status quo structure (as ubiquitous as the About Page) of all new websites in the near future.

B) How to Market on Business Networking Sites

These sites are devoted to networking business people and provide direct access to upper level management / executives for sales people and for those looking to create industry connections.

1.	LinkedIn	:	the premier business networking site where job profiles are shared, jobs posted, questions asked and then answered by industry professionals (my current favorite).
2.	ZoomInfo	:	a search engine index of company names and people. Find yourself (if you are there) and claim your space or create your profile.
3.	Spoke	:	a database of contact information for people at all levels of business.
4.	Jigsaw	:	a database of virtual business cards that can be traded and shared amongst members.

Associated Marketing Strategy

Create a personal profile on each of these sites and connect, connect, connect. The concept is so simple I could almost stop there but it is important not to forget that some of these services also allow for interactivity in forums and Q&A sections. I recommend participating as often as possible in these interactive sections in order to gain positive references and to further expand your network.

C) How to Market on Social (Collaborative) Bookmarking Sites

Here are a number of websites that specialize in social bookmarking. When you register with the service the service will collect and organize the sites that you choose to bookmark and allow you to share them with other others. The social concept allows each service to create content-specific directories of user-selected content; which states (theoretically) the content is of a high quality.

1.	Del.icio.us	:	bought by Yahoo in 2005, Del.icio.us is the web's leading bookmarking site.
2.	StumbleUpon	:	in the past when my best content got 'stumbled' by users I found this community to offer the highest quality response in terms of traffic and buzz.
3.	Yahoo! MyWeb	:	Yahoo's huge following has made MyWeb a popular bookmarking property and a top property for promotion.
4.	Backflip	:	started in 1999 (or possibly earlier) this site is the one of the granddaddies of bookmarking but it came on harsh times and was sold to passionate employees who maintain it now. This is not a leader in the industry but it was my first bookmarking site way back in '99 so I feel I owe Backflip a little time in the limelight.

Associated Marketing Strategy

Create a personal profile on each site and then spend some time using them as though you were a potential customer of your own service. In other words, search for terms you target in your SEO campaigns or ask questions you or your target market asks regularly. After a while you will see a trend in the results you receive that you can use to your advantage.

For example, after typing in "marketing tips" on StumbleUpon you may notice that many of the articles that are getting positive reviews are written like tutorials whereas the other articles are getting little or negative feedback. This type of observation will give you the insight you need to write quality articles that are more likely to get positive ratings; which ultimately translates into increased traffic to the article source (your website perhaps). In addition, you can go back and bookmark tutorial content you have already written (as long as it is still viable).

If you are not writing your own content at the moment it is still advisable to find other great content and bookmark it for your profile. Why? If you create a reputation for providing excellent bookmarks it is more likely you will get additional, positive attention when you ultimately feature content of your own.

D) How to Market on Content Voting Sites

The following are the top sites used for people to vote 'on the fly' for any content they find useful online. The resulting vote then adds the content or increases its visibility within each resource so that others have a chance to read the content. Once something has received a certain number of votes (this is a moving target) the visibility of the content may gain momentum as others have a chance to read and vote on it.

1.	Digg	:	currently one of the most popular social media websites in the world and has been known to show a high degree of technology-based news.
2.	Netscape	:	is in many ways a successful clone of Digg but Netscape has been accused of providing more entertainment news rather than technology news.
3.	Reddit	:	the news here is more politically inclined and the site has a very strong following.

Associated Marketing Strategy

First a caution: it is crucial that you pay attention to the etiquette of these content voting sites; otherwise your promotions could backfire and/or you could be banned. To read up on etiquette visit the associated help files for each site (i.e. How Digg Works) and the FAQ – these will give you the necessary background info to get you started.

To make these sites work for you I recommend participating in each group for a while in order to pick up on what articles do well and don't do well in your selected industry. In addition, creating a respected profile by bookmarking new and interesting content and posting thoughtful comments on other people's bookmarks will go a long way to improving your chances of success on these sites. Once you have a respected profile you can ask other respected users to check out your new content to see if they deem it worthy of a thumbs up. Whatever you do, I do not recommend voting on your own content due to the obvious bias and potential damage it could do to your profile's reputation.

In the second (and last) installment of this series we will examine:

• News Sharing Sites
• Collaborative Directories
• Video Sharing Sites, and
• Photo Sharing Sites

Does Your Website Need Help?

2007-09-02T16:46:00.000+07:00

by Rodney Ringler

There are a lot of small business owners that we talk to that are not happy with the results of the website that they paid a design company to build for them, or the traffic they paid an internet marketer to generate. They complain that the site is plain or is hard to update or that is has received little traffic or generated the few sales.

Development

The blame lies with the small business as much as the web site design company. When small businesses hire web site companies they tell the designers basically what they want but leave most of the decisions up to the designer. This is a mistake. Building a website is very similar to building a house. When building a house you pick out the house plan not the builder. You decide the colors of the walls, the type of siding, color of the shingles, what carpet, which cabinets, and so on. But with a website people leave this all up to the designer.

If you are going to have a website built then you need to take responsibility for a lot of the design and most of the content. The first thing to do is develop a set of goals for your website. Is it going to be used to generate new business or a place to direct existing customers? These types of questions will determine what kind of website is best for your needs.

Then you need to develop a list of functionality and information that you want the website to contain. Also, note what information will need updating and which will be static and will never change. It is important to have an easy way to change information that is changed often. There are to many outdated websites on the internet already.

Next, scout other websites on the internet until you find one that has the look you like or some functionality that would be good for your site to have. Or several that you like parts of. Being able to show a website designer an example of what you have in mind makes it very easy for them to meet your needs.

This is the easy part so far. You have enough info to give your designer a list of functionality and some example websites that look like what you have in mind. Now you have to decide what color schemes you want, what kind of font. The colors and font of a website set its tone. Is it professional or casual? Is it serious or fun? These might seem like trivial details but they matter. No matter how good the designer you need to direct them. You don’t need the exact font, but tell them weather you want a professional or casual font; Soothing or bright colors. All of this extra work will help you be more satisfied with the end product.

Traffic

Next comes traffic. This is usually the job of an internet marketer but most web companies offer both services. We often hear complaints by people who launch an internet business and then do not receive the traffic they expect.

First of all, submitting your website to the hundreds of search engines will not produce a lot of traffic. It is a small part of an overall internet marketing campaign. Also, this is a service that is provided free by most web hosts and you should not be spending money on it. This merely helps get your website listed in the various search engines. To receive traffic you need to gain enough strength so that when a searcher searches on a keyword relevant to you that your website shows up. This takes time and effort and will not be achieve by simply submitting your website. [Editor's note: there are plenty of SEO articles on SR which can help you with just that]

A lot of websites are used as a tool for its organization to spread information or as a brochure for a small business to direct its customers. These kind of sites are not looking to generate traffic and do not need an internet marketing strategy. But if you are running an ecommerce site or a website to generate sales leads for your business then you need an internet marketing plan.

This plan will consist of several parts a search engine strategy for both organic listings and paid listings, a grassroots plan to generate traffic by writing articles, posting in forums, and in general becoming an online expert for you niche. And an online advertising plan for banner ads.

Long term, establishing yourself as the online expert in a field and developing a strong search engine ranking for the keywords relevant to your business is very important. This will allow you to generate traffic without spending advertising dollars. Early you will need to advertise to generate visitors and revenue but over time your advertising dollars should decrease. This should be the long term objective of all internet businesses.

To achieve this you will need a comprehensive plan, and the discipline to stick with it when no one is visiting your website. It is hard to outsource some parts of an internet marketing campaign to an Internet marketing company because you are the expert. It is hard for an internet marketing company to produce your level of expertise in your business. Internet marketing companies are excellent for managing ad campaigns, creating banner graphics, and teaching you search engine optimization and grassroots marketing. In search engine optimization and grassroots internet marketing a lot of the work is producing content(articles, guides, tutorials, etc.) in your niche and becoming known at expert sites in your area and forum boards that you are an expert in this niche and a place to go. You cannot outsource this expertise. You can hire someone to teach you how to do it but you need to do it.

To get satisfaction out of your website and have it generate the traffic and new business that you want, you need to take ownership and be involved in the design, content, and internet marketing. You can have a web company build the site but you need to drive the design and functionality. You can also have an internet marketing company setup a marketing plan and teach you the basics of search engine optimization, but you need to become the online expert in your niche and produce as much quality content for that niche as you can.

Targeted versus Spam Traffic

2007-08-11T15:41:00.000+07:00

by: Adriana Iordan

The best approach when running businesses over the Internet is to concentrate on directing quality traffic towards your Web site. In order to do that, there are some tricks that can be done and some rules of thumb that must be taken into account.

Don't sit back and imagine that your site will draw relevant traffic all by itself. In order to make your return on investment worthwhile, you really have to put some effort into promoting your site and luring the right prospects towards your business.

Getting the Right Traffic to Your Site

Targeted traffic may not be easy to acquire, but it's important that you keep in mind to always aim for it. This is what can make your business profitable.

Ask anyone and they will tell you that visits to your site that convert into sales are the ones that really matter. No matter how many visitors your site has, if the ones that you'd like to see aren't there, you should really start working.

Submitting your site to search engines "as is" may not be a totally wrong approach. Of course, there will be people searching for what you have to offer, and you will get some ranking based on how many visits your site received.

But be aware that most of these visitors will probably qualify as "spam traffic", with little to no relevance for your business. Don't understand from this that search engines will do you no good. You still depend on them to make your site popular and appear as high as possible in their rankings.

There are some things you can do to increase your chances of getting as little spam traffic as possible and observe an ascending tendency in the figures that reflect your targeted traffic.

One of these things is paying attention to the keywords that you use. The general advice from experts is that you focus on two or three keywords per page. Do some research on this issue and see if what you chose is looked for extensively enough to be worth placing in your meta tags. Then, do your best to make that keyword a great target for your traffic. Most SEO advice pages on the Web cover this issue.

Another important factor is linking. You want your prospects to be able to find you in relevant places on the Web. Some of the means through which you can get good links are:

> Personally contacting the webmasters of relevant sites and negotiating a "link trade" - you give them space for their links, and vice versa

> Writing your own articles (good ones) and submitting them to popular article Web sites

> Finding forums that are closely related to your area of activity and posting valid comments there - remember to include the link to your site at the end of the comment, preferably included in your signature.

It is not uncommon practice to speculate on the information gaps of other Web sites. If you find such gaps, exploit them. Offer users more than general information on the topic covered by your site. Close that gap by offering them exactly the information they might be looking for.

As a bonus to this, you could actually contact the webmasters of those other Web sites and let them know that you cover some area that they lack. A profitable cooperation could result from this, as the other site will reference yours.

You should not leave out the benefits of affiliate programs. Create your own program and then "recruit" affiliates. This is a sure way to get your site known on the Web, especially if your affiliate program comes with a good marketing strategy and good copy. Remember that affiliation can also increase your search engine ranking, which comes as a well-deserved bonus.

A Few Tips

> Make sure that your site is a quality one. No Web user will be attracted by a mediocre site. After all, packaging always makes a difference.

> Create RSS feeds and allow visitors to subscribe to them. People who found your site worth remembering will want to receive news from you ASAP. Don't deny them this privilege, and don't deny yourself the prospect of gaining targeted traffic.

> Add "Tell a friend" and "Newsletter" scripts to your site. These are small scripts that will allow you to reach people that are likely to be interested in your products / services (tell a friend), or help people remember, on a periodical basis, that you have news or new products / services that might be of interest to them (newsletter).

> If your budget allows, run pay per click advertising campaigns (AdWords). You will definitely get noticed by using that.

> If you also have a blog, make sure it also looks nice. Post relevant things, offer solutions and generally be helpful with your articles. Refrain from posting just for the sake of occupying hyperspace. You'll build credibility and the results you'll reap from this might be incredible.

> Do answer emails that you receive. Be prompt and you will benefit from this. A happy customer will most likely reference you to a prospective one.

> When answering emails, try to make your answers as personalized as possible (in keeping with the nature of the business you're conducting). Be formal or casual, as appropriate, but let the other person feel like you're really interested in their personal problem (as you should be).

Conclusions

Bottom line on all of the above is that you definitely need to know exactly whom you're targeting. If you want your ROI to look pretty, do some research on all the aspects mentioned in the previous paragraphs (and don't limit yourself to them, go even further). Stand out of the crowd.

Be different by being more relevant, more useful in your sector than others. The world of Web-based businesses is a jungle; you can't survive without the proper set of tools.

The Forgotten Fundamentals of SEO

2007-07-14T20:12:00.000+07:00

by Chris Diprose

The Website Revelation – What owning a website actually means.

As a Web Developer and SEO consultant I deal with many existing website owners who are looking to modify or improve their website. I also deal with many people who are looking to start their web presence with a new website. Through both of these interactions there is often a common theme; a misunderstanding or an attitude. I call this a misconception of reality, as often the reality of what the Internet can actually do for the persons business and what they think it can do differ massively.

Often it is presumed that by simply owning a domain and having a website built and published on the Internet, thousands of people will magically find the website, visit it and buy their products. "If you build it, they will come" should be removed from the vocabulary as soon as possible if you are to adjust attitudes to the underlying search technology. As a businessman in the real World, it is obvious that it would not happen outside of the Internet ether, so what is so different online? Maybe it was the Technology boom 10 years ago that caused a rift in understanding or maybe the buzz that caused the meteoric rise in the stock prices of Tech Companies, I can hear the thoughts of the small businessman, "surely this can be replicated for my business" – in answer I would say, "well, it is unlikely, but you should be able to achieve some results over time".

It is most important when taking on a project like Search Engine Optimization for a website, to know that it is important to be committed for the long haul. It is no small task and sufficient funds need to be allocated to the project. Delivery deadlines need to be correctly scoped against required changes, in order to meet client expectations. The key points of responsibility to the SEO project are in knowing that there are big changes near the start and during setup but the changes do not stop after setup, there are a continuous ongoing refinements to the design and system over time. In this regard I find it important to manage expectations and set realistic long term goals on what a website can be expected to achieve and in what time frames those goals hope to be met.

So what should your goal be when you are delving into SEO for your website? Well, everyone’s goal is exactly the same; improve page rankings, improve page visits and hits and finally gain more sales through the website.

When it comes to SEO and achieving these goals you have to have principles and my main principle is, "Good websites get good ratings and bad websites get bad ratings or none at all." As time goes on with the improvement of search engine technology and the refinement of search engine results this statement becomes truer and truer. I believe in results through "white hat"(reads; "Grey Hat") principles and methodologies.

What are "white hat" principles? I guess I would compare it to doing things the honest way and the right way without risk. So develop a good site, promote good linking, have good informative content and keep working on it and then you are on the road to good rankings through "White Hat" principles.

So, why should you do things the "white hat" way? Well, search engines do have some kind of understanding, an artificial intelligence. They soon catch on to websites spamming or linking to websites with no relevance and bad cross linking. It’s about being smart, in for the long term and wanting your business to grow organically, naturally.

So how do I go about improving my site and making it optimized for search engines naturally? Well, that’s why you’re here! So let’s run through few of the things you should be doing in your websites from a fundamental level.

Domain names:

When choosing a domain name, choose one that is relevant to the product or service you are going to provide and that is as simple as possible. There are considerations of branding and product/service provided that should go into this choice. Involvement of marketing personal and product understanding is required but also consultation with your SEO professional is advantageous. In this step I would say, take some time and choose wisely. Keep it simple and easy to remember, often saying it out loud will make it clear whether it can be understood by a simple man.

It is a strongly held belief by many SEO professionals that buying a domain which is older, and that has been around for a while, means it will not be sand boxed by Google. What’s the sandbox effect? Well, it refers to what Google does to a website or domain that is new or is relatively unknown by Google. In many instances Google’s Sandbox effect relegates the new domain to sub-optimal inclusion in search results. Regardless of the sites optimization it lowers the websites relevance and ranking to the term searched upon. If you can use your old business domain name, then consider this very important.

If, however, you are buying a new domain name then keep it relevant to the product or service being sold or offered on the website. Keep it close, relevant and simple. Relevance is primary.

Location specific domain or international domain ( .com or com.au)? Personally I think dot com’s are better, mainly because they appeal Internationally but if you want to you can keep it location specific and to your region then consider purchasing all similar higher level domains, yourdomain.com and yourdomain.com.au, if you can.

Choosing a Host:

Fast, reliable and gives you all you that you need and want. Preferably gives a unique IP. Again some SEO professionals believe this can also have a detrimental affect in Google rankings but from my experience it sometimes does and it sometimes doesn’t. I have had some sites come in with high PR rankings on shared IP’s and others when I shifted to a new IP the PR of the site jumped, so this is still a bit of a mystery when it comes to Google rankings. I guess a consideration

Traffic considerations:

When choosing your host ensure the plan you are on can be expanded so that any new increases in traffic can be accommodated accordingly.

Site Design:

There are several fundamental things to consider when you are modifying or designing a website.

Flash:

Flash is has been popular for a few years now and I truly believe it has its place. It is a great way of showing many products or services in a small area, has great visual impact if done properly and can set a good friendly tone to the website visitor. Having said that, I also hate flash; it can be an absolute nightmare when it comes to search engine optimization.

What you should know about flash; it cannot be read by a search engine as the search engine cannot read the text or the images contained within it nor can it interpret what is in the pictures being shown.

When it comes to flash I would suggest, not making your whole website flash. If you are designing a new website and you want to use flash then use it in high impact areas to capture the attention of your intended audience but use it sparingly. It is important to ensure that as much text content(to a maximum discussed in my next book, generally 300-500 characters) is available on the webpage and in simple HTML.

Frames:

Many older websites were designed with frames. Frames are where the main home page is actually a frameset page that includes several other pages into it. This makes the page hard to index in search engines and should be avoided. While Google do now index framed sites, it is important to note that most of the other top search engines still cannot follow frame links. They only see the frameset page and ignore the rest of the inner frames. This presents an SEO problem to us because it is highly likely those inner pages contain our content keywords.

Nowadays this is not really a huge issue as it is so uncommon for a designer to actually use frames but the easiest way to resolve the issue would be to enforce a no use policy on frames.

Page Layout:

According to research the Googlebot trawls web pages from left to right and top to bottom. So given this little tidbit of information it is clear that you should be putting our most valuable keywords and information on the left and near the top. Of course this is a blanket statement and does not take into account design principles and beautification. Just keep it in mind during design of page layout. Position your move relevant keywords to the left of the page and near the top.

Good HTML Coding:

A lot of HTML generator programs out there bloat HTML to the point it is 3-4 times larger than what it would be if you hand coded it. Keep it simple, use a text editor, edit your HTML the old school way; until there is a HTML generator tool worthy of use. If you can’t code HTML then do a search on the Internet and find a decent, free, e-book and learn how to do it.

Javascript:

This is very popular among many web development professionals for menu’s, popups, scollers etc etc. It would be my suggestion to use simple plain HTML menu’s or as little Javascript as possible in web pages. There are many small JavaScript menu’s out there that are slim on JavaScript code to reduce this issue and make it almost negligible. Don’t over clutter your site with JavaScript as it increases page size, page load times and the search engines won’t understand it.

Image Sizes:

Keep them small and use only what you need to. This is essential for decreasing page loading times and getting information onto the users screen as soon as possible.

Overall page size and loading:

The overall page size is an important factor. It should load quickly and be easily trawled. If you have followed the HTML hand coding, used minimal javascript, used simple table layouts and good image sizing then you should be fine. There is much evidence that supports the fact that Google and probably the other search engines also, do not like to scan huge files, so keeping your overall HTML page size below 25k is my suggestion.

Dynamic URL’s & page/file names:

Dynamic pages are roadblocks to high search engine positioning. Especially those that end in "?" or "&". In a dynamic site, variables are passed to the URL and the page is generated dynamically, often from information stored in a database as is the case with many e-commerce sites. Normal .html pages are static - they are hard-coded, their information does not change, and there are no "?" or "&" characters in the URL.

Pages with dynamic URLs are present in several engines, notably Google and AltaVista, even though publicly AltaVista claims their spider does not crawl dynamic URLs. To a spider a "?" represents a sea of endless possibilities - some pages can automatically generate a potentially massive number of URLs, trapping the spider in a virtually infinite loop.

As a general rule, search engines will not properly index documents that:

• contain a "?" or "&"
• End in the following document types: .cfm, .asp, .shtml, .php, .stm, .jsp, .cgi, .pl
• Could potentially generate a large number of URLs.
To avoid complications, consider creating static pages whenever possible, perhaps using the database to update the pages, not to generate them on the fly.

Slightly Off Topic Thoughts:

The topics covered here are not considered completely SEO topics but in terms of overall objective – increasing sales, this section is very important. Take these things on board, consider them, consult with your designer and marketing team. Make educated and informed choices on these topics when considering your audience and what your website objectives are.

Screen Size:

Over 65% of all screens in the World are set to run at the 1024x768 resolution. Of the remaining percentage, 13% are running at 800x600, 20% running at larger sizes and 2% are unknown. So this affects the way you design. It would be my suggestion to always design for the smallest user to visit your site, but often I find 800x600 restrictive so I tend to design for slightly larger. Not large enough to make an 800x600 user angry but large enough to make it look good on larger screens also. I weigh up my target users, my intended amount of content and find some happy medium. I generally design for 1000x620 as this is the perfect amount of real estate for a 1024x768 user when they have the browser top bar and status bar and Windows taskbar.

colors and themes:

One important aspect of marketing - selling - is the use of color. Meanings are attached to colors in the same way meanings are attached to words.

• Gold is the color of wealth and prosperity.
• White is the color of pure innocence and cleanliness.
• Pink is the color of femininity and softness.
• Green is the color of natural things and freshness.
• Red is the color of danger and stress.
• Blue is the color the calmness, intelligence. The majority of the World selects blue as a favorite color. It often represents "trust"

Use of color to establish an image or a brand is common in the marketing community, yet when you visit the websites of many search engine optimization professional’s, it's obvious that color significance plays no part in their own web optimization. Some of the colors I found on SEO websites:
• Baby Blue, a color which implies weakness.
• Red, a color which implies risk, or danger.
• Orange a color which implies a cheerful "levity". Orange is one of Americans’ least favorite colors.

Although color selection is off topic for SEO I would consider it a very important factor in what SEO is trying to achieve, in the end, for your website – selling more product, creating loyalty to your brand and customer impact. color research is something you should seriously consider. In summary of color choices I would suggest studying and learning more about your customers, researching color choices and their relevance to your underlying products and making informed choices on these in collaboration. If in doubt then I suggest sticking to safe and trusted colors within safe eye pleasing designs.

Gifs for logos & jpgs for pictures:

Ensure you are using gifs for logos and background placements and jpgs for photos on your website. This helps reduce size and improve clarity of the web site overall.

Browser:

It is vitally important to ensure your web page works in both IE, Firefox and Opera. Testing other browsers is also an advantage but these are the main three in use nowadays (2007). I think quoting stats on the browser breakdown are irrelevant as you need it work in all browsers. W3C cross browser compliance is great for this.

So, this brings us to the end of Volume 1: Fundamentals of SEO Web Design. There are many things to consider when designing a website or modifying a web site to make it more SEO friendly. Clearly I have a few more volumes left in SEO for websites.

Search Engine Optimisation for Joomla Websites

2007-07-08T23:26:00.000+07:00

by Chris Diprose

This article focuses on the first few steps in the Web Development and Design of a decent search optimised website in Joomla. Okay lets get into it. Once I have setup the standard Joomla installation there are a few component types that are mandatory to install and I believe these to be:- a sitemap component and a SEF URL changing component. These are by far the most important components to have on any Joomla Installation.

What is a SEF URL changing component and how does it relate to Web Design in Joomla? SEF stands for Search Engine Friendly and a normal installation of Joomla has a URL like this: index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6.

When it comes to search engines they are really smart in many ways but the normal Joomla URL describes nothing about the web page and its contents and so they really do dislike it in many ways. It is what I call, Search Optimisation Stunted (SOS). I like this term because it describes exactly what it needs; some help! This is where a SEF URL changing component comes into play. These types of components take the normal Joomla URL and change it into something more meaningful to both us and the search engines. eg: buy-blue-widgets-here.html.

From my Web Design & Development experience this is the single most important component installation you can make on a Joomla Website. I want to detail my personal best picks. There are a few available to us but I believe the JoomSEF component to be the best of the best when it comes to Search Engine Friendly URL's. There is only one drawback to choosing this component and that is a hidden advert in the code from the original makers. Given I use this component all the time I have taken the time to remove this component and make the whole new Patched SEF component available for download on my web site - Joomla SEO. So if you want to use this component then please do visit this link and grab the latest version with these hidden adverts removed - for free of course! Looking at the "best of the rest" of the SEF components we find a new component (May 2007) called sh404SEF, if you search on the Joomla extensions website you will find this one. I believe it to be strongly based on JoomSEF; in both look, feel and functionality I have noticed this. Another SEF friendly component for Joomla is OpenSEF. When it was release about a year ago it was great. Since that time there have been no updates and the project has lagged way behind. Having said that it still does a reasonable job of converting all Joomla URL's to look nice and friendly.

Which ever one you choose, download the component and then using the Joomla Administration interface install the component. Then go to Site->Global Configuration->SEO (tab) and ensure "Search Engine Friendly URL's" is set to yes. Ensure your htaccess.txt file in the root directory of the Joomla installation is changed to .htaccess and follow the directives in the file in how to turn on "mod_rewrite" - this is straight forward. Then just go to the JoomSEF component and configuration and turn it on. Once this is done you should be generating friendly URL's on the front end interface so you should go and check. It's as easy as that!!

Okay so lets move on to what I consider the next most important thing to do to your Joomla installation once the SEF component is installed and working a Sitemap.In my books there is really only one legitimate and decent sitemap component and it is called Joomap. Again the standard version of this component does not output decent XML files so I have enhanced the Joomap component so that it produces greater XML output. You can find the enhanced version on my website using this link Joomla Search Engine Optimisation - Sitemap Joomla SEO - Sitemapundefined. The installation of this component is the same as before, through the Joomla Administration interface. With no other config after installation we can just go straight to the component and select it. Now we just choose the menu's we want to include in our sitemap. Generally these are main menu and top menu. Now we just create a new menu item and select the component to link to it, being Joomap and the rest takes care of itself. Easy!!

One other advantage of Joomap is that it allows you to hook in to Google Sitemaps. On the admin interface these is a Google Sitemap URL given. All we need to do to generate a dynamic google sitemap is to copy paste this URL into google webmaster interface and now whenever google wants to download your whole website sitemap it gets a dynamic version - which is significantly better than just hoping google will find all of your pages! With this sitemap it tells google all of your pages and where they are so it can scan them more affectively.

Okay now I have covered off the first two steps in Search Engine Optimisation for the Joomla Content Management System. These are the first two steps every Web Designer and Developer should take when they want to Search Optimise Joomla. Until the next article you can gain more Web Design hints and tips on my website.

Search Engine Optimization And Magic Fairy Dust

2007-07-01T21:48:00.000+07:00

by Bill Platt

There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon... They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffic and consumers to their website.

The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.

For any given search term at any given time, there are only ten web pages on page one of the search results, and there are millions of web pages that did not make page one, who may or may not catch a few stragglers from the search engines.

How Can A Website Break Into The Top Ten?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that has sprung up around the concept of helping their clients improve their rankings in the search engine results.

When you talk to SEO professionals, they generally point to a two-pronged approach to search ranking optimization. A website owner needs to optimize their on-site real estate for the search engines, and they need to build inbound links to their website.

On-Site Search Optimization Challenges

The trick with on-site search optimization is that you must cater to multiple audiences on your website.
> You must provide simple navigation and an attractive interface to the human visitor;
> You must provide good sales copy to your human visitors, for the purpose of converting them from shoppers to buyers;
> You must provide text copy for the search engines to read; and
> You must optimize your content to help the search engines know what topics and keywords they should pay attention, so that they can give their users the right web page for the right search terms.

A web page that draws good search rankings is useless if the web page cannot convert the human visitor to a buyer. Many website owners get caught up in the process of optimizing a web page to get it to the top of the search results, and they forget that the human visitor knows where the Back Button is in his or her browser. Once your visitor has hit the Back Button, they will go to someone else's website and buy from them, instead of you.

Most website owners have the alternate problem. They consistently convert a significant number of visitors to buyers, but they have to rely on various forms of paid advertising to get visitors to their websites, since they do not rank in the search engines.

I recently spoke with an individual who spends thousands per month on pay-per-click advertising to get targeted traffic to his website. He said he consistently earns back his money, but he was still looking for a better way to get ranked in the search engines, so he joined my client list.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization Basics

According to the search engine companies, there are more than one thousand calculations that determine how well a website will rank in their search engine result pages (SERPs).

The Google engineers are fond of saying that if you build your website for human beings instead of search engines, then your website should rank well in their algorithms. To a certain degree, this is a good strategy.

Think about how magazines are constructed:

The Table Of Contents shows story titles, brief descriptions, and page numbers telling you where you can find a story.

On the story page, the title will be in big, bold font. Sometimes, the magazine will include a brief blurb about the story, in italics or font that is a bit bigger than the story font.

Pictures support the story with captions that further develop the story, by describing the picture.

Major subsections of the story have their own subheadings. And, the primary body of the story is in regular plain text, with only an occasional bolded or italicized word or phrase.

By analyzing the title and other large text on the page, a person who is flipping through the pages of a magazine can quickly assess the story content and make the decision as to whether they want to read the full story.

In the most simplistic way, this is how the search engines analyze a websites' content to decide which web page will best serve their users' needs.

Off-Site Search Engine Marketing Basics

Since the inception of Google, and with Yahoo and MSN recently, the number and quality of links pointing to a website play a significant role in determining how well a web page will rank in the search results.

I have heard people suggest that as much as 75% of the value given to a web page in the search results is based solely on the number and quality of links pointing to a web page. I tend to believe a more conservative number (50.1%) will apply.

Inbound Links Are More Important Than Page Content

To prove this point, type 'click here' without the quotes into Google, Yahoo and MSN and check the Adobe pages that come up in the search results: #1 in Google, #2 in Yahoo, and #1 in MSN. When you pull up those pages, search the page to find the individual words 'click' or 'here' in the text of those pages. They are not there. This has happened because millions of people have linked to these Adobe pages with the embedded anchor text, 'click here'.

Next, let's analyze those specific web pages from the perspective of each of the search engines:

> Google's #1 result - Google PageRank 8.
(www.adobe.com/products/urlcrobat/readstep2.html) Links to this web page: according to Google (31); according to Yahoo (nearly 12 million); according to MSN (6,400).

> Yahoo's #2 result - Google PageRank 10.
(www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer) Links to this web page: Google (15,200); Yahoo (700 thousand); MSN (32).

> MSN's #1 result - Google PageRank 8.
(www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash) Links to this web page: Google (0); Yahoo (2.9 million); MSN (778).

On Google's top result, they show 31 inbound links total for that web page. But, Yahoo claims that there are more than 12 million links to this page. That is a huge difference.

On Yahoo's #2 result, MSN gives 32 links, Google gives 15,000 links, and Yahoo claims it has 700 thousand links! That is another huge difference between the link counts from the search engines.

On MSN's #1 result, MSN shows a strong link count, but still nowhere near Yahoo's 2.9 million links. But, how does a web page with zero links in Google get a PageRank 8?

What Do These Numbers Mean?

Google has always said that they will never show us all of the links that we have pointing to our websites, because anything we can see in the public search results, our competitors can see also. So, for me it really is no surprise that we cannot see all of the links that point to Adobe pages, or to the links we have created that point to our clients and ourselves, by querying the search engines.

Also, the sheer numbers of inbound links do not rule the roost. Google's #1 result (PR8) is actually shown in Google, before Yahoo's #2 (PR10) result.

The Proof For Link Building Is In The Search Engine Rankings

Recently, a fellow who works as a SEO 'professional' told me that be believed my link building system was a sham.

I showed him that on the top 51 keyword phrases we use to market our original commercial website, we had 11 number one results, 31 top five results, 34 top ten results, 47 top thirty results, and 51 top 100 results within the Google search results. Additionally, it was shown that only three of those results competed with fewer than one million search results according to Google, with the remaining 48 pages competing with one million to 533 million pages.

Ole boy tore up Google trying to track how it was possible for me to have accomplished what I claimed. He finally concluded that since Google would not show HIM how I was able to rank so well in their search engine results, then I must have been lying.

According to Yahoo, we have over 12,000 links from third-party websites. According to our site statistics, we received traffic from more than 16,000 unique web pages during 2006. And Google still swears that we only have 42 inbound links to our website!

Magic Fairy Dust

My nemesis concluded that since HE could not prove through Google how I was successful in getting good search rankings, then I could not have accomplished such results by the methods I claimed.

Okay, I admit it.

I used the exact same method that Adobe used to get to the top of Google's search engine rankings. I have a pocket full of magic fairy dust. Whenever, I do not like how my websites rank in the search engines, I sprinkle my magic fairy dust on my modem.

If you don't like where you are ranked in the search engines, then I suggest you forego the search engine optimization companies altogether and instead run over to the corner store to get your own magic fairy dust. You might have to shop around a bit, but it is out there.

How to Improve Website Credibility

2007-06-26T15:59:00.000+07:00

by Bogdan Popescu

Web credibility has become a very important topic today. The fact that you have a site should not make you rest on your laurels. In these times, where facts are certainly more important than promises; if you have an online business, one of the most important matters that you should give due consideration is online credibility: you have to persuade web visitors that there is truly something worth wild behind a good-looking, usable website: you have to convince the visitors that the image you try to promote is trustful and that you intend to keep your promises advertised on the internet.

Generally speaking, credibility results from evaluating multiple dimensions simultaneously; most of researchers identify "trustworthiness" and "expertise" as the two main components of credibility. At the same time, it's important to differentiate between trust, which is related more to "dependability" and credibility, which is connected to the idea of "believability".

Why is credibility important?

Credibility is essential in order to make people: register, click on your ads, download software, resort to your services and so on. Therefore, website credibility can be identified to some extent with the idea of a successful business. Credibility is vital in order to make users return to your page.

On the other hand, when talking about this matter, it's worth mentioning that credibility is quite a general term comprising many factors like: usability, accessibility, security, search engine ranking etc.

Very few people take credibility for a specialized issue to deal with; they concentrate their attention rather on the above mentioned factors, most of the time resulting in a failure to complete all the requirements for a credible website.

43 steps to a credible website

Here are some of the most common methods employed by web users in order to make their site more believable; most of them are based on the Stanford University research. What you should notice is the fact that these steps will not necessarily improve your sales, but will aid you in creating a respectful image in eyes of the website visitors.

1. Publish photos of real people (the team you are working with) on your website!

This action has two beneficial implications on your business: on the one side, the team you are working with will have a growing self-respect, and on the other side, visitors will think higher of your site. Consequently, the prospect of new clients will also be higher.

2. Give your contact details online!

Be sure to introduce in a different section of your website the physical address of your company and also the telephone number; the existence of a real organization (or at least the impression) behind a website is essential.

3. Provide the clients with quick, flexible answers to their needs.

Every client needs to be shown respect and care. Make sure you provide them with individual, flexible treatments (auto responders are sometimes annoying). Think there wouldn't be any business, any financial gain on your part but for the clients. In order to have better results in your business, it is highly advisable to be very attentive and respond promptly to their needs.

4. Make your site useful to visitors!

If you have a business and if you have a new website, it can be quite difficult to get customers. A tip that you could consider is the fact that websites have to provide visitors with information they need. So, try not only to promote the product or services you offer, but also give helpful hints on various matters (for instance having a section of articles or of interviews might be a good point to start).

5. Publish information that can be easily verified

Indicating resources or references leading to trustful websites on your web page is certain to persuade clients of your "good intentions" and your position on the market; not only will you prove your "synthetic", and analytical sense, but you will also show interest for placing information in contexts.

6. Update your site on a regular basis

New information always attracts new visitors. Sometimes, adding some indicators (icons, special signs) with the inscription "new" can be a good idea for drawing attention.

7. Design your site in a professional (first and foremost) and aesthetical (second) way

A good website layout is always indicative of a good structural organization. The benefits that are worth considering are: site usability and web credibility. Notice that a beautiful graphic design will not save a poorly functioning site.

8. Make sure to put your contact details at hand

Sometimes, placing a link with you contact details on top of your website might provide an extra of credibility; web users will spot this information easier.

9. Promote your and other products cautiously!

Most of the time, over usage of ads and promoting materials are not hints of a trustful, reliable website. Moreover, make sure web users are able to differentiate between ads and content!

10. Errors of all types must be avoided

Lack of errors is a sign of trustfulness; researches showed that spelling errors on web sites have a devastating effect on business in general.

11. Convince satisfied customer to give you a testimonial

Posting a favorable citation of one of your satisfied customers on your site implies a huge benefit as far as credibility is concerned. To increase the credibility add the full name, website and company of the client, their picture if possible or even better, a video material.

12. Paraphrase brilliant minds

It is not very important to quote historical personalities; sometimes paraphrasing someone in your field of activity might be even more useful in creating a credible image.

13. Invite guests on your site

Having a personality invited to write for your website might be an intelligent step to follow; the process is similar to a transfer of authority - the trust and the notoriety that that certain person has, is given up to you.

14. Answer as many emails as you can

As mentioned before, this action is an indicative of your preoccupation for people. Conversely, failure not to do so might result in a loss of the entire image you have so much fought for, showing infatuation and ignorance.

15. Demonstrate your philanthropy

Charity is the most important aspect that people in general appreciate. If you take into account this problem, more people will get to know you; more will be eager to get in touch with you. Still, making too much fuss about your good deeds is not advisable due again to the prospect that people might regard you as conceited.

16. Ensure you add some terms and conditions on your website!

In this respect, almost always the help of a solicitor is required. Broadly speaking, terms and conditions should tackle aspects like:

who is the rightful owner of the material promoted

description of services

the fact that the rightful owner is entitled to change the content published on the site

to whom the site/ program/ service is destined

privacy and protection of personal information

acceptance of terms

ownership of trade marks (different from a company to the other)
Terms and conditions should account for the services provided.

17. Make your contact email address visible

A contact email address such as "contact@xyz.com" is most of the times highly recommended in building up trust because it makes the company "xyz" appear as a sole entity.

18. Submit your site to trustful websites!

A good promotion policy is always constructive; people will certainly think higher of your website provided that it is linked or recommended by a website that they already know and they regard it as a trustful source.

19. Link external materials and sources.

Do not use information that you do not own; linking external sites will both prevent the risk of legal action and get you more traffic.

20. Promote your site in a newspaper or media support!

The effect is absolutely evident: notoriety also gets you credibility

21."Rephrase" your web site URL if needed!

Name your site after your company or even better: make a different site for every product or service you have.

22. Change your domain name if necessary

Websites with extensions such as ".com", ".org" or ".eu" are sure to be more effective in gaining more visitors.

23. Respect your customers

A satisfied client is the key to more clients; the most important asset in this consists of your positive growing popularity

24. Make your website's design appropriate for the products/services you are trying to promote!

The style of a web site should be in accordance with the product that you are trying to advertise; this discrepancy should be avoided at all costs because it is certain to lower sales.

25. Make your web pages printer-friendly

Make your site easy to print; finally, it is recommended that you put an icon at the top of the page indicating this aspect.

26. Provide your clients with live-chat!

An online discussion with someone who has a question, is again a factor which improves credibility.

27. Improve your search engine status!

This is maybe the hardest step that you have to deal with in building credibility; a high rank in search engines is quite hard to achieve due to a long and "tiring" process, which involves most of the aspects here mentioned.

28. Do not "oblige" web users to login unless necessary!

Make most of your site available to all visitors. The explanation is based on the researches which proved that sites that required logging in are not very popular (usually because of the long time taken to register for an account)

29. Make sure the content of your web site is easy to download!

Do not put information on your website that takes a lot of space; download speed is of utmost importance.

30. Links in your site must be credible.

Credibility goes like in circle: you are either linked by trustful sites or you are the one to link other sites; both ways are necessary but not sufficient.

31. Make your site usable and easy to navigate

Site usability is very important with a view to make users come back again. Ease of finding information and also good site structure make users believe more in you.

32. Post some information about the author of the site

Mentioning the biography of the site's creator might help you in gaining credibility because the visitors might realize the experience and the legitimacy with which he created the site.

33. Place a search engine on your site.

This will certainly improve the site's accessibility; the web users will find easier the information they need and will come back later again.

34. Rewrite your URLs if necessary

There are two reasons for you to rewrite your URLs. One of them is related to Search Engine Optimization; search engines are much more at ease with URLs that do not have long query strings. Secondly, the search engines can better distinguish folder names and can establish real links to keywords.

35."Multiply" your languages!

Make your site available in different languages in order to have more traffic.

36. Replace broken links!

A broken link, as well as spelling errors is a sign of negligence on part of the company behind the webpage.

38. Place ratings and reviews on your website

This could be a good opportunity for your visitors to give you a mark. Be careful: if remarks are rather negative, the effect will reduce your traffic.

39. Display any awards you won!

Awards are a kind of recognition of your merits which are certain to increase your notoriety.

40. Send clients emails with the transactions they made!

Users will trust this way your site more; that email will play to some extent the role of a receipt.

41. Be careful with paid subscriptions.

Researches proved that paid access to websites lead in most cases to a loss of credibility.

42. Describe your products thoroughly

Giving your clients all the information they need leads to bigger sales. Create a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, in case any additional information is needed. Also make sure you provide an efficient answer to client problems.

43. Don't forget about "sense of humor"!

Even if we talk about the most serious website, one cannot forget about this issue; nevertheless, the extent to which this can be used stands for another problem.

Conclusions

All in all, like many aspects of our society, credibility is becoming increasingly important for computer products. In the not-too distant past, computers were seen by the general public as virtually infallible. Today, the assumption that computers are credible seems to be fading away.

At the same time, keep in mind that credibility is the result of a time-consuming process, which can be destroyed in the blink of an eye; once lost, credibility is quite hard to be achieved again.

The bottom line is that some of the keys of a successful business are: quality of the products/services provided and the "capacity" to keep your word, which might make the difference between you and your competitors.

Website Writing Tips From a Copy Veteran

2007-06-20T18:48:00.000+07:00

by: Pat Quinn

When I joined my first London ad agency 40-something years ago, the copy writing department was presided over by a lapsed genius who beat into me a number of immutable copy principles. These precepts, which are as valid now as they were then and which have helped me shift truckloads of product worldwide, apply to all types of promotional writing. They apply even more so to selling on the Internet, where do-it-yourself copy is the norm rather than the exception. In the old days, very few serious advertisers wrote their own material. Today, they do so as a matter of course simply because the technology allows it.

Anyway, this little article is aimed at those who write their own web pages and also at those who hire a writer and may wish to check that he or she is working on the right lines. Below you'll find just a few principles of good promotional writing. If the editor wants more, I'll gladly provide them.

Keep it very simple

All copy writing should speak to its audience in everyday, uncomplicated language. People don't like to be talked down to. And they grow tired of clichés and buzzwords. Also, keep your sentences short and punchy, with the minimum of clauses. Long and involved sentence structure is death to readership. (The six sentences above are examples of what I'm talking about. They are easy to scan and understand.)

All web pages should carry a headline

But this must be a pertinent headline. A selling headline. This headline will be, or should be, powerful enough or intriguing enough to draw your target into the compass of the body copy. If it can do that, you are on a winner.

It may go without saying that the entire thrust of your web page should revolve around an offer or a promise. This offer or promise will be unique to you – it's your unique sales proposition. It's the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors; and it can be price, performance or service related. Given this, the headline should be a snapshot of the sales message – a précis of your offer or promise. In other words, a headline that says: Buy this product and get this benefit. I'm sure you already know that people don't buy products, they buy the benefits of owning those products.

And when I say that every page of your site should carry a headline, I mean every page. Experience shows that a person will read a headline before looking at any accompanying pic or body copy. They do so preparatory to scooting off to someone else's site. But if your on-going headlines tell them things of interest, they will almost certainly hang around to explore the site more fully.

Keep headlines relevant

Around 30% of all headlines on the Net are both useless and irrelevant. The worst of them are so convoluted, so desperate to say everything all at once, that they are unintelligible. The offending lines also employ tired buzzwords. The word 'leverage, for instance', in completely ungrammatical context; and words like 'solutions' and 'focus' are thrown around like generous confetti. The moral is this. State your sales proposition cleverly, wittily, stridently or emotively, but never, ever employ a cliché device simply because it's the easy thing to do. If you can't be original, at least be positive. And if you honestly don't have very much to say, there are some really clever ways of saying nothing that will endear you to your audience.

Emphasize the benefit

Copy should be more than just a description of your product. All body copy should make some kind of selling proposition. If it doesn't, it isn’t advertising – it's an announcement. So many writers these days fail to understand that copy is nothing more than salesmanship in print. They describe every conceivable facet of their product, what it does, how it does it and why it does it, without once producing a decent argument for buying the damned thing! They lose sight of the fact that they should be trying to sell something.

Thus, copy must use the psychology of the salesman; and it must say, right up front: Here's what's in it for you. Nobody ever went broke promoting the benefits of owning their product.

Raising value

All copy writing should be geared to fulfilling one very important task. And this is to raise the value of your product or service in the potential customer's mind. This has nothing to do with a policy of low pricing or, indeed, cut-price offers. But it has everything to do with making a sales pitch that immediately demonstrates the outstanding value of your goods and services – no matter how much you are charging for them.

Look at it this way, a gallon of petrol costs around £5, but if your car runs out of gas on a lonely, rain-swept moor in the middle of the night, with the prospect of a 30-mile walk to the nearest filling station, how much would you pay for a gallon of petrol from a passing stranger? £10? £20? £50? It all depends on how badly you need it and how the circumstances have raised its value to you.

Raising value isn't difficult to do when people are in the market for your product. They come to you with certain preconceived notions, they are excited about owning whatever it is you make, they can already picture themselves using it, they want it now. All you have to do is exploit their desire. Bear in mind that advertising doesn't create desire, desire creates advertising.

Say it, then say it again

It has been scientifically proven that most of us take in only around 40% of what we actually see. Our brains edit out the other 60% of visual information as unimportant. On these grounds, if you have a serious proposition to make in your website it would be wise to repeat it. And not just once, but several times.

Just because you are deeply immersed in your offer or promise, it doesn't follow that your market will be likewise informed after only one reading. Websites are the most negligently read materials on the planet. Aside from you, nobody has any real or abiding interest in them. Always remember that you are preaching to the indifferent.

Resist the urge to talk about yourself

A lot of website writers seem compelled to talk about themselves. They talk about their business, when it was founded, why it was founded and by whom. Not content with this, they tell us all about their employees one by one; about the size and location of their offices or plant; and about the lengths they go to in order to satisfy their customers.

A little of this sort of thing goes a long way, but a lot of it goes right over people''s heads. And they lose more customers than they gain with such naval-gazing.

The simple truth is that nobody gives a damn about other people's achievements. All most of us are interested in are our own achievements. Good enough reason, then, when writing your next website is to talk more about your potential customers and what you can do for them, than about yourself. Six-to-four, you’ll get a bigger response.

11 Tips for Pay-Per-Click Success

2007-06-15T18:10:00.000+07:00

by: Mike Tekula

This list details some very important points to keep in mind when creating or managing any pay-per-click campaign. Is this all there is to know about pay-per-click advertising? Absolutely not, but for those new to PPC it should serve as good place to start. Additionally, pay-per-click veterans or at least the moderately-seasoned will want to touch upon these points now and then to brush up on their fundamentals.

1) Do your keyword homework.
Use Google's free Keyword Tool or sign up for a WordTracker account to find out which keywords are the most competitive. The more competitive the keyword, the more expensive your clicks will be. While you're finding out which keywords are too expensive you'll come across some that aren't being targeted heavily by advertisers. Take a good look at these - they may be your keys to a successful niche campaign.

2) Don't bunch your ad groups.
You should be striving to separate your ad groups by keyword. Whatever your target, separate your keyword lists into closely related groups containing the same target words and write ads geared specifically to those words. Your ads will show up higher in results based on their quality, and search terms show up bold in results - a click-through rate booster.

3) Drive home your selling point.
What's your offer? Why are you better than the others? Remember that your ads are going to display with your competitors. The difference between a user clicking your ad and clicking a competitor ad is about 100 pixels on the screen - or a millisecond of time. You need to convince them that you are the one they want. You are better. Grab them.

4) Don't send users to your home page.
This is perhaps one of the worst things you can do to your Pay-Per-Click campaign. Internet users are notoriously impatient. Send them to your home page when they were searching for a specific product or service and see how fast they leave. Don't waste your advertising budget - send them to optimized landing pages.

5) Optimize your landing pages.
Your landing pages need to drive something home immediately for your users: "you have landed in the right place." They need to know that, yes, this is what they were looking for, here it is, here is why it is better than the rest and here's the easy thing they need to do to get it. In most cases you'll need to create multiple landing pages based on your different ad groups and keywords, but look at it this way - if your users aren't landing at pages geared exactly to their search phrases they'll leave and take your advertising budget with them.

6) Don't lie in your ads.
People aren't dumb. If you promise something in your ads you had better well deliver. Otherwise you'll not only waste advertising dollars but damage your brand. Be honest, and focus on points that make you stand out from the competition. Grandiose ad text might bring in clicks, but if it isn't the truth it won't bring in conversions.

7) Your domain name counts.
In most cases you can display a domain name that you own as the "display domain" but point the ads to a page on a different domain. Why does this matter? If you own a domain name that contains the keyword text it will show up bold and increase conversions. Enter the optimized domain as the displayed domain, point the ads to your landing pages and you can expect higher CTRs in most cases.

8) Utilize negative keywords.
Google has a new Negative Keyword Tool that will allow you to find negative keywords that you should specify for your ads. Negative keywords are those that you don't want your ads to display for. For example, if you're selling "blue widgets" you don't want to display your ads to those users searching for "free blue widgets." If you don't use negative keywords you are missing out on a chance to get more targeted traffic to your landing pages, and this can really hurt your conversion rates.

9) Test, test, and test some more.
The greatest thing about internet advertising is the ability it grants you to measure your success. It's easy to create A/B split tests with Pay-Per-Click advertising. Change one word, add a comma, include a value proposition. . .just make sure you only change one thing for each split or you won't know which variable it was that made the difference! You'll find out right away that this is a great way to optimize your click-through rates - just don't forget that clicks aren't everything!

10) Don't focus too heavily on CTRs.
Getting tons of clicks isn't always the name of the game. In fact, if you aren't using proper techniques to ensure that you're getting targeted traffic and sending it to well-optimized landing pages you can blow through your advertising budget in no time flat. Remember that the success of any advertisement is getting back more than you put in. It's an investment, not a cost - so do all that you can to better your rate of return!

11) Don't pigeonhole yourself.
We all know that Google AdWords is the most popular Pay-Per-Click service out there. Your competitors know it, your users know it - even your grandma might know it. It would be foolish to ignore Google as a venue for advertising, but don't forget that there are other search engines out there who offer similar services. Yahoo!'s new Panama search system is catching on, and Microsoft's adCenter is nothing to sneeze at either. Both companies are currently offering sweet promotional deals to new Pay-Per-Click advertisers to stay competitive so take advantage and diversify!

Define your target market in 5 easy steps

2007-06-12T09:25:00.000+07:00

by: Katrina Sawa

This report is designed for entrepreneurs, small business owners, independent contractors and anyone who needs to build relationships and develop leads or referrals in order to promote and increase their business.
The information in this report is given based on the assumption that YOU know your product and service inside and out and you have already defined your business goals and have somewhat of a business plan in order.

The next step would be to narrowly and clearly define your target market, your ideal prospect.

Some people believe that their products or services would be perfect for everyone. For example, Mary Kay Cosmetics - no offense to my MK friends or other people in the health industry who say 'anyone with skin' needs a facial or 'anyone who has stress need a massage. Then there are people in the home improvement industry who say, 'anyone with a house' needs my landscaping, my windows, my furniture or my loan, etc.

For most small businesses however (1-5 employees or even more), I don't believe this is the most effective way to try to generate new leads and customers. If you determine the right target market to fit your business, you figure out the best ways to reach them AND if you figure out the best message to reach them with you will be spending your marketing dollars wisely. Business owners who don't plan ahead to figure out who their target market is before they open their doors end up spending a whole lot more money trying to figure it out by trial and error and that's expensive.

Would you shell out $200 for a pair of shoes without trying them on? Plunge into a steaming bath without dipping a toe in first? Of course not-but people do the business equivalent every day. Many an entrepreneur has found out too late that nobody wants to buy hand-quilted Christmas stockings at $24.99 a pop, or that wealthy customers won't schlep to the unfashionable part of town for luxury stationery.

The irony: Conventional market research is expensive (corporations regularly budget tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for it), but no one needs it more than a startup entrepreneur. A couple of marketing blunders won't put a giant manufacturer out of business, but just one can sink an entrepreneur like a bolt of lightning.

Defining Your Target Market

Your "target customers" are those who are most likely to buy from you. Resist the temptation to be too general in the hopes of getting a larger slice of the market. Try to describe them with as much detail as you can, based on your knowledge of your product or service and how it will benefit them.

Step 1: Ask yourself some questions to get started

1. Are your target customers male or female?
Figure 75-80% of your target customers would be which? If it's split, narrow it down another way but more than likely you can narrow down the gender.

2. How old are they?
Give an age range of 10-20 years max, otherwise you might have two target markets. Remember, the marketing messages towards different age groups will be quite different most likely depending on your product or service.

3. Where do they live?
Is geography a limiting factor for any reason? Can you narrow it down to specific zip codes or counties? The larger the geographical area you choose, the more people you will find but the less likely you'll be able to afford to market to all of them so narrow it down and expand out later.

4. What do they do for a living?
You can get a mailing list by industry or profession and specific title for example.

5. What does their specific profession say about their lifestyle?
Is it very busy with little time to shop? Would they be likely to be familiar with the internet for their shopping, researching, news and event information? Would they be commuting more in their car?

6. How much money do they make?
This is most significant if you're selling relatively expensive or luxury items. Most people can afford a latte. You can't say the same of custom murals. Narrow this down to a specific range also and high enough that you will weed some people out or again, you'll have way too many people to afford to market to.

7. Are there kids in the household?
What ages might they be? How many would there likely be? What does this say about their lifestyle - are they carpooling, or soccer parents where they are rarely home? Do they possibly eat out a lot or have less 'family' bonding time? Or are they empty nesters where they might spend more time at home watching television or reading?

Step 2: Get specific

What other aspects of their lives matter? Here are some examples to think about, see how your target market compares or how you can get more specific with them.
* If you're launching a roof-tiling service, your target customers probably own their homes. In addition, they probably own homes with older roofs like shake roofs; you can get a list of homes by their age.
* If you're a realtor, you might be interested in targeting first time homebuyers in which case you might find them to be likely to live in apartments or rentals of which you can get a list of those too.
* If you're selling your own individual artwork but you can't create multiple paintings with the same picture, you may have to sell the unique pieces at local art shows rather than selling them online.
* If you're planning to open a custom-tailoring shop and need busy executives to come for three fittings, you may need to limit it to your local area.
* If you're a direct jewelry consultant needing women to gather for parties in someone's home, you'll want to go where many women meet like mom's groups, women's professional organizations, day cares or grocery stores.
* If you're a business or life coach and want to coach only over the phone then you'll most likely want to do more online marketing and make sure to have a really top notch website since that's mostly what people are going to see for their first impression. You can network locally too but the more 'known' you are in person, the more people will want to do business with you in person.

Step 3: Keep your mind open to any information

Keep a list of primary research questions handy, such as:
* Who influences your customers and how? Spouses, neighbors, peer groups, professional colleagues, children and the media can all affect buying decisions. Look for hints that one or more of these are a factor for you.
* Why do they buy? Distinguish between the features and the benefits your product or service offers. Features describe what it is; benefits are what your customers get out of it. The latter is why your customers pay you. Are they looking for a status symbol, a savings in time or energy, a personal treat or something else?
* Why should customers choose you and not your competition? What can you offer that the competition doesn't?
* How do your customers prefer to buy? Many businesses benefit from the broader market provided by the Internet and mail order, while others do better with a physical presence. Don't assume you fall into one category or the other; customers may surprise you.

Step 4: Identify Your Ideal or Favorite Client

Think about your favorite client - who are they, name them, write down everything you know about them, their family status, age, sex, marital status, where they live, where they work, possible income level, their shopping characteristics.
* Do they like to use coupons or shop on certain days? Do they call you at the last minute to get something from you?
* Do they value your service/product? Is that type of client the most profitable type you have or the most non-profitable and you just like them?

Step 5: Determine their profitability to your business

Which type of clients will make you the most money, bring you joy and refer you tons of business? These are the types of clients you ultimately want, now where are they?

Ask Yourself:
* Who is the most profitable type of client? The one who will make you the most amount of money the fastest and with the least effort - do you like working with them? If not, you won't be totally happy with only this type of person, maybe you need a combination of the two.
* How often will they be able to buy or consume your product or service? If they can only possibly purchase your services every 10-20 years (getting a new roof for example), do you never market to them again after the sale or do you heavily market to them after the sale by every means possible for at least 1 year to get all the referrals you could possibly get out of them in that time?
* How likely are they to know others like them they can refer to you? Normally, very likely, in which case following up with them before, during and after the sale is huge - and if you don't ask for referrals in each stage of the sale continuously then shame on you.
* What is really important to them when it comes to your product or service? Not what you think they should know or like, but actually what they care about, like, ask for, thrive on, are passionate about, etc. These are your target market's "Hot Buttons" and these are what you should be addressing in your headlines, letters and marketing efforts at all times because these are why the client would choose to buy.
Defining your business' target market is absolutely critical to any small business. Everything you do in your marketing, advertising, design, publicity and networking will depend on who your target market is and what matters to them. Making decisions on your marketing and advertising without fully defining your target market or knowing them in depth could be detrimental to your business and you could be making some costly mistakes!