1. Know Your Purpose – Before you craft your first HTML tag, decide on the purpose of your site. Are you going for sales, leads, market awareness, or just to inform?
2. Keyword Research – Especially if you are targeting local traffic, most popular “keyword tools” are secondary as compared to a good empirical subject matter research.
3. Ranking is Dead – With Google Personalized Search in effect today, SEO is not only about ranking on page one, but also getting the clicks from the searchers when you do so. Ranking doesn’t mean traffic and traffic doesn’t mean conversions.
4. Build Links Naturally – Even as you do your link building campaigns, strive for a consistent growth in link popularity and equity.
5. Internal Linking – Half the war is won by linking the pages on your site correctly. Plan your site well so that you can achieve a good internal linking structure.
6. Build Link Baits – Search your industry for examples, or think of something newsworthy, informative, humorous, or controversial. A well promoted link bait can give you thousands of links!
7. Google Webmaster Tools – Check your account regularly so that you have a good overview of how Google sees your site.
8. Analyse Your Analytics – Your analytics is your gold mine for SEO. Consult your analytics data regularly to uncover more keywords you can easily rank for.
9. Write for Humans – Even though you need to include your target keywords in your web copy, don’t compromise human readability to cater for search engines. Write naturally.
10. Don’t Make Your Visitors Think – Web design should be predictable, consistent and simple.

Finggle will be conducting their next workshop in mid-September 2010. Check out the out their SEO Workshop page for more details!

If you want to learn to use your analytics data for marketing, here are some snippets of information worth gathering and some questions worth asking yourself, when you view your web analytics reports.

1. Keywords – What are the keywords that lead people to your site? Which ones of these keywords are converting into inquiries or sales? How are these keywords already ranking on the search engines this month? How can you get these keywords to rank better?

2. Bounce Rates – What is the bounce rate for your website? Benchmarks these rates with similar sites in your industry. How are you doing? How do you improve your bounce rate?

3. Time on Site – What is the average visitor time on site for your website? Is this reasonable, considering the type of content on your site? If not, how can you engage the visitor better so they spend more time on your site, or how can you help your visitor perform their transaction faster, so they spend less time on your site?

4. Geographical Traffic Sources – Are you getting to the countries that you want to target? If not, what factors can you change in your website configuration (hosting, domain, content, marketing) to make sure you be more prominent in the search engines for that country?

5. Top Content Pages – Which are the pages that are most viewed on your site? Look at the top 10 pages – what do they have in common, and how can you create more pages that are similar to the top 10?

6. Screen Resolutions and Web Browsers – What are the screen resolutions used by your visitors? Is the current design of your website catering well to these visitors, or do they have to scroll horizontally in order to view all your content? Are your visitors coming to your site through a mobile phone browser? If so, are you catering to that segment of visitors by offering a mobile version of your site?

When you have your analytics tracking code installed correctly to track events and virtual pageviews – that is where the fun comes because you can not only track which pages of your site gets visited and for how long, but also what your visitors do on each page (to a certain extent).

Remember, the inferences you draw from your analytics data and the decisions you make can make or break your site. Take time to answer these questions as you look at your analytics reports.

You see, web platforms like these are just… platforms. Platforms are useless without content. Having more blogs and forums for your web visitors to collaborate and connect and discuss is useful only when you HAVE sufficient visitors in the first place. Slideshows and videos are useful only when you have something to say, an experience to relate, or a story to tell. Content is and will always be king.

Follow the WHY -> WHO -> WHAT -> HOW method in your web assets creation strategy.

#1 Why

First and most importantly, WHY do you want to create a new web asset in the first place? Examine this. Will this really bring more profits to your company bottom line… or are you doing this because “XYZ company has it?”

#2 Who

You need to know WHO you are targeting. As they always say, targeting everyone is equivalent to targeting no one. Go niche. Identify the “ideal visitor”. Describe him with as much detail as possible. What does he do? Where does he live? When does he surf the net and end up on your site?

#3 What

Now that you have identified the WHO, you will decide WHAT kind of content appeals to him. Does he prefer videos, or text? How-to guides, or conceptual articles? Does he like to interact with others, or is he more of reader? What content can you present to him so he will take action?

#4 How

The HOW phase is only where the web platforms come in. If there is minimal need for interaction between visitors, don’t use a forum. If you want feedback and comments, use a blog. And if you just need a plain old information page with an enquiry form that emails you, a simple 3 page website can do the job faster, without fuzzing over plugins that don’t work or pulling your hair out over incompatibility issues.

… plus it’ll cost you cheaper.

Remember, technology is a tool. It is a means to an end. Listen and follow Stephen Covey’s principles – Begin with the end in mind.

Know your WHYs, WHOs and WHATs… and the HOWs becomes much easier for you to implement.

Soon, you’ll be able to point an Android phone at someone and have his name pop out (together with his favourite food, lifestyle habits, and how many girlfriends he’s juggling – photos included)

That’s Google’s mission – to organize the world’s information.

I must say, this is amazing technology.

Tags on this Blog

Tags on this blog started in the pre-WordPress-tag era, back in the days when the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin was the king of plugins – creating tags that linked directly to Technorati, so people doing tag-surfing would pop by your blog and check out what you’re publishing.

(Actually I wasn’t sure whether people actually surf based on tags… but uhm… tagging seems to be HOT those days)

Then, in WordPress 2.3, Matt and his team decided that WordPress should have tags built in! There was a mass migration from UTW’s tags into WordPress tags. At that time, the All in One SEO Pack plugin was either not yet invented, or more possibly, I was still aloof of the fact that the wonderful plugin exists. I was still using my tweaked template to add different meta descriptions and keywords to my posts.

So. Back then, each of my tags led to a page on its own, and since most of my tags were terribly messed up, most tags were used only once… which meant HORRIBLE internal content duplication within my blog! Yikes! (and worst still, erm… I didn’t realise this at that time!)

Luckily, AIO SEO appeared, and with the option to “no index” tag pages, I did so immediately. In fact, I “no index”-ed everything except my main page, pages, single posts, and category pages. Afterall, these pages contained all the information there is on this blog. Any more would risk content duplication if not managed well.

But the tagging continued as part of habit – whenever I blogged, I added tags. And more tags, and MORE tags.

So much so, when I looked at my tag cloud today, what I found was a tag thunderstorm.

My tags were not used consistently, I had misspellings of the “WordPress”, some tags were hyphenated, some had underscores, and then some had spaces… it was just a huge mess, and I found most of my tags were used only once… which meant that even if you clicked on the tags expecting to find more posts on the same tag, you will probably be disappointed.

So with the consideration that my tags do help me in my search listings today (they were kicked out of the index after I implemented AIO SEO!), I’ve decided to remove tags from all my posts. Yep, tags no more. Never really liked them, wasn’t good with them, and now no more use for them.

I’m not saying tags have no use. When implemented well, tags can essentially replace search. If you able to predict what your visitors search for, then you can create a tag for that, and lump in the posts that are related… and that takes a TON of discipline (which I obviously do not have).

So I’ll stick to my categories. And yes there is a difference between categories and tags.

Are you using your tags correctly? Or should you be cleaning up your blog too?

Here’s one checklist you should use.

Over on the Copyblogger blog, Jason Cohen shared his tips on writing more magnetic copy.

This list of 10 points is gold for any blogger or writer who wants to write better copy.

1. Don’t hedge – You don’t have to please everyone.
2. Repeat a phrase – Repetition gets things in your readers heads. Why’d think your math teacher asks you to do 100 sums for?
3. No passive voice – Active voice curbs flabby writing.
4. Brevity! – Write less.
5. Use short sentences.
6. Provoke, don’t solve – Your goal is to get your visitors to respond, not answer all obejections!
7. Eliminate trash adjectives – See point 4.
8. Be direct – Why go round in circles?
9. Tell a story – Stories sell. Period.
10. Write informally – If you are a human, be a human.

When writing copy, visualise writing to ONE person in your target audience, and focus on getting him to take action on your message.

How else do YOU learn to write better copy?

Over on the MompreneurAsia.com blog, Moon Loh has highlighted a few tips on how to be a successful work at home mum. While she specializes in Work at Home mums, I feel these tips are extremely useful for just about anyone who is looking to work from home in Singapore (or possibily just anywhere in the world).

Here are her tips:

1. Don’t give up – That’s the golden rule. You can fail, suffer from a burnout, tire yourself out, but NEVER ever give up.
2. Keep inspiration close by – Quotes work for some people, not for others. Personally, I listen and relisten to motivational seminars as often as I can, and look at photos that tell me why I am working for. This inspires me to get back on my feet.
3. Find a good example – The fastest way to success is to model after someone and do exactly what he or she does. Success leaves clues, and you need to be vigilant in spotting clues left by successful business owners.
4. Write down your goals – I have started doing this everyday, have you? Do you have goals in the first place? If not, go take time off and set some goals. My goals help me set priorities in today’s never-ending workday. It tells me what I MUST do today and what not.

These work from home pointers seem common sense but the question is “Are you DOING it?”

What other principles, tricks and tips do you have for work from home entrepreneurs?

Over on the Adwords blog today, Google announced the release of a new Free Adwords Online Classroom.

… (The) AdWords Online Classroom provides free online training, delivered by local AdWords experts, to help you achieve long-term advertising success with AdWords. Whether you’re new to AdWords and wish to learn the basics, or you’ve been with AdWords for a while and want to take your account to the next level, we offer a range of topics to suit your needs.

To participate, all you need is a computer with an internet connection and speakers or headphones.

Yes, its FREE. You know. Why pay “gurus” $197 for an ebook that they released 5 years ago, when you can get it free from the horse mouth?

In fact, when I signed up today, these were the courses already available – suitable for both “newbies” and advanced users! Frankly, even after over 2 years of using Adwords to drive traffic to my own clients’ sites, I feel I can still benefit from these courses!

Getting Started

• Create your account
• Get to know your account
• How to build a successful AdWords account
• Why can’t I see my ad?

Improving Your Account Performance

• Improve your AdWords performance with key tips
• Use AdWords data to strategically improve your account

Controlling Your Costs

• Maximize your advertising ROI with Conversion Optimizer

Analyzing Your AdWords Performance

1. Track your AdWords ROI using Google Analytics
2. Set up your Analytics account to track ROI
3. Track your AdWords ROI using Conversion Tracking
4. Get the most from your website with Website Optimiser

Expanding Your Reach & Focusing On Your Audience

1. Improve your Content Network performance
2. Reach more potential customers through the Google Content Network

Yes, and these are 100% free, and delivered through on demand video streaming! Just like how you watch videos thru YouTube.

In fact, here’s what it looks like.

Looks great isn’t it? What are you waiting for? Head on to the Google Adwords Online Classroom now!

This site looks great to average person, but digging further I “accidentally” found these text “hidden” in the header using H1 tags.

And these don’t only appear in the first page, but on almost every page on their site.

Gosh. I know Singapore Web Hosting is a very competitive industry… but are they trying too hard? Hiding text like that is definitely black hat SEO, isn’t it?

Let me know – would you lose trust in a site when you find sneaky text like that?

Well, stop worrying, stop analysing, stop being stressed.

Go build a link.

Yes, an incoming link.

There are tonnes of ways to do this:

1. Comment on someone’s blog
2. Write an article – submit it to Hubpages.
3. Write another article – submit it to eZineArticles.com
4. Submit a press release.
5. Answer someone’s question in Yahoo! answers.
6. Email webmasters. Ask for a link.
7. Write something interesting on your site. Tweet the URL out to your friends.
8. Participate in forums – change your forum signature to include your link.
9. Submit your site to directories.
10. Guest blog for someone.
11. Get your site listed in one of your local club’s website
12. Submit a WordPress theme / plugin
13. Submit a YouTube video
14. … the list goes on.

Remember, you can have the most beautiful site in the world, best ever sales copy that literally hypnotizes your visitors to empty their wallet with you, or the best email marketing and customer retention program in the world.

But without targeted traffic you will not have any sales. And traffic only comes from 3 places.

1. Referred Traffic – coming from the links to your site
2. Search Engine Traffic – and you get great search rankings largely based on number of links you have to your site.
3. Direct Traffic – either thru an offline campaign, or building (1) and (2) so successfully that people type your URL in right into the browser

Either way, you gotta start with building a link. Then another. And another.

Building valid, relevant and quality incoming links is the online visibility TRUMPCARD. And its going to be for some time.

Enough said.

Go build a link.