NetSprinter | PPC Advertising, Website Development, SEO Optimization blogs

How Not To Treat Your Prospects

Lyena — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 06:15:59 +0000

Customer Dissatisfaction and How To Avoid It

I got a third-party email for a free webinar the other day. I try to support sites I like by subscribing to their partners' email distribution. This seemed like a useful webinar and it would give me an opportunity to learn about a new company.

I signed up for the webinar, filled out all kinds of information about me and my company, got a confirmation screen that my request was waiting approval from the webinar organizer. I put the webinar on my calendar, and forgot about it.

When the webinar date came, I realized that I have no way of joining because nobody responded to me. I quickly went through the registration process again with the same result - nothing happened. I received no confirmation, no message saying, "sorry, but you are not good enough for us." Nothing.

Did I not pass the screening process? Did I register too late and all spaces were filled? Was there anyone watching the subscriptions? Was there actually a webinar?

So, what's the lesson here?

The Power of Good Enough - Part 2

Lyena — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:58:43 +0000

Focus On Your User And Take Over The World

In The Power of Good Enough - Part 1 I illustrated that if you have a product that people want or don't yet know they want, your product does not to be perfect to take over the market. It has to be good enough for people to try it, to discover how much they like it and tell you what it will take for the users to get addicted to your product.

In The Power of Good Enough - Part 2 I will tell you how small changes lead to big results, how simple questions produce incredible insights, and how you too can increase revenue from your website.

If your goal is world domination, let's get you there.

The Power of Good Enough - Part 1

Lyena — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:28:31 +0000

I have worked with web developers, I have managed web developers, and I understand web developers. One thing all web developers have in common - they are all perfectionists. They want to develop a perfect web site, with plenty of great features that are cool, useful and complex. And before the masterpiece is complete, they are not ready to release it into the real world. It has to be perfect.

These "Version 1.0" guys want to deliver a dream. Not surprisingly, nothing will be delivered without sales, marketing, product and project management if you leave it to web developers. Early on, these guys learn the lesson of "good enough".

Very often companies are not focused, trying to perfect everything, to fix all the bugs and unveil exactly what they promised and more. Unfortunately, these companies are as often late to market and off the mark. Theory is great, but practice still makes perfect. So today I am going to talk about the power of "good enough".

Web Site Design - Starting and Completing

Lyena — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:30:58 +0000

Tackling your web site design project

You have been saying for a while that you need to do something about your website. Finally, you are ready to get the project started, to hire someone to design your website. Great!

But why are you not feeling that great? And what does it really mean - "website design"? What is it that you want, specifically?

If you are like most people, what you want is to have a great website that does not take up a lot of your time and dominate the online market share in your field. That sounds reasonable. Is it any clearer to you what to do? Probably not.

If you still not sure where to start, let's start at the beginning - let's start with your goals. Do you know what your website goals are? Do you have your targets defined? How will you measure your website success?

Let's dissect the website design to understand it better.

Adwords Tools - Adword Editor

Lyena — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:06:26 +0000

Adwords Editor - Your Secret Weapon

If you manage your own Adwords campaigns, you are familiar with Adwords website. If you are a seasoned Adwords manager, you also know about Adwords secret weapon - Adwords Editor. If you are familiar with this free Google software application, check out more PPC advice articles. If you have not used Adwords Editor, listen up - Adwords Editor will change your life and make the management of your advertising campaigns quite enjoyable. It is one of the most beneficial Google Adwords tools available.

Adwords Editor Saves you Time and Gives you Stats

In a nutshell, Adwords Editor is a free Google application for managing your Google Adwords account. Regardless of the size of your account, you can save time if you use Google Adwords Editor to update your campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords, and then upload your changes to your Adwords account.

Proper Site Architecture

Lyena — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:42:20 +0000

Site Architecture in SEO

Your site architecture is the structure of your website; the way you organize your information. When building site architecture, the main focus is on your user, of course. However, website architecture is a critical component of SEO. To improve your SEO ranking, your site architecture needs to focus PageRank on the most important pages or the pages that generate the best profit margins.

Good website architecture helps search engines categorize your content. It also allows you to funnel link equity through your site. Inbound and outbound links on each page to support the hierarchical structure of a website promoting the most relevant pages to users. It also can strategically increase the value of most commercial pages.

Through proper site architecture you distribute the link authority throughout the website, starting from your home page. Your home page is most likely the most popular page on your website. Its link value (PageRank) is split between main navigation links and other links leading from the home page.

As you move deeper into your website, there is less and less link authority to go around. Think of it like a champagne pyramid - you pour one bottle of champagne into the top glass (your home page). Not all of the liquid will be distributed to the bottom layer of your glasses. To make sure one of the glasses important to you at the bottom of the pyramid gets filled, you could re-direct natural flow to go to that glass directly.

SEO: Top 5 Reasons Why Not to Do It

Lyena — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 01:58:07 +0000

I get it - you want your site to be #1 on all search results pages, you want to get great SEO ranking on your website and be exceptional in your SEO marketing. Right? Everybody wants that.

But what does it actually mean to you to be on page 1 of Google Search results? Do you just want to increase your website traffic or do you need more sales, more leads, more website inquiries?

In other words, is your website a good candidate for SEO optimization?

First, ask yourself a couple of questions:

- Are you exceptional at converting traffic that already comes to your website?
- Do people know what to do once they land on your website?
- Do they already buy your product, ask you questions, comment on your posts, sign up for your newsletter, send you emails, etc?

If the answer is "no", you need to optimize your website first and only then think about SEO. The reason is that you are not ready for new traffic; you need to do better at selling these visitors your services.

Still want to optimize for search engines?

Here are top 5 reasons why you shouldn't SEO

How Much Website Traffic do you Need to Make Money?

Lyena — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:42:13 +0000

Your website is up and running, search engines found you and indexed your pages, and you got your fist visitor. The question is, how many visitors you need to make money? In this video I explain, how to calculate your estimated monthly traffic to achieve your goal. I used an example of a search engine traffic (and only a search engine traffic). In real life, you will have many sources of traffic - hopefully. My intention is to illustrate how to make projections for your website success.

Online Reviews, Social Media and Friends - Why You Should Care

Lyena — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:05:24 +0000

People love to share their opinions. The most likely audience is their friends. Social media makes it easier to share opinions with your friends. People love to share their opinions (reviews) about things they buy. Surprisingly, most of the reviews are positive. Their friends are 3 times more likely to trust their friend's review than a professional reviewer. Can you imagine how little trust they put in an ad? To win consumer loyalty all you need to do is please your fans and hope they spread the word about your fantastic product. You need to listen to that word being spread and find ways to improve your already fantastic product to win even more fans. This is the point of any business success anyway, isn't it? Social Media just makes it so much easier for a business owner to succeed.

Move a website to a new host

Lyena — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:39:40 +0000

Moving your website to a new host is not complicated. One important thing to remember is to do it all at once. If you let the process linger, the old site will not match new one anymore. For a small site, allocate about 3 hours of uninterrupted time and get going. Here is your checklist.

Step 1: Prepare you old site for transfer

Sign up for a hosting plan from the new host. Make sure that the plan matches your old plan: if you hosted your site on Linux, sign up for a Linux plan. Be prepared for your old and new hosting to overlap for a month.
Use FTP program (Filezilla, for example) to log into your old account. Your old host should have sent you a username and password when you registered. If you do not remember your FTP login information, create a new FTP user through the old host's site.
Find the folder with your website files and copy the whole folder onto your computer to a new folder. Let's name it My Site.
Go the database manager (PHP Admin, most likely) through you old host's web interface and export your website database(s) in zip format.

To SEO or Not to SEO? Question of the century.

Lyena — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:52:58 +0000

With internet rapidly growing and most companies realizing the power of internet presence, we are questioning SEO once more. Should all of us optimize for the search engines? Is it really important to fine-tune your website if everyone knows who you are? You are already a trusted authority and people flock to your website, should you stop optimization? What are the reasons NOT to optimize for search engines?

Nate Moller raised this question in his blog post Is There Ever an End to SEO? He asked the following question of authorities in the field as well as his readers:
At some point can’t we just STOP the SEO consulting and rely on word of mouth and viral marketing to keep us in the top of the SERP’s?

The answers are very thought provoking. Read the post to see what the experts are saying.

Selecting Website Hosting Service (ISP)

Lyena — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:58:58 +0000

There are hundreds of hosting services that will host your website for a fee. Selecting a website hosting service (ISP) depends on your business needs. Ask yourself the following questions:

Adding your business to Google Maps

Lyena — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:50:52 +0000

Ok, I get it - you do not have resources to hire a website developer or marketer. Yes, it costs money and effort and requires strategy and execution and more money. But there are several things you can do for free. One of them is adding your business to Google maps. It is not complicated. You just have to be prepared. You will be asked for the business name, address, phone number, description, etc. Work on the description part - make it appealing to your potential customers. If you have pictures to include, make sure they are professional (good resolution, nice setting). You are allowed to add up to 10 photos. You can choose to include photos from the web (make sure they are yours!) or from your computer. Make sure you read guidelines for photo upload. Pictures should be square and the right size otherwise they will look crooked, stretched or weird. Have your business information ready. Be prepared to fill out your business hours, credit cards you take, additional information, like if parking is available.

Social Media Revolution

Lyena — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:18:09 +0000

Social media is a reality and it is not possible to ignore it anymore. While most small businesses cling to their proven sources of reaching out to their customer, smart business owners explore the world of Social Media. If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you need to be incorporating Social Media into your marketing plan. It will require a lot of time, effort and dedication, but remember - that's where your customers are spending their time. They are no longer looking for products and services. They are expecting the products and services delivered to them or recommended by friends. Social media revolution is upon us.

Social Media is where your customers are. Are you?

Lyena — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:18:12 +0000

Social media became The Place to be in the past year. Americans spend 80% more time on networking sites in the past year alone, according to researchers. What does it mean to you? It means that your customers spend a lot less time on non-networking websites - websites like yours. If you owned your business for a while, you have been around the block. You know, that being where your customers are is vital for your business survival. On the internet, the same principle applies. But don't rush to join all the networking sites and don't start pounding people with sale offers and coupons. People hate that. Instead, have a plan.