Many Search Engine Optimization experts have used Long Tail Keywords and basically what they are, are search phrases consisting of several words. A simple example of this would be if a general keyword were ‘SEO’ then the long tail keyword phrase would be ‘How to incorporate SEO’.
Experts say that the reason behind using long tail keywords on a website is that your marketing is more effective. This is achieved through the ability of targeting specific markets. When searching for a particular topic it is more likely that searches will type in a short keyword of one or two words. However, by typing in long tail key phrases, one is able to get more specific and relevant results. This will drive these visitors to click on your website as they know precisely that your sites content contains the information they require.
Another great advantage of using longtail keywords is that there is less competition for your phrases. Most online businesses in your field will more likely use one worded keywords during search engine optimization which ultimately benefits you. However, do not fully rely on this. It is always best you do Keyword Research for long tail phrases just as you would do for keywords. This can take time but is vital.
The Long Tail Of SEO
Targeting traffic through SEO begins with keywords and key phrases, which gives you better ranking. Top ranking cannot however be achieved by all websites and it usually takes strategy and time and sometimes lots of money. In Search Engine Optimization, long tail keywords are very useful even if they generate fewer searches but receive sufficient traffic. They will not always guarantee high ranking, which is what you hope to achieve through Search Engine Optimization but you will get a good traffic flow to your website.
The best ways that long tail keywords can be incorporated onto your website so that your Search Engine Optimization can be effective is by including it in the page title and tags. Also ensure that these long tail phrases are used abundantly throughout your websites content but do not overcrowd it – all key phrases should be relevant and befitting.
Longtail Keywords Research
Selecting appropriate keywords on its own and trying to decipher what searchers are looking for is a hard enough task that requires great research. When choosing long tail keyword, in order to gain great profits, research is too required.
How one goes about researching potential long tail keywords is by using the following tools. Start by employing free services such as Wordtracker and Google’s free keyword aid. Look specifically for long tail Niche Keywords that receive ok traffic and have low competition but use quality phrases that you know people will actually search for. Little competition means that you have a better chance of entering into your niche market and although long tail key phrases is not going to instantly make you a millionaire it will get your foot in the door.
ReaD More...
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
How to Start SEO and Increase Web Traffic - Using Keywords
Submissions & Keywords
Many small business owners know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps generate traffic to their websites. They even know that they need to start doing it for their own website. But how?
You can always hire someone to do optimization for you but what if you don't have the budget for it? What if you want to do something yourself? Below are some basic tips of how to get started. Unfortunately, SEO takes time, spanning weeks and months. It's something you have to keep working at. Some of these tips will get you started but some should be worked on every week. Set aside an hour or two each week on your calendar. Pick a day you know won't be filled with constant interruptions, maybe even on a weekend.
If your website is up and running you need to make sure you have the following in place. Some may have already been done by your web designer so check with him or her first so you don't duplicate steps.
1. Submit your Web site name to Google, Yahoo Search and MSN
2. Submit to directories DMOZ, Yahoo Directory (Yahoo requires a fee)
There are many ways to increase your traffic and get the search engines to give you better placement, for now I will stick to the essentials.
Keywords
Keywords are used to categorize your site by search engines. Then the search engines share your site when those words or phrases are searched. You want to make sure you are using the right keywords on your site's copy and in its meta tags. Meta Tags are a a few lines of html code that explain your site's title, description and keywords to the search engines.
First you need to figure out which keywords or keyword phrases are relevant to your business and searched often by people. Many you may be able to guess. Think about what you would type into Google if you were going to look for your products or services. Start creating a list of these words and phrases.
If your site has been up for a while and gets a regular stream of traffic you can use the traffic reports from your site. Better yet use an analytics tool, some are free like Google Analytics, to see what keywords are bringing in the most traffic for your site. Setting it up is easy. You sign up with Google and it gives you a tracking code. Then either you or your web designer just need to paste the code into the website. If you have access to a content management system or are using a system like Wordpress this shouldn't be too hard. Just follow Google's instructions. Once active see what keywords bring in the most traffic.
Another way is to use Google AdWords' new Search-based Keyword Tool (also free). After you sign up with Google and sign-in you can type in your Website address, add a few words that you think would work and Google will give you more suggestions. They will also tell you how many people search for those words per month, if your competition is buying those words for search engine marketing (SEM, or paid search marketing) advertising and how much it costs.This is helpful to determine what will work for you.
Since you are a small business you may not be able to compete with large companies that are always optimizing their site's keywords and appear at the top of searches for popular phrases. Instead you want to find your niche, an area that isn't extremely popular or competitive and then you want to be strong with those keywords.
Look for words that have:
* A high volume of searches on it
* A high relevance to your site
* Low competition
Add these words to your list, to the copy on your site and to your meta tags to help optimize it for search engines. This will help build traffic. Remember it takes time for you to do all of this and time before the search engines go through all your new keywords, sometimes a few months. So be patient. But remember you'll save in the end by not having to pay someone.
Read More..
Many small business owners know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps generate traffic to their websites. They even know that they need to start doing it for their own website. But how?
You can always hire someone to do optimization for you but what if you don't have the budget for it? What if you want to do something yourself? Below are some basic tips of how to get started. Unfortunately, SEO takes time, spanning weeks and months. It's something you have to keep working at. Some of these tips will get you started but some should be worked on every week. Set aside an hour or two each week on your calendar. Pick a day you know won't be filled with constant interruptions, maybe even on a weekend.
If your website is up and running you need to make sure you have the following in place. Some may have already been done by your web designer so check with him or her first so you don't duplicate steps.
1. Submit your Web site name to Google, Yahoo Search and MSN
2. Submit to directories DMOZ, Yahoo Directory (Yahoo requires a fee)
There are many ways to increase your traffic and get the search engines to give you better placement, for now I will stick to the essentials.
Keywords
Keywords are used to categorize your site by search engines. Then the search engines share your site when those words or phrases are searched. You want to make sure you are using the right keywords on your site's copy and in its meta tags. Meta Tags are a a few lines of html code that explain your site's title, description and keywords to the search engines.
First you need to figure out which keywords or keyword phrases are relevant to your business and searched often by people. Many you may be able to guess. Think about what you would type into Google if you were going to look for your products or services. Start creating a list of these words and phrases.
If your site has been up for a while and gets a regular stream of traffic you can use the traffic reports from your site. Better yet use an analytics tool, some are free like Google Analytics, to see what keywords are bringing in the most traffic for your site. Setting it up is easy. You sign up with Google and it gives you a tracking code. Then either you or your web designer just need to paste the code into the website. If you have access to a content management system or are using a system like Wordpress this shouldn't be too hard. Just follow Google's instructions. Once active see what keywords bring in the most traffic.
Another way is to use Google AdWords' new Search-based Keyword Tool (also free). After you sign up with Google and sign-in you can type in your Website address, add a few words that you think would work and Google will give you more suggestions. They will also tell you how many people search for those words per month, if your competition is buying those words for search engine marketing (SEM, or paid search marketing) advertising and how much it costs.This is helpful to determine what will work for you.
Since you are a small business you may not be able to compete with large companies that are always optimizing their site's keywords and appear at the top of searches for popular phrases. Instead you want to find your niche, an area that isn't extremely popular or competitive and then you want to be strong with those keywords.
Look for words that have:
* A high volume of searches on it
* A high relevance to your site
* Low competition
Add these words to your list, to the copy on your site and to your meta tags to help optimize it for search engines. This will help build traffic. Remember it takes time for you to do all of this and time before the search engines go through all your new keywords, sometimes a few months. So be patient. But remember you'll save in the end by not having to pay someone.
Read More..
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
10 Ways to Use Facebook for Increasing Web Traffic to Your Site
1. Build a Facebook network. Before you start implementing any of the techniques discussed here, you need to develop a network of Facebook friends. To do that, join a few groups that are related to your business and a few groups that you are passionate about.
Ask people in the groups to add you as their friend. Facebook also has nifty tool that suggest people you would like to know. Send request to these people to add you as their friend. Send a short note explaining why you want to be their friend. If send 20 requests a day, you will have a network of more than 1,000 friends in two months.
2. Update your status every day. Login every day and update your status. Don’t use status messages like “I am sleeping now”, “Just came from work”. These types of status messages are not interesting. Use quotes from famous people about a specific niche, for example love, dedication, work ethics, peace, war, etc. You can also use jokes. Your aim is to draw people’s attention to your messages so that they would click on your profile to know more about you.
3. Wish birthday wishes everyday. Facebook also shows upcoming birthdays of all friends in your network. Every day send birthday wishes to friends whose birthdays are due. Read their profiles to know more about them and write a nice personal message on their walls. Don’t use canned birthday messages for everybody.
When you write on a friend’s wall in Facebook, everybody in the network gets updated news feed. You need to write something that get attention. You may craft a 10 to 20 attention grabbing birthday messages and than personalize them slightly for each friend.
4. Create a business page. Besides your personal page, you should also create a business page. Creating a business page is similar to creating a personal page in Facebook. Design a nice logo and use it for your business page picture.
Next, become a fan of your business page. You can use your business page to launch targeted Facebook ad campaign. Promote your Facebook business page using blogs, blog comments, etc. and ask people to become a fan of your business. Use some promotional materials, like free t-shirts, free eBooks etc as incentives for becoming a fan.
5. Tag promotional photos using friends’ names. Upload all promotional photos to your business page. Some people tag these photos with the names of their most influential friends in the network. Your promotional photos will show up in your friends’ news feeds. Once you setup a network of friends, make a list of friends with high number of friends, preferably more than 1000. Setup your mini network to tag each others names in promotional photos.
6. Change your relationship status regularly if it is possible. One of the least frequent activity in Facebook is changing the relationship. Because people don’t change their relationship frequently, Facebook places a great deal of importance to relationship change and send the news feeds to everybody in your network whenever there is a change in your relationship status.
People have explored this loop hole to attract attention to their profiles. They change their relationship almost weekly and try to attract visitors to their profiles. It is up to you to adopt this technique because it may not reflect your true relationship status. If you do adopt this technique, don’t forget to publish some promotional materials in your personal feed.
7. Attend Multiple Events. True to its college root, Facebook is all about friends gathering at some place for an event. Facebook gives high priority to events in the news feed. Your goal is to RSVP all the events in your network even if you miss a few of them.
When your friends see you as a frequent event attendee, they consider you as an event resource. The trick is to show your name in all the places you can. As your friends see your name multiple times, some will be curious to check your profile.
8. Import your blog post. If you have a blog, import your blog’s RSS feed into Facebook. Facebook will publish the articles in the feed as Facebook notes automatically. Encourage your friends to comments on your articles in Facebook notes. You can also tag friends in the articles but don’t overdo it.
9. Post comments on popular groups. Visit popular Facebook groups that you have joined regularly and post comments. Just like blog comments or forum posting, Facebook comments on popular groups will attract attention to your name and profile. Add something valuable or post a link that adds value to the topic under discussions.
10. Start your own events. Events are very popular in Facebook and if you can promote it properly, it will have viral effects and thousands will register for the event. Send invitation to your network friends who have thousands of friends in their networks and also to attractive female friends in your network who may not have a large number of friends.
Read More...
Ask people in the groups to add you as their friend. Facebook also has nifty tool that suggest people you would like to know. Send request to these people to add you as their friend. Send a short note explaining why you want to be their friend. If send 20 requests a day, you will have a network of more than 1,000 friends in two months.
2. Update your status every day. Login every day and update your status. Don’t use status messages like “I am sleeping now”, “Just came from work”. These types of status messages are not interesting. Use quotes from famous people about a specific niche, for example love, dedication, work ethics, peace, war, etc. You can also use jokes. Your aim is to draw people’s attention to your messages so that they would click on your profile to know more about you.
3. Wish birthday wishes everyday. Facebook also shows upcoming birthdays of all friends in your network. Every day send birthday wishes to friends whose birthdays are due. Read their profiles to know more about them and write a nice personal message on their walls. Don’t use canned birthday messages for everybody.
When you write on a friend’s wall in Facebook, everybody in the network gets updated news feed. You need to write something that get attention. You may craft a 10 to 20 attention grabbing birthday messages and than personalize them slightly for each friend.
4. Create a business page. Besides your personal page, you should also create a business page. Creating a business page is similar to creating a personal page in Facebook. Design a nice logo and use it for your business page picture.
Next, become a fan of your business page. You can use your business page to launch targeted Facebook ad campaign. Promote your Facebook business page using blogs, blog comments, etc. and ask people to become a fan of your business. Use some promotional materials, like free t-shirts, free eBooks etc as incentives for becoming a fan.
5. Tag promotional photos using friends’ names. Upload all promotional photos to your business page. Some people tag these photos with the names of their most influential friends in the network. Your promotional photos will show up in your friends’ news feeds. Once you setup a network of friends, make a list of friends with high number of friends, preferably more than 1000. Setup your mini network to tag each others names in promotional photos.
6. Change your relationship status regularly if it is possible. One of the least frequent activity in Facebook is changing the relationship. Because people don’t change their relationship frequently, Facebook places a great deal of importance to relationship change and send the news feeds to everybody in your network whenever there is a change in your relationship status.
People have explored this loop hole to attract attention to their profiles. They change their relationship almost weekly and try to attract visitors to their profiles. It is up to you to adopt this technique because it may not reflect your true relationship status. If you do adopt this technique, don’t forget to publish some promotional materials in your personal feed.
7. Attend Multiple Events. True to its college root, Facebook is all about friends gathering at some place for an event. Facebook gives high priority to events in the news feed. Your goal is to RSVP all the events in your network even if you miss a few of them.
When your friends see you as a frequent event attendee, they consider you as an event resource. The trick is to show your name in all the places you can. As your friends see your name multiple times, some will be curious to check your profile.
8. Import your blog post. If you have a blog, import your blog’s RSS feed into Facebook. Facebook will publish the articles in the feed as Facebook notes automatically. Encourage your friends to comments on your articles in Facebook notes. You can also tag friends in the articles but don’t overdo it.
9. Post comments on popular groups. Visit popular Facebook groups that you have joined regularly and post comments. Just like blog comments or forum posting, Facebook comments on popular groups will attract attention to your name and profile. Add something valuable or post a link that adds value to the topic under discussions.
10. Start your own events. Events are very popular in Facebook and if you can promote it properly, it will have viral effects and thousands will register for the event. Send invitation to your network friends who have thousands of friends in their networks and also to attractive female friends in your network who may not have a large number of friends.
Read More...
Monday, January 26, 2009
11 FREE Ways How To Explode Your Website Traffic Hit Counter
1) Start an affiliate program. Its the #1 way how to get high quality traffic to your website. Almost every successful online business has an affiliate program.
2) Build an opt in list. This is the most important factor of any internet business. With an opt in list you can get massive high-quality traffic to any website instantly. Every successful internet marketer has an opt in list. Learn how to build a massive opt in list by sending a blank email to affila@aweber.com
3) Use a tool such as Traffic Equalizer. This tool instantly creates thousands of search engine friendly pages for your website. Each page is targeted for one keyphrase and gets traffic from search engines. Get the tool at trafficequalizer.com
4) Write articles and submit them to article directories and ezine publishers. Collect a list of ezine publishers and submit your articles to them. Also submit your articles to article directories.
5) Exchange links with other websites. Exchanging links with hundreds of other websites can bring heavy traffic to your website. You can exchange links very fast using ARELIS link exchange tool at axandra-link-popularity-tool.com
6) Create a brandable viral ebook that promotes your website. Give this ebook to marketers with large opt in lists. Let them customize it with their affiliate links that point to your website and give it away to their subscribers for free. This will bring steady, non stop traffic to your website.
7) Submit your website to directories and other websites that accept submissions. You can find such websites by visiting search engine such as Google, and searching for add url your keywords, add site your keywords, your keywords directory. There are hundreds of other variations you can search for.
8) Post at forums. Participate in forum discussions and leave a link to your website in your signature line. Make the title of the link catchy by stating a benefit to get more people click on it.
9) Go to http://www.affila.com/ and learn about website traffic and opt in list building methods that work today. Visit the website and use your first name and email to subscribe to the course that it offers.
10) Make your website viral. In your website offer content that literally forces your visitors to tell their friends about your website. Add tell-a-friend functionality to your website. An excellent example of viral website is http://www.themeatrix.com. This website gets tons of viral traffic.
11) Write testimonials. Write testimonials for products that you like and that you have used. If youre lucky, your testimonial can be on the product sales page that has hundreds of visitors every day. That would mean your website link in testimonial clicked many times.
Read More...
2) Build an opt in list. This is the most important factor of any internet business. With an opt in list you can get massive high-quality traffic to any website instantly. Every successful internet marketer has an opt in list. Learn how to build a massive opt in list by sending a blank email to affila@aweber.com
3) Use a tool such as Traffic Equalizer. This tool instantly creates thousands of search engine friendly pages for your website. Each page is targeted for one keyphrase and gets traffic from search engines. Get the tool at trafficequalizer.com
4) Write articles and submit them to article directories and ezine publishers. Collect a list of ezine publishers and submit your articles to them. Also submit your articles to article directories.
5) Exchange links with other websites. Exchanging links with hundreds of other websites can bring heavy traffic to your website. You can exchange links very fast using ARELIS link exchange tool at axandra-link-popularity-tool.com
6) Create a brandable viral ebook that promotes your website. Give this ebook to marketers with large opt in lists. Let them customize it with their affiliate links that point to your website and give it away to their subscribers for free. This will bring steady, non stop traffic to your website.
7) Submit your website to directories and other websites that accept submissions. You can find such websites by visiting search engine such as Google, and searching for add url your keywords, add site your keywords, your keywords directory. There are hundreds of other variations you can search for.
8) Post at forums. Participate in forum discussions and leave a link to your website in your signature line. Make the title of the link catchy by stating a benefit to get more people click on it.
9) Go to http://www.affila.com/ and learn about website traffic and opt in list building methods that work today. Visit the website and use your first name and email to subscribe to the course that it offers.
10) Make your website viral. In your website offer content that literally forces your visitors to tell their friends about your website. Add tell-a-friend functionality to your website. An excellent example of viral website is http://www.themeatrix.com. This website gets tons of viral traffic.
11) Write testimonials. Write testimonials for products that you like and that you have used. If youre lucky, your testimonial can be on the product sales page that has hundreds of visitors every day. That would mean your website link in testimonial clicked many times.
Read More...
Search Engine Optimization SEO Ranking for 5 Proven Ways to Find Link Exchange Partners
If you're like most small business websites on the internet today, you use link exchanges to market your website. But sometimes finding websites to exchange links with can be a time consuming task. Here are a few proven methods for finding websites to exchange links with.
1: Search Engines Queries
Using Google or Yahoo, perform the following searches, replacing “keyword” with a keyword related to your site.
Keyword add URL
Keyword add site
Keyword add link
Keyword submit URL
Keyword submit site
Keyword submit link
Keyword link exchange
Keyword link swap
Keyword reciprocal link
Keyword related sites
Keyword links directory
2: Find out who's linking to your competitor's.
If you can find out who is linking to your competitors, you can try to acquire a link to your site ob each site that already links to your competitors. Just search for link:http://www.competitors-url-here.com
3: Other link directories
Find sites that relate to your site that have link exchange directories. Visit each site in their link directories and attempt to exchange links with each site.
4: Link exchange tools
There are several excellent websites that match webmasters with related sites that are interested in exchanging links. Two of the best are Link alizer and Site Sell’s Value Exchange. In general, you'll want to stay away from sites that completely automate the link exchange process. I have used some of them, but the search engines do not like these sites, and may penalize your site if you use them.
5: Software
There is also software available that searches for and automatically emails sites to see if they will link exchange with you. I have used and like higradeworld if you decide to use this method, ensure that you comply with all spam laws and the search engine's guidelines.
Read More...
1: Search Engines Queries
Using Google or Yahoo, perform the following searches, replacing “keyword” with a keyword related to your site.
Keyword add URL
Keyword add site
Keyword add link
Keyword submit URL
Keyword submit site
Keyword submit link
Keyword link exchange
Keyword link swap
Keyword reciprocal link
Keyword related sites
Keyword links directory
2: Find out who's linking to your competitor's.
If you can find out who is linking to your competitors, you can try to acquire a link to your site ob each site that already links to your competitors. Just search for link:http://www.competitors-url-here.com
3: Other link directories
Find sites that relate to your site that have link exchange directories. Visit each site in their link directories and attempt to exchange links with each site.
4: Link exchange tools
There are several excellent websites that match webmasters with related sites that are interested in exchanging links. Two of the best are Link alizer and Site Sell’s Value Exchange. In general, you'll want to stay away from sites that completely automate the link exchange process. I have used some of them, but the search engines do not like these sites, and may penalize your site if you use them.
5: Software
There is also software available that searches for and automatically emails sites to see if they will link exchange with you. I have used and like higradeworld if you decide to use this method, ensure that you comply with all spam laws and the search engine's guidelines.
Read More...
Sunday, January 25, 2009
12 Useful Online Marketing Resources for Small Business Owners - A self check
In this post small business owners can find list of Webmaster resources and tools that can help to track and improve existing SEO work performed in Business website or Blog
But don’t forget to leave SEO work to experts :) and suggest your thoughts on your type of business and customers using below Webmaster resources and tools
(1) Google Webmaster Tools to improve traffic
(2) Analyze your visitors, search engine visibility and keyword search through Google Analytics
(3) Find pages that link to your site and competitor site using Site Explorer
(4) Track search engine result placement for your keyword and URL
(5) Check your web page in different screen resolutions
(6) Type out your domain or keywords in search box to find relationship between linking sites and topics, a Visual Meta search engine
(7) Check you site load time and fix if it is too slow. This will help search engine spiders to crawl easily
(8) Find out how search engine spiders look at your site
(9) Find how your website is targeted in local search engines
(10) Find insight of your website keyword search terms and location; target your business accordingly
(11) Get quick traffic and cost estimates on your keywords for sponsored listings
(12) Measure your ROI from SEO, PPC and conversion rate optimization
The above Online marketing resources and tools are easy to use by Small Business Owners and using this you can support web site promotion work performed by an individual or SEO company.
But don’t forget to leave SEO work to experts :) and suggest your thoughts on your type of business and customers using below Webmaster resources and tools
(1) Google Webmaster Tools to improve traffic
(2) Analyze your visitors, search engine visibility and keyword search through Google Analytics
(3) Find pages that link to your site and competitor site using Site Explorer
(4) Track search engine result placement for your keyword and URL
(5) Check your web page in different screen resolutions
(6) Type out your domain or keywords in search box to find relationship between linking sites and topics, a Visual Meta search engine
(7) Check you site load time and fix if it is too slow. This will help search engine spiders to crawl easily
(8) Find out how search engine spiders look at your site
(9) Find how your website is targeted in local search engines
(10) Find insight of your website keyword search terms and location; target your business accordingly
(11) Get quick traffic and cost estimates on your keywords for sponsored listings
(12) Measure your ROI from SEO, PPC and conversion rate optimization
The above Online marketing resources and tools are easy to use by Small Business Owners and using this you can support web site promotion work performed by an individual or SEO company.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The 7 Best Ways To Get Traffic
There is a myth that traffic is hard to get. It is not. Traffic is traffic. It is just a click on a computer. However, good web traffic is hard to get, good web traffic that has a fair proportion of credit card wielding, want what you have got, eager buyers, well that's another story. Here are my top 7 ways to attract some of those eager beavers over to your place:
1. Advertise - No surprises here, but the opportunities on the net are pretty much limitless. Get some expert help if you don't know what you're doing, but Google Adwords is a great place to start.
Then there's banner advertising, classified ads, ads on blog networks, ads on individual sites and blogs, offline advertising in newspapers and magazines, ebay classifieds, trust me, I could on and on. This is another good place to start your advertising campaign.
The important thing to remember when buying advertising is to 'buy relevant' i.e. it is far better to have 1 visitor who wants what you have against 100 visitors who just drift on by, without so much as clicking on one of your 'call to actions' (such as your newsletter sign up, buy button etc.)
2. Buy traffic - Yep, you can buy traffic. 100,000 visitors for so much. Buyer beware. Pop under traffic needs specific offers to make it work and a lot of other 'network' traffic is a lot of rubbish.
As always, when purchasing traffic or advertising, make sure that you have adequate tracking codes in place to make sure you know where your visitors and revenue are coming from (otherwise you will make some bad judgment calls later on).
The other big tip is to buy small and test. Then if it works and only then, scale up. Last word of advice (I promise): Visitor numbers are vanity, profit is sanity.
3. Forums, comments, articles, Press releases, newsletters, tell a friend - I think I've covered most of these options elsewhere but do not underestimate the power of these strategies.
If you have Google Analytics or Fruity Plugins installed you will soon see where your traffic is coming from. One well placed forum post can do wonders for your sagging washing line of a visitor graph! Get someone to sign up to your weekly newsletter and you've got 52 opportunities to get them back to your site.
Give them a reason to do so. Don't forget one of my personal favorites, the tell a friend option. Do you have one on your site?
4. Buy existing website - Too simple really. Buy an existing web-site or a recently expired domain. Make sure they have PR, back links and existing visitors. Then either add a mini site with a link to your target site or put a 301 (permanent redirect) to your target site.
5. Recruit the best SEO expertise you can afford - Search engine optimization is a maze. A big one. Unless you're going to make a career out of it, hire someone in. It will be a heap cheaper in the long run, especially when you put your learning and 'making mistakes' time, along with the lost opportunity costs into the overall equation.
6. Build and or join a blog network - Yep, they are out there. The long way is to build your own, effectively a group of niche related blogs, all making incestuous link love to each other. Their sole purpose in life is to target your 'money site'.
Shorter routes including a buying a blog network and or joining a group of like minded blog owners, who will happily swap semi automated posts with each other.
7. Distribute link bait - This is very powerful and when done right will create riches from rags. The simple concept is to create (or buy) an ebook or piece of software that other people are then incentivized to distribute on your behalf, usually through an affiliate scheme such as Clickbank or the like.
Read More...
1. Advertise - No surprises here, but the opportunities on the net are pretty much limitless. Get some expert help if you don't know what you're doing, but Google Adwords is a great place to start.
Then there's banner advertising, classified ads, ads on blog networks, ads on individual sites and blogs, offline advertising in newspapers and magazines, ebay classifieds, trust me, I could on and on. This is another good place to start your advertising campaign.
The important thing to remember when buying advertising is to 'buy relevant' i.e. it is far better to have 1 visitor who wants what you have against 100 visitors who just drift on by, without so much as clicking on one of your 'call to actions' (such as your newsletter sign up, buy button etc.)
2. Buy traffic - Yep, you can buy traffic. 100,000 visitors for so much. Buyer beware. Pop under traffic needs specific offers to make it work and a lot of other 'network' traffic is a lot of rubbish.
As always, when purchasing traffic or advertising, make sure that you have adequate tracking codes in place to make sure you know where your visitors and revenue are coming from (otherwise you will make some bad judgment calls later on).
The other big tip is to buy small and test. Then if it works and only then, scale up. Last word of advice (I promise): Visitor numbers are vanity, profit is sanity.
3. Forums, comments, articles, Press releases, newsletters, tell a friend - I think I've covered most of these options elsewhere but do not underestimate the power of these strategies.
If you have Google Analytics or Fruity Plugins installed you will soon see where your traffic is coming from. One well placed forum post can do wonders for your sagging washing line of a visitor graph! Get someone to sign up to your weekly newsletter and you've got 52 opportunities to get them back to your site.
Give them a reason to do so. Don't forget one of my personal favorites, the tell a friend option. Do you have one on your site?
4. Buy existing website - Too simple really. Buy an existing web-site or a recently expired domain. Make sure they have PR, back links and existing visitors. Then either add a mini site with a link to your target site or put a 301 (permanent redirect) to your target site.
5. Recruit the best SEO expertise you can afford - Search engine optimization is a maze. A big one. Unless you're going to make a career out of it, hire someone in. It will be a heap cheaper in the long run, especially when you put your learning and 'making mistakes' time, along with the lost opportunity costs into the overall equation.
6. Build and or join a blog network - Yep, they are out there. The long way is to build your own, effectively a group of niche related blogs, all making incestuous link love to each other. Their sole purpose in life is to target your 'money site'.
Shorter routes including a buying a blog network and or joining a group of like minded blog owners, who will happily swap semi automated posts with each other.
7. Distribute link bait - This is very powerful and when done right will create riches from rags. The simple concept is to create (or buy) an ebook or piece of software that other people are then incentivized to distribute on your behalf, usually through an affiliate scheme such as Clickbank or the like.
Read More...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Search Engine Optimization For Internet Videos
Research firm Forrester has taken a look at the state of search engine optimization of Internet videos, and have found that less than 20% of marketers insert keywords into the filenames of the videos on their site, and even fewer use more advanced tactics like writing keyword-rich captions and annotations, or creating online video libraries.
“If you’re not optimizing your videos, you should start,” says Forrester’s Nate Elliot. “Optimizing video content to take advantage of blended search is by far the easiest way to get a first-page organic ranking on Google.”
Here are the steps that Forrester recommends:
- Insert keywords into your video filenames.
- Host your videos on YouTube, and embed those YouTube videos into your own site. - Google says its algorithms consider how many times a video is viewed, and any views embedded videos receive on your own site get added to the ‘views’ tally on YouTube. (And yes, nearly every video we saw Google blend into its results came from YouTube.)
- Optimize your YouTube videos by writing keywords into your videos’ titles, descriptions, and tags.
- Embed videos into relevant text pages on your site. The context provided by the text on those pages (which is hopefully already optimized for search as well) will help the search engines figure out what your videos are about.
- Also create a video library on your site, so Google knows where to find your video content. (Google Video Sitemaps can help with this too.) Write keyword-rich annotations for each video in the library.
In addition to the suggestions Forrester offers, you should consider using keywords related to your video within the video itself. Some search engines are beginning to index the audio of your videos - so including your keywords in your script may help you optimize your videos for future search engine technology.
Read More...
“If you’re not optimizing your videos, you should start,” says Forrester’s Nate Elliot. “Optimizing video content to take advantage of blended search is by far the easiest way to get a first-page organic ranking on Google.”
Here are the steps that Forrester recommends:
- Insert keywords into your video filenames.
- Host your videos on YouTube, and embed those YouTube videos into your own site. - Google says its algorithms consider how many times a video is viewed, and any views embedded videos receive on your own site get added to the ‘views’ tally on YouTube. (And yes, nearly every video we saw Google blend into its results came from YouTube.)
- Optimize your YouTube videos by writing keywords into your videos’ titles, descriptions, and tags.
- Embed videos into relevant text pages on your site. The context provided by the text on those pages (which is hopefully already optimized for search as well) will help the search engines figure out what your videos are about.
- Also create a video library on your site, so Google knows where to find your video content. (Google Video Sitemaps can help with this too.) Write keyword-rich annotations for each video in the library.
In addition to the suggestions Forrester offers, you should consider using keywords related to your video within the video itself. Some search engines are beginning to index the audio of your videos - so including your keywords in your script may help you optimize your videos for future search engine technology.
Read More...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Pay Per Click Internet Marketing: 6 Steps to Succeed
Unfortunately, many wide accepted online business marketing guides do not distinguish very well between ppc ads and organic search engine optimization. On one side, pay per click internet marketing involves the appearance of relevant ads on the sponsored links of the search results lists. Online advertisers pay a certain amount of money, defined as ppc bid, if any only if one of the visitors clicked on your ad.
On the other hand, SEO is a legal process of marketing your affiliate website by analyzing and modifying it to make your website search engine friendly aims to target the top search engine position. This process aims to dramatically improve the visibility of your business in the organic results obtained when a user tries to find information relevant to your website.
Are you Ready to Skyrocket Your Success using 6 Factors?
1. The first key to succeed in online marketing is to invest a reasonable time and effort to choose good keywords, which do not involve high competition and at the same time searched by the users in often enough. Otherwise, without ppc optimization, your business marketing campaign will be too expensive to achieve any profits for you.
2. Your second key element is to periodically enrich your pay per click internet marketing campaign with quite huge list of keywords and the sky is your limit. Be careful, do not do it like crazy! Here again, choose the keywords that enjoy decent demand and do not suffer form high competition.
3. The third element in your campaign to drive targeted traffic to your website is to properly choose the text of your ad. This alone can either skyrocket your sales, or simply destroy all your efforts. Make the objective of your ad quite clear and as much specific as usual so that only targeted visitors would click your ad.
4. The fourth key factor to conduct a smart pay per click internet marketing is to apply a consistent monitoring plan to your cost per click. Keep in mind that the search results in huge search engines like Google would appear too on other search engines like ask.com
5. The fifth and one of the most essential keys to succeed is to not only monitoring your cost per click, but also the analysis of the visitors behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall online business needs.
6. The last key factor can dramatically increase your profits using pay per click internet marketing. It is in deed amazing to see the highest bid is $1.2 and the next highest bid is $0.75. The guy who bids for $1.2 per click could also bid for the same keyword with $0.8 and he would have got the top position as well in addition to saving $0.4 per click. So, do not bid much more than you have to.
Read More..
On the other hand, SEO is a legal process of marketing your affiliate website by analyzing and modifying it to make your website search engine friendly aims to target the top search engine position. This process aims to dramatically improve the visibility of your business in the organic results obtained when a user tries to find information relevant to your website.
Are you Ready to Skyrocket Your Success using 6 Factors?
1. The first key to succeed in online marketing is to invest a reasonable time and effort to choose good keywords, which do not involve high competition and at the same time searched by the users in often enough. Otherwise, without ppc optimization, your business marketing campaign will be too expensive to achieve any profits for you.
2. Your second key element is to periodically enrich your pay per click internet marketing campaign with quite huge list of keywords and the sky is your limit. Be careful, do not do it like crazy! Here again, choose the keywords that enjoy decent demand and do not suffer form high competition.
3. The third element in your campaign to drive targeted traffic to your website is to properly choose the text of your ad. This alone can either skyrocket your sales, or simply destroy all your efforts. Make the objective of your ad quite clear and as much specific as usual so that only targeted visitors would click your ad.
4. The fourth key factor to conduct a smart pay per click internet marketing is to apply a consistent monitoring plan to your cost per click. Keep in mind that the search results in huge search engines like Google would appear too on other search engines like ask.com
5. The fifth and one of the most essential keys to succeed is to not only monitoring your cost per click, but also the analysis of the visitors behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall online business needs.
6. The last key factor can dramatically increase your profits using pay per click internet marketing. It is in deed amazing to see the highest bid is $1.2 and the next highest bid is $0.75. The guy who bids for $1.2 per click could also bid for the same keyword with $0.8 and he would have got the top position as well in addition to saving $0.4 per click. So, do not bid much more than you have to.
Read More..
5 Tips to Make the Most of Your SEO Investment
Whether you’re a marketer at a large Fortune 500 company or a small business, search engine optimization (SEO) can be one of the most cost-effective tools for reaching a broader audience and increasing online sales. A solid and persistent search engine optimization program can increase search visibility for many types of content affecting the bottom line: sales, customer service, recruiting, public and investor relations.
These are challenging economic times calling for prudent marketing decisions. Search industry, business and analyst publications agree: search marketing is recission proof, or at least recession resistant. To make sure your SEO program investment yields effective and efficient marketing results, keep the following tips in mind:
Planning: A solid plan of action is a necessary component to any successful SEO program. Before beginning an effort to optimize content for better search visibility, be sure you have clarified specific goals and expectations. This will help you to decide which SEO tactics will be most effective, what internal resources will be necessary and what metrics will be used to measure success.
Resources: Assess your resources to ensure you can actually implement your SEO program. The most common reason for an unsuccessful SEO effort is failure of implementation. Take stock of available budget (yours or another department that will be affected) talent pool and any existing media assets that can be leveraged. You will need to determine if you have the resources to complete your ideal SEO plan on your own, or if you will need to enlist the services of a SEO agency (like TopRank.
Measurement: Organize a process to measure the results of your program. You will want to be able to tie your measurements of success directly back to your SEO tactics. If increasing leads was the initial goal for your program, this may mean using an analytics package to determine the origin of your online leads. If you choose to work with an agency, be sure to select one with a strong record of measurable SEO success.
Promotion: A well-optimized website will increase your search engine rankings and help your target audience find your services over that of competitors. However, a solid SEO program does not end there. Make the most of search engine optimization by promoting useful content. Place your URL on your business card, in your email signature, and promote it online beyond the search engines in social networks, blogs, forums and anywhere that it can be useful. It will be passed along and linked to, sending traffic and further increasing search visibility.
Innovation: Don’t rely on what has always worked, or assume that your initial optimization will last forever. The online world is constantly changing, and this extends to optimization best practices. A solid SEO program is an ongoing investment that requires you to adapt and innovate to ensure your website stays at the top of the rankings and top of mind with your consumers.
Read More...
These are challenging economic times calling for prudent marketing decisions. Search industry, business and analyst publications agree: search marketing is recission proof, or at least recession resistant. To make sure your SEO program investment yields effective and efficient marketing results, keep the following tips in mind:
Planning: A solid plan of action is a necessary component to any successful SEO program. Before beginning an effort to optimize content for better search visibility, be sure you have clarified specific goals and expectations. This will help you to decide which SEO tactics will be most effective, what internal resources will be necessary and what metrics will be used to measure success.
Resources: Assess your resources to ensure you can actually implement your SEO program. The most common reason for an unsuccessful SEO effort is failure of implementation. Take stock of available budget (yours or another department that will be affected) talent pool and any existing media assets that can be leveraged. You will need to determine if you have the resources to complete your ideal SEO plan on your own, or if you will need to enlist the services of a SEO agency (like TopRank.
Measurement: Organize a process to measure the results of your program. You will want to be able to tie your measurements of success directly back to your SEO tactics. If increasing leads was the initial goal for your program, this may mean using an analytics package to determine the origin of your online leads. If you choose to work with an agency, be sure to select one with a strong record of measurable SEO success.
Promotion: A well-optimized website will increase your search engine rankings and help your target audience find your services over that of competitors. However, a solid SEO program does not end there. Make the most of search engine optimization by promoting useful content. Place your URL on your business card, in your email signature, and promote it online beyond the search engines in social networks, blogs, forums and anywhere that it can be useful. It will be passed along and linked to, sending traffic and further increasing search visibility.
Innovation: Don’t rely on what has always worked, or assume that your initial optimization will last forever. The online world is constantly changing, and this extends to optimization best practices. A solid SEO program is an ongoing investment that requires you to adapt and innovate to ensure your website stays at the top of the rankings and top of mind with your consumers.
Read More...
4 Key Components to Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is an absolute necessity if you want your site to be easily found on the internet. By properly preparing your site you will make it easier to be located thru a search by anyone looking for the type of information, service, or product your site offers.
In order for you to best optimize your site there are 4 areas you'll need to pay special attention to. This optimization process basically involves the correct use of keywords, site labeling, content, and linking with other sites.
Let's have a look at 4 key components you'll need to address to optimize your site for the search engines:
1 - TITLE TAG
This field should be kept short (55 - 60 characters) and should describe the main theme, intention, or content of what the site is all about. What you put here is what will show in the top bar of the window when the site is displayed. It is also the 'title' that appears when it is displayed in any search engine results.
It is important to accurately describe the site content in your title so as to not confuse the search engines. If inaccurate the title may cause you to not be listed at all in any search results.
2 - KEYWORD USE
The use of keywords throughout the text of your site content is important so that the search engines can easily locate your site. These keywords will act as 'guiding lights' for search engine spiders when seeking particular content. If your keywords are not relevant to the site content you again risk a lower search ranking or not one at all.
Be sure your keyword selection reflects your sites content. Also take time to research the popularity of the keywords selected since the most searched upon keywords will not only bring you more traffic but will also boost your search engine ranking.
3 - KEYWORD DENSITY
Once you've selected the keywords you want to build your site around it is best to utilize them within the content in a natural and flowing way. You DO NOT want to overuse any words or phrases since it won't sound right to anyone reading the content. In addition any deliberate overuse will get you penalized by the search engines for 'keyword stuffing' resulting in lower rankings. It's best to stay within a 2% to 3 % range of keyword use within your content.
4 - INBOUND LINKS
These links also referred to as link popularity reflects links that come from other websites. This generally is an indication of the relevancy and quality your site content may have to the other websites. Think of this as your online list of references that will vouch for your websites legitimacy.
These links will appear over time or as a result of particular marketing techniques you may utilize. Social tagging, article marketing, and leaving comments at forums or blogs will accelerate your link creation efforts. The more links you develop the bigger boost your search engine ranking will receive.
Read More..
In order for you to best optimize your site there are 4 areas you'll need to pay special attention to. This optimization process basically involves the correct use of keywords, site labeling, content, and linking with other sites.
Let's have a look at 4 key components you'll need to address to optimize your site for the search engines:
1 - TITLE TAG
This field should be kept short (55 - 60 characters) and should describe the main theme, intention, or content of what the site is all about. What you put here is what will show in the top bar of the window when the site is displayed. It is also the 'title' that appears when it is displayed in any search engine results.
It is important to accurately describe the site content in your title so as to not confuse the search engines. If inaccurate the title may cause you to not be listed at all in any search results.
2 - KEYWORD USE
The use of keywords throughout the text of your site content is important so that the search engines can easily locate your site. These keywords will act as 'guiding lights' for search engine spiders when seeking particular content. If your keywords are not relevant to the site content you again risk a lower search ranking or not one at all.
Be sure your keyword selection reflects your sites content. Also take time to research the popularity of the keywords selected since the most searched upon keywords will not only bring you more traffic but will also boost your search engine ranking.
3 - KEYWORD DENSITY
Once you've selected the keywords you want to build your site around it is best to utilize them within the content in a natural and flowing way. You DO NOT want to overuse any words or phrases since it won't sound right to anyone reading the content. In addition any deliberate overuse will get you penalized by the search engines for 'keyword stuffing' resulting in lower rankings. It's best to stay within a 2% to 3 % range of keyword use within your content.
4 - INBOUND LINKS
These links also referred to as link popularity reflects links that come from other websites. This generally is an indication of the relevancy and quality your site content may have to the other websites. Think of this as your online list of references that will vouch for your websites legitimacy.
These links will appear over time or as a result of particular marketing techniques you may utilize. Social tagging, article marketing, and leaving comments at forums or blogs will accelerate your link creation efforts. The more links you develop the bigger boost your search engine ranking will receive.
Read More..
Sunday, January 18, 2009
How Bookmarking Can Save Your Online Business
Search Engine Optimization is latest trend in improving the coverage of your online business; putting up a website alone doesn’t necessarily result in a successful venture -- same with putting keywords to increase its search engine coverage. You need to think outside the box and consider using links to your advantage to increase your site's traffic -- like bookmarking.
How Bookmarking Increases Your Online Traffic?
One of the concepts of SEO is to increase your page rank through the use of links. To put it simply, keywords alone will not determine your placement in search engine results. In fact, you need to consider increasing your page rank as well to make sure that you get to the top of the list and stay there to have the edge in the competition.
Publishing articles with links and submitting to Web directories are just some of strategies you can use to propagate your links on the Internet to increase your page rank. But there is another way to do it that doesn't really take all that much effort to pull off.
Bookmarking, or social bookmarking, is one way to increase the number of links you have on the Net. Bookmarking involves saving your site on a bookmarking site that can be accessed by anyone on the World Wide Web. Web spiders, search engines, networking, or even the bookmarking community are always on the lookout for feeds they can save to their own collection to increase popularity.
To put it simply, the more people who have access to your bookmarking list, the higher the possibility that they will save it on their own site -- which in turn, increase your page rank without even lifting a finger.
Start Bookmaring
When you want to try out bookmarking as an Internet marketing strategy to boost your implementation of SEO, then you might want to take it slow at first and plan it out carefully.
Start it out by checking bookmarking services on the Web. In some ways, the more bookmarking site you subscribe to and publish your links, then the bigger the possibility that your page rank will soar to amazing heights. Check each of the services offered on the Net and try to find out how to upload your links, tools you can use to simply the task, and so on.
While you're at it, you might want to publish articles that will market your products and services; and bookmark them on these sites. That way, you increase your page rank, and at the same time, appeal to the interest of your potential customers.
Read More...
How Bookmarking Increases Your Online Traffic?
One of the concepts of SEO is to increase your page rank through the use of links. To put it simply, keywords alone will not determine your placement in search engine results. In fact, you need to consider increasing your page rank as well to make sure that you get to the top of the list and stay there to have the edge in the competition.
Publishing articles with links and submitting to Web directories are just some of strategies you can use to propagate your links on the Internet to increase your page rank. But there is another way to do it that doesn't really take all that much effort to pull off.
Bookmarking, or social bookmarking, is one way to increase the number of links you have on the Net. Bookmarking involves saving your site on a bookmarking site that can be accessed by anyone on the World Wide Web. Web spiders, search engines, networking, or even the bookmarking community are always on the lookout for feeds they can save to their own collection to increase popularity.
To put it simply, the more people who have access to your bookmarking list, the higher the possibility that they will save it on their own site -- which in turn, increase your page rank without even lifting a finger.
Start Bookmaring
When you want to try out bookmarking as an Internet marketing strategy to boost your implementation of SEO, then you might want to take it slow at first and plan it out carefully.
Start it out by checking bookmarking services on the Web. In some ways, the more bookmarking site you subscribe to and publish your links, then the bigger the possibility that your page rank will soar to amazing heights. Check each of the services offered on the Net and try to find out how to upload your links, tools you can use to simply the task, and so on.
While you're at it, you might want to publish articles that will market your products and services; and bookmark them on these sites. That way, you increase your page rank, and at the same time, appeal to the interest of your potential customers.
Read More...
Friday, January 16, 2009
Google still dominating search engine marketing
Google is still the dominant player in the global search engine marketing sector, according to a new report from AdGooRoo.
The research firm said that Google held 80.9 per cent of the pay-per-click advertising market at the end of December, with Yahoo! taking a 19.4 per cent share and Live Search 16.4 per cent, Silicon Alley Insider reports.
Overall, Yahoo! saw its share of search advertisers fall in the last three months of 2008, while Live Search experienced a significant increase.
The average number of ads that Google displayed on its first page of search results for each keyword rose by 58 per cent in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three months, with Live Search seeing 42.3 per cent growth and Yahoo! 8.8 per cent, according to Information Week.
AdGooRoo said that should Microsoft acquire Yahoo!, Live Search would see the number of large advertisers in its network rise by 157 per cent, which could "have a dramatic effect on network costs-per-click".
According to Nielsen Online, Google accounted for 64.1 per cent of all US searches in November.
Read More...
The research firm said that Google held 80.9 per cent of the pay-per-click advertising market at the end of December, with Yahoo! taking a 19.4 per cent share and Live Search 16.4 per cent, Silicon Alley Insider reports.
Overall, Yahoo! saw its share of search advertisers fall in the last three months of 2008, while Live Search experienced a significant increase.
The average number of ads that Google displayed on its first page of search results for each keyword rose by 58 per cent in the fourth quarter compared with the previous three months, with Live Search seeing 42.3 per cent growth and Yahoo! 8.8 per cent, according to Information Week.
AdGooRoo said that should Microsoft acquire Yahoo!, Live Search would see the number of large advertisers in its network rise by 157 per cent, which could "have a dramatic effect on network costs-per-click".
According to Nielsen Online, Google accounted for 64.1 per cent of all US searches in November.
Read More...
Thursday, January 15, 2009
You are NoWhere on the Search Engines Why?
Let us analyze one by one as to what the probable and top reasons could be:
• First and foremost thing to start with is to choose URLs that are keyword driven, so that users land exactly on your website when they type those keywords!
• The first best thing would be to check if your website has been listed in the search engines or not. This can be checked by typing out the website URL in the search engines and checking out if the result is showing your website as a result or not. It should ideally show a result of your own website, thereby proving that your site is actually listed.
• Getting search engine visibility takes time. It does not happen just like that. You need to spend more of your time and effort on it, just like it takes time to build up a new business and establish it. Though the results are not SO long to be seen, still it done need to have some time for itself too, to get established and familiar for the search engines. Give it more of time and consideration and hard work, and am sure it’ll pay off. So don’t be lazy start off right away
• Another essential thing to be noticed is to have more of written and relevant content in your website. Now this does not mean you just fill your website with keywords, just for the sake of getting listed in search engines. You must write articles in such a way that are meaningful, relevant to your website at the same time uses important keywords that your visitors might search for in search engines.
• Title tag title tag title tag!!! Get this phrase embedded in your brain! The area in the HTML pages that asks for page title is where you must include keyword or keyword phrases, in order to get attention of the search engines.
• Next thing would be to include ALT tags to the images in the website. This also helps in the images in your website to participate and contribute its share to search engine optimization.
• How popular is your website among the search engines? This is the next question that you must be asking yourself. Popularity of a website increases with more of quality inbound links. The more other websites would link to your website, the more your website’s popularity increases among the net, thereby the search engines. This is done by link building, wherein you submit your website links to other quality and related websites, in order to develop site popularity.
• Finally create a business blog and update your current key services, products or any value added information which can help your business as well as your visitor. This can boost your search engine visibility and traffic
Read More...
• First and foremost thing to start with is to choose URLs that are keyword driven, so that users land exactly on your website when they type those keywords!
• The first best thing would be to check if your website has been listed in the search engines or not. This can be checked by typing out the website URL in the search engines and checking out if the result is showing your website as a result or not. It should ideally show a result of your own website, thereby proving that your site is actually listed.
• Getting search engine visibility takes time. It does not happen just like that. You need to spend more of your time and effort on it, just like it takes time to build up a new business and establish it. Though the results are not SO long to be seen, still it done need to have some time for itself too, to get established and familiar for the search engines. Give it more of time and consideration and hard work, and am sure it’ll pay off. So don’t be lazy start off right away
• Another essential thing to be noticed is to have more of written and relevant content in your website. Now this does not mean you just fill your website with keywords, just for the sake of getting listed in search engines. You must write articles in such a way that are meaningful, relevant to your website at the same time uses important keywords that your visitors might search for in search engines.
• Title tag title tag title tag!!! Get this phrase embedded in your brain! The area in the HTML pages that asks for page title is where you must include keyword or keyword phrases, in order to get attention of the search engines.
• Next thing would be to include ALT tags to the images in the website. This also helps in the images in your website to participate and contribute its share to search engine optimization.
• How popular is your website among the search engines? This is the next question that you must be asking yourself. Popularity of a website increases with more of quality inbound links. The more other websites would link to your website, the more your website’s popularity increases among the net, thereby the search engines. This is done by link building, wherein you submit your website links to other quality and related websites, in order to develop site popularity.
• Finally create a business blog and update your current key services, products or any value added information which can help your business as well as your visitor. This can boost your search engine visibility and traffic
Read More...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Helpful Tips for Corporate Blogging
Blogs are massive resources of information from both and outside companies. Businessmen survive the world of blogging because they know how and where to dig information while protecting their own secrets. Although blogging can be risky world for businesses, there are several helpful tips that can help bring success to corporate blogging.
The Important of Training:
It is important to make sure the members of the communications team. In the past, this team was composed of a small group. However, with the advent of blogging, everyone who blogs at the company is spreading a specific message about the company. People who handle the blogging for the company must be trained to avoid any spill of unnecessary information.
If by accident, important information regarding the company has been disclosed, this can put the company under the watchful eyes of the regulators. More so, inappropriate leaks can provide competitors with leverage and may lead to embarrassing revelations about the inner workings of the company and its staff.
Although the usual action to be taken is to restrict employees from blogging, this can be a shortsighted decision. Bloggers from within the company can easily relate and make contact with potential clients and even enhance the brand of the company.
The Fake Blogs:
Several, if not all, companies are eager to establish one-on-one links with their consumers, though they are
often hesitant to venture in the world of blogging. As a result, they set up fake blogs. Fake blogs are those that are created by marketing departments of the company in order to promote a product, brand or service using a fake name or character.
These kinds of blogs are risky since several bloggers who are passionate about what they do view them as an insult to the blogging community and no one can deny the fact that these blogs are very visible to the public.
Although there are no rules prohibiting a company from making pseudo-blogs, the subject of creating one is always welcome. Always keep in mind that you can choose to create fake blogs but remember all the risks
involved.
Blog Tracking:
Tracking blogs is one of the easiest and most important tips to remember. Firstly, the company can look around online and search for the most influential blogger who writes about their products or services. Remember to read the blogger’s updates everyday and perform an automated tracking of discussions.
Tracking blogs is important because even those postings from small-time bloggers can be selected by search engines, strengthened by a well-known blogger and ultimately hit the mainstream.
The Public Relations:
Blogs have the ability to break down barriers between the company and its customers. It is important for businesses to take that into consideration and adjust. There are several companies that start blog in order to attain customer loyalty and address the customers’ concerns and comments. Relating to the customers is a vital factor in the survival of a business. Knowing what the customers think about the products or services can help enhance the company’s services.
The Company’s Secrets:
Take into consideration one secret or secrets that you have kept at your company. Be it a list of projects for the following year or information about scandalous activities, there are several things that you must learn no to leak to your competitors.
In blogging, there is a certainty that you must rethink about something that you are trying to avoid, for that fact that other companies are increasingly sharing information to win new partners and generate new ideas. Although this does not mean that they are not keeping any secrets from you or that you must not keep any from them, it is important to reevaluate whether you can gain more out of sharing details than keep them to yourself.
Read More....
The Important of Training:
It is important to make sure the members of the communications team. In the past, this team was composed of a small group. However, with the advent of blogging, everyone who blogs at the company is spreading a specific message about the company. People who handle the blogging for the company must be trained to avoid any spill of unnecessary information.
If by accident, important information regarding the company has been disclosed, this can put the company under the watchful eyes of the regulators. More so, inappropriate leaks can provide competitors with leverage and may lead to embarrassing revelations about the inner workings of the company and its staff.
Although the usual action to be taken is to restrict employees from blogging, this can be a shortsighted decision. Bloggers from within the company can easily relate and make contact with potential clients and even enhance the brand of the company.
The Fake Blogs:
Several, if not all, companies are eager to establish one-on-one links with their consumers, though they are
often hesitant to venture in the world of blogging. As a result, they set up fake blogs. Fake blogs are those that are created by marketing departments of the company in order to promote a product, brand or service using a fake name or character.
These kinds of blogs are risky since several bloggers who are passionate about what they do view them as an insult to the blogging community and no one can deny the fact that these blogs are very visible to the public.
Although there are no rules prohibiting a company from making pseudo-blogs, the subject of creating one is always welcome. Always keep in mind that you can choose to create fake blogs but remember all the risks
involved.
Blog Tracking:
Tracking blogs is one of the easiest and most important tips to remember. Firstly, the company can look around online and search for the most influential blogger who writes about their products or services. Remember to read the blogger’s updates everyday and perform an automated tracking of discussions.
Tracking blogs is important because even those postings from small-time bloggers can be selected by search engines, strengthened by a well-known blogger and ultimately hit the mainstream.
The Public Relations:
Blogs have the ability to break down barriers between the company and its customers. It is important for businesses to take that into consideration and adjust. There are several companies that start blog in order to attain customer loyalty and address the customers’ concerns and comments. Relating to the customers is a vital factor in the survival of a business. Knowing what the customers think about the products or services can help enhance the company’s services.
The Company’s Secrets:
Take into consideration one secret or secrets that you have kept at your company. Be it a list of projects for the following year or information about scandalous activities, there are several things that you must learn no to leak to your competitors.
In blogging, there is a certainty that you must rethink about something that you are trying to avoid, for that fact that other companies are increasingly sharing information to win new partners and generate new ideas. Although this does not mean that they are not keeping any secrets from you or that you must not keep any from them, it is important to reevaluate whether you can gain more out of sharing details than keep them to yourself.
Read More....
Ethical tips regarding on-page SEO optimization for SEO services
These are few ethical SEO tips to get stable search engine rankings.
1. Firstly we need a unique design with foremost features. Google always pay their faith to unique web designs, obviously those designs should be very search engine friendly with different kinds of search engine bots.
2. Then we need to concentrate about the age of that site. If the site is very new into the market then you have to face problems to get ranked in top competitive keywords else you can proceed for those keywords.
3. Before starting SEO work we need a quality keyword research for that site. On-page optimization is the base of any SEO optimization and keyword research is the foundation of any on-page optimization.
4. Search engine rankings are mainly depending upon the Meta title and description of every page of that website. Smart use of keywords within the title tag and Meta description is denoted as the professionalism of any SEO services.
5. Then we need to shuffle our targeted keywords with our content and that content should be fresh, catchy as well as unique for the business market.
6. We need to make modifications at our content in a regular interval to maintain the uniqueness of that content.
7. Fixing the canonical issue of that website for better result as well as optimize all images with appropriate alt tags.
8. It is better to rotate internal links of that website through that catchy content with the help of targeted keywords, because search engine crawlers as well as viewers are traveling through the links only.
9. If it is possible then place a brief description within H2 tag of that website with smart punching of targeted keywords at the header part.
10. Placing text links for internal pages is denoted as good SEO services at the footer section. We can use our targeted keywords within those texts while interlinking our important pages.
11. Never ever concentrating on any kind of black hat techniques such as placing hiding content, corking, vast use of targeted keywords within the content etc.
Read MOre..
1. Firstly we need a unique design with foremost features. Google always pay their faith to unique web designs, obviously those designs should be very search engine friendly with different kinds of search engine bots.
2. Then we need to concentrate about the age of that site. If the site is very new into the market then you have to face problems to get ranked in top competitive keywords else you can proceed for those keywords.
3. Before starting SEO work we need a quality keyword research for that site. On-page optimization is the base of any SEO optimization and keyword research is the foundation of any on-page optimization.
4. Search engine rankings are mainly depending upon the Meta title and description of every page of that website. Smart use of keywords within the title tag and Meta description is denoted as the professionalism of any SEO services.
5. Then we need to shuffle our targeted keywords with our content and that content should be fresh, catchy as well as unique for the business market.
6. We need to make modifications at our content in a regular interval to maintain the uniqueness of that content.
7. Fixing the canonical issue of that website for better result as well as optimize all images with appropriate alt tags.
8. It is better to rotate internal links of that website through that catchy content with the help of targeted keywords, because search engine crawlers as well as viewers are traveling through the links only.
9. If it is possible then place a brief description within H2 tag of that website with smart punching of targeted keywords at the header part.
10. Placing text links for internal pages is denoted as good SEO services at the footer section. We can use our targeted keywords within those texts while interlinking our important pages.
11. Never ever concentrating on any kind of black hat techniques such as placing hiding content, corking, vast use of targeted keywords within the content etc.
Read MOre..
Sunday, January 11, 2009
7 Ways To Get Traffic
Using Tutorials to drive traffic
Creating tutorials for popular software such as Adobe Photoshop is an easy way to drive traffic. Where should your tutorials for Adobe Photoshop be submitted.
Using Stumbleupon to drive traffic
Signing up is fast and easy, and its free. It brings in a bit of traffic over time, but not a lot. It will however help to bring in new visitors, and the benefit of getting visitors from Stumbleupon is that people who are “stumbling” are interested in finding new content, and unless your site design is totally hopeless, most “stumblers” will hang around for a minute or two, trying to discover what exactly your homepage is about.
Using RSS feeds to drive traffic
A classic approach has always been to publish your RSS to drive traffic, but there are created thousands of new blogs each day, and your content will immediately disappear in the mass of information published. Submit to every one of them.
Using niche sites to drive traffic
Posting to specific sites containing your topic will increase traffic, for a while. Several sites have the option where you can submit news items to their front page, but mostly people would complain if you are simply self-promoting without your information being particular new or interesting. www.stylegala.com drove a lot of traffic to my site early on, but their policies changed, so I stopped posting to that homepage.
Using Digg to drive traffic
A common known effect of Digg is known as the Digg Effect (also known as the Slashdot effect). This is what happens if a particular site is submitted to Digg, Slashdot or Fark or any similar type of site, and receive so much traffic their server simply gives up. This rarely happens for minor sites, but the overall effect of submitting interesting tidbits cannot be underestimated. You will receive a least a little amount of visitors if your submission is at least a little bit interesting, and you will also gain a backlink to your homepage.
Using forums /BBS’s to drive traffic
A quick way to drive traffic to your homepage is to become engaged in various forums regarding your specific niche. Do a search on Google for your particular area in which your homepage refers to, and become a member of the first 10 forums you encounter. Here you sign up and create a signature for every post you make, with a nice description and link back your homepage. Only make relevant comments, or you might be considered a spammer.
Also, most forums (at least the most well visited) have a high PR (Google PageRank) since many people link to their site, and unless they have added the “link red=nofollow” to external links, your site will gain PR from those pages. They share their high PR with all other external links, and the benefits from a SEO perspective might be limited, but the traffic driven will be very targeted and relevant and should convert a lot better.
Using link directories to drive traffic
Now, this is not in any way a new nor novel idea to drive traffic. It might not bring traffic except from random referrals from search engines
. It will take some time, and it is important to remember every link counts for the quest for the #1 spot.
Read MOre..
Creating tutorials for popular software such as Adobe Photoshop is an easy way to drive traffic. Where should your tutorials for Adobe Photoshop be submitted.
Using Stumbleupon to drive traffic
Signing up is fast and easy, and its free. It brings in a bit of traffic over time, but not a lot. It will however help to bring in new visitors, and the benefit of getting visitors from Stumbleupon is that people who are “stumbling” are interested in finding new content, and unless your site design is totally hopeless, most “stumblers” will hang around for a minute or two, trying to discover what exactly your homepage is about.
Using RSS feeds to drive traffic
A classic approach has always been to publish your RSS to drive traffic, but there are created thousands of new blogs each day, and your content will immediately disappear in the mass of information published. Submit to every one of them.
Using niche sites to drive traffic
Posting to specific sites containing your topic will increase traffic, for a while. Several sites have the option where you can submit news items to their front page, but mostly people would complain if you are simply self-promoting without your information being particular new or interesting. www.stylegala.com drove a lot of traffic to my site early on, but their policies changed, so I stopped posting to that homepage.
Using Digg to drive traffic
A common known effect of Digg is known as the Digg Effect (also known as the Slashdot effect). This is what happens if a particular site is submitted to Digg, Slashdot or Fark or any similar type of site, and receive so much traffic their server simply gives up. This rarely happens for minor sites, but the overall effect of submitting interesting tidbits cannot be underestimated. You will receive a least a little amount of visitors if your submission is at least a little bit interesting, and you will also gain a backlink to your homepage.
Using forums /BBS’s to drive traffic
A quick way to drive traffic to your homepage is to become engaged in various forums regarding your specific niche. Do a search on Google for your particular area in which your homepage refers to, and become a member of the first 10 forums you encounter. Here you sign up and create a signature for every post you make, with a nice description and link back your homepage. Only make relevant comments, or you might be considered a spammer.
Also, most forums (at least the most well visited) have a high PR (Google PageRank) since many people link to their site, and unless they have added the “link red=nofollow” to external links, your site will gain PR from those pages. They share their high PR with all other external links, and the benefits from a SEO perspective might be limited, but the traffic driven will be very targeted and relevant and should convert a lot better.
Using link directories to drive traffic
Now, this is not in any way a new nor novel idea to drive traffic. It might not bring traffic except from random referrals from search engines
. It will take some time, and it is important to remember every link counts for the quest for the #1 spot.
Read MOre..
Friday, January 9, 2009
Google, Yahoo! look to boost search engine marketing
The two biggest search engines on the web are attempting to encourage more companies to integrate their offline campaigns with search engine marketing.
This is according to new media age (nma), which reports that Google and Yahoo! have recently stepped up talks with agencies and brands to persuade them to include calls to action in campaigns that ask consumers to search the web for specific terms.
Mobile operator Orange recently saw success with this tactic by asking TV viewers to "search online for I Am online" in its broadcast ads, prompting a 15 per cent surge in web traffic.
Nick Gill, head of account management at Yahoo UK, told nma that integrating search with offline campaigns in this way "makes sense" as search engines tend to be the starting point on the internet for most people.
"It's easier for consumers to remember a search call to action than a phone number or specific URL," he added.
Last year, a report from MultiMedia Intelligence suggested that call to action advertising will boom on the mobile platform as web TV becomes more popular on mobile phones.
Read More...
This is according to new media age (nma), which reports that Google and Yahoo! have recently stepped up talks with agencies and brands to persuade them to include calls to action in campaigns that ask consumers to search the web for specific terms.
Mobile operator Orange recently saw success with this tactic by asking TV viewers to "search online for I Am online" in its broadcast ads, prompting a 15 per cent surge in web traffic.
Nick Gill, head of account management at Yahoo UK, told nma that integrating search with offline campaigns in this way "makes sense" as search engines tend to be the starting point on the internet for most people.
"It's easier for consumers to remember a search call to action than a phone number or specific URL," he added.
Last year, a report from MultiMedia Intelligence suggested that call to action advertising will boom on the mobile platform as web TV becomes more popular on mobile phones.
Read More...
New search engine marketing report looks at PPC technology
A new report exploring the market for paid search bid management technology has been published by Econsultancy.
The marketing resource's study suggested that the market is becoming more competitive as search marketing uptake continues to rise in the UK.
Some of the trends explored in the publication include the growing focus on making the most of pay per click services amid the economic downturn and the need for a balance between automation and manual optimisation when it comes to bid management.
One benefit of bid management technology is its capability to make marketing campaigns more efficient, particularly when a large organisation needs to manage ads for thousands of keywords, Econsultancy suggested.
"This market will continue to prosper because online advertisers can use pay per click optimisation software to make their budgets stretch even further in a tougher economic climate," the report said.
Online marketers spent £981 million on pay per click services in the first six months of last year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Read More..
The marketing resource's study suggested that the market is becoming more competitive as search marketing uptake continues to rise in the UK.
Some of the trends explored in the publication include the growing focus on making the most of pay per click services amid the economic downturn and the need for a balance between automation and manual optimisation when it comes to bid management.
One benefit of bid management technology is its capability to make marketing campaigns more efficient, particularly when a large organisation needs to manage ads for thousands of keywords, Econsultancy suggested.
"This market will continue to prosper because online advertisers can use pay per click optimisation software to make their budgets stretch even further in a tougher economic climate," the report said.
Online marketers spent £981 million on pay per click services in the first six months of last year, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.
Read More..
Thursday, January 8, 2009
SEO predicted to boom in 2009
More businesses may place greater importance on search engine optimisation (SEO) this year as the downturn means marketers will look for strategies with high return on investment (ROI).
This is according to William Flaiz, vice-president of SEO and web analytics at Razorfish, who wrote in a Search Engine Watch article that while traffic generated through SEO is not technically free, it tends to offer a greater ROI than paid search.
"Organic search marketing just might become the bread winner as cash-strapped clients become wary of increased media costs in traditional space and an upturn in bid competition in paid search," he explained.
The expert went on to predict that local search will also gain in importance over the course of 2009, particularly as mobile search continues to rise in popularity among consumers.
Read MORe..
This is according to William Flaiz, vice-president of SEO and web analytics at Razorfish, who wrote in a Search Engine Watch article that while traffic generated through SEO is not technically free, it tends to offer a greater ROI than paid search.
"Organic search marketing just might become the bread winner as cash-strapped clients become wary of increased media costs in traditional space and an upturn in bid competition in paid search," he explained.
The expert went on to predict that local search will also gain in importance over the course of 2009, particularly as mobile search continues to rise in popularity among consumers.
Read MORe..
Search engine marketing to become less keyword-based?
Search engine optimisation may become less focused on keywords in the future, if the comments of one Google executive are anything to go by.
According to Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience at Google, the search engine is looking at the possibility of returning results based on user questions rather than keywords.
She told .net magazine that this is one development that may become increasingly important over time, as will making web-based data easy to access from mobile phones.
Ms Mayer also pointed to the opportunities posed by utilising a user's friend list to return highly relevant results.
"We really need to harness people's friends better to understand which news to direct them to, which local events to direct them to ... These are all things that we think are intriguing," she commented.
Last year, Google experimented with a new feature in its Google News service allowing users to create a local news section for their own city or zip code.
Read More...
According to Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search products and user experience at Google, the search engine is looking at the possibility of returning results based on user questions rather than keywords.
She told .net magazine that this is one development that may become increasingly important over time, as will making web-based data easy to access from mobile phones.
Ms Mayer also pointed to the opportunities posed by utilising a user's friend list to return highly relevant results.
"We really need to harness people's friends better to understand which news to direct them to, which local events to direct them to ... These are all things that we think are intriguing," she commented.
Last year, Google experimented with a new feature in its Google News service allowing users to create a local news section for their own city or zip code.
Read More...
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
How to Get Your Site Listed in Google in 24 Hours or Less
Wouldn't it be nice to start seeing your site in Google's search engine results in 24 hours or less? It should be first noted that if a site is crawled but not yet indexed, the results aren't visible to search users. For example, if you enter the full domain of your site with the "http://www." and your site hasn't been listed yet, it won't show up in Google's results. When your site does get indexed, if you enter the full URL, you'll see your site listed. This listing contains the URL, the title of your website, and a description.
To get your site indexed quickly, you won't use Google's submission form (google.com/addurl.html). Using this method may take 2–6 weeks to get your site indexed.
So, what do you need to do to get your website indexed in 24 hours or less? The first step is to visit Google and enter a broad, generic keyword that's relevant to your site. This is the rare time that the broader the keyword, the better. Don't worry about trying to go for niche markets with this step, because you're going to want to have access to sites with the highest level of traffic. Once you enter the keyword, you see the Google listings. Use the "Page Rank" indicator on the Google toolbar to see what the page rank is (or you could use SEO Elite or linkVendor, but doing it right from the browser is faster).
To refresh your memory, the higher your page rank, the more websites that are linking to you. Keep an eye out for sites that have a page rank of 5 or higher (with the higher ranking being the better one). Visit each of these sites to see if they offer a link exchange. Remember, if they do they'll advertise it in the same way you did yours, through a "link to Us" web page or something similar. Look for the contact information if it's listed. If it's not listed, use the Whois utility found through domain name services or SEO Elite to find their e-mail address. Use the same methods of e-mail etiquette you learned about before and send them an e-mail asking if they're interested in a link exchange. Remember to post their links on your site first before you send out the e-mail. And don't forget that you can still purchase advertising on the resources given throughout this book.
Just make sure the site you choose has a page rank of over 5. If you advertise your site on a site with a page rank of 5, your site will get indexed in three days or less. If you advertise your site on a site with a page rank of 6, you can get your site indexed in less than 24 hours.
Read MOre..
To get your site indexed quickly, you won't use Google's submission form (google.com/addurl.html). Using this method may take 2–6 weeks to get your site indexed.
So, what do you need to do to get your website indexed in 24 hours or less? The first step is to visit Google and enter a broad, generic keyword that's relevant to your site. This is the rare time that the broader the keyword, the better. Don't worry about trying to go for niche markets with this step, because you're going to want to have access to sites with the highest level of traffic. Once you enter the keyword, you see the Google listings. Use the "Page Rank" indicator on the Google toolbar to see what the page rank is (or you could use SEO Elite or linkVendor, but doing it right from the browser is faster).
To refresh your memory, the higher your page rank, the more websites that are linking to you. Keep an eye out for sites that have a page rank of 5 or higher (with the higher ranking being the better one). Visit each of these sites to see if they offer a link exchange. Remember, if they do they'll advertise it in the same way you did yours, through a "link to Us" web page or something similar. Look for the contact information if it's listed. If it's not listed, use the Whois utility found through domain name services or SEO Elite to find their e-mail address. Use the same methods of e-mail etiquette you learned about before and send them an e-mail asking if they're interested in a link exchange. Remember to post their links on your site first before you send out the e-mail. And don't forget that you can still purchase advertising on the resources given throughout this book.
Just make sure the site you choose has a page rank of over 5. If you advertise your site on a site with a page rank of 5, your site will get indexed in three days or less. If you advertise your site on a site with a page rank of 6, you can get your site indexed in less than 24 hours.
Read MOre..
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
New SEO and email marketing blog launched
A new blog featuring expert guidance and advice about email marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), social networking and Web 2.0 strategies has been launched.
Dr. Scott's Cool Marketing and Business Blog is the brainchild of Philadelphia marketing professor Dr Scott Testa who is hoping he can use his 20 years of experience and the knowledge of a number of guest writers to help educate people about the internet marketing sector.
Predicting what the next 12 months could have in store for the industry, he remarked: "I am really looking forward to 2009.
"Unique and inexpensive marketing techniques are going to be at the forefront."
As well as containing more than four dozen educational articles, the blog also acts as a hub for several other websites and blogs, linking to over 20 in total.
Email marketing, SEO and paid search should be at the heart of any online marketing strategy, according to Straight Up Search.
Read More..
Dr. Scott's Cool Marketing and Business Blog is the brainchild of Philadelphia marketing professor Dr Scott Testa who is hoping he can use his 20 years of experience and the knowledge of a number of guest writers to help educate people about the internet marketing sector.
Predicting what the next 12 months could have in store for the industry, he remarked: "I am really looking forward to 2009.
"Unique and inexpensive marketing techniques are going to be at the forefront."
As well as containing more than four dozen educational articles, the blog also acts as a hub for several other websites and blogs, linking to over 20 in total.
Email marketing, SEO and paid search should be at the heart of any online marketing strategy, according to Straight Up Search.
Read More..
'Do not underestimate the value of keywords in SEO'
Businesses using search engine optimisation (SEO) to improve their websites should ensure they do not overlook keywords that seem to be less used by consumers.
This is according to Gary Reid of .net magazine, who said that marketers should consider every step of consumers' journeys from the initial search to the final transaction.
He gave the example of a website where most traffic appears to come from searches for the company's name - while this suggests that the firm's name is the main keyword to focus on, customers are likely to have conducted informational searches involving other keywords a short while previously.
"The key to SEO success is to ensure you have visibility at each point of the user's journey, so understanding the sections of the journey is essential," Mr Reid explained.
"Blindly optimising for a set of keywords you think is appropriate is a quick way to waste time and money."
According to a Search Engine Watch column by Carrie Hill of marketing firm Blizzard, small businesses should consider using keyword research tools such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery to pinpoint the most relevant key terms.
Read More..
This is according to Gary Reid of .net magazine, who said that marketers should consider every step of consumers' journeys from the initial search to the final transaction.
He gave the example of a website where most traffic appears to come from searches for the company's name - while this suggests that the firm's name is the main keyword to focus on, customers are likely to have conducted informational searches involving other keywords a short while previously.
"The key to SEO success is to ensure you have visibility at each point of the user's journey, so understanding the sections of the journey is essential," Mr Reid explained.
"Blindly optimising for a set of keywords you think is appropriate is a quick way to waste time and money."
According to a Search Engine Watch column by Carrie Hill of marketing firm Blizzard, small businesses should consider using keyword research tools such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery to pinpoint the most relevant key terms.
Read More..
Search Shifts and Predictions for 2009
Google has seen a significant drop in its stock price; Yahoo continues to tread water and await a buyer to save them; MSN continues to plod along at 5 percent market share with the industry questioning why Microsoft is even playing in the space; and Cuil, well, let's just hope they get to see 2010.
Consolidation:
Speaking of Yahoo, my first prediction isn't much of a stretch. There will be consolidation within the search engine market space in 2009. The jury's still out on who's buying who, but if you've followed the news over the past six months, it's a good bet that someone will buy Yahoo.
Yahoo's not the only acquisition target. Ask.com may not have the market share, but the floundering search engine offers a good product line that could enhance someone's capabilities portfolio. Perhaps there's a buyer out there that's looking to build an application backline to challenge Google. Ask.com could prove a huge asset in that case.
Recession Boost:
"Free" gets the attention of many people, including marketers. With the cost of paid search terms going up, the organic search folks may see a lot more attention in 2009.
Although organic search traffic is often touted as "free traffic," it truly isn't. Developing rankings for key terms in an industry requires an investment in all the elements that go into building a Web site: content, coding, design, and strategy. Though the traffic isn't free, the ROI tends to be better.
Organic search marketing just might become the bread winner as cash-strapped client become wary of increased media costs in traditional space and an up-turn in bid competition in paid search.
ROI on the Prize for SEO:
It's about time! ROI will no longer be a "nice to have" for those who practice SEO in 2009.
Again, the economy will dictate scrutiny of every marketing dollar spent, and clients are going to want to know ahead of time what they can expect from their SEO programs. ROI models, all with their own flaws, will control the landscape of organic search programs as search marketers hope to woo marketing dollars away from less successful or measurable competing tactics.
As part of a global agency, I welcome a shift to focusing on client returns. This may help the SEO profession gain acceptance and operate at a higher standard.
Local All Over Globe:
In the coming year, if you own brick-and-mortar locations you better get familiar with local search and put a program in place. Local search will be the big thing in 2009 for search.
Local search is far more measurable than a traditional organic listing and, therefore, lends itself better to demonstrated ROI benefits. Additionally, the number of mobile searches will only increase as mobile phones become more sophisticated. Marketers must make sure they show up in these results.
A Paid Inclusion Rebound:
If there's one paid search service that can thrive on '09, it's paid inclusion. Yahoo offers a unique PPC program called Search Submit Pro, which provides marketers with the ability to feed results directly into the organic listings. As organic results become more important than ever, marketers will try to get into the listing by any means necessary.
So far Yahoo is the only engine to offer this service, but I predict that we'll see similar offerings as other engines look for new revenue streams in 2009. These may not be straight text search results, but I don't think we've seen the last of paid inclusion.
The Year of Monetization:
This year will be interesting for search engines. As factors from recession to emerging technologies convene, engines will have to create new revenue. Only time will tell whether that revenue comes from acquisition and increased market share or new programs like Yahoo's SSP.
Read More...
Consolidation:
Speaking of Yahoo, my first prediction isn't much of a stretch. There will be consolidation within the search engine market space in 2009. The jury's still out on who's buying who, but if you've followed the news over the past six months, it's a good bet that someone will buy Yahoo.
Yahoo's not the only acquisition target. Ask.com may not have the market share, but the floundering search engine offers a good product line that could enhance someone's capabilities portfolio. Perhaps there's a buyer out there that's looking to build an application backline to challenge Google. Ask.com could prove a huge asset in that case.
Recession Boost:
"Free" gets the attention of many people, including marketers. With the cost of paid search terms going up, the organic search folks may see a lot more attention in 2009.
Although organic search traffic is often touted as "free traffic," it truly isn't. Developing rankings for key terms in an industry requires an investment in all the elements that go into building a Web site: content, coding, design, and strategy. Though the traffic isn't free, the ROI tends to be better.
Organic search marketing just might become the bread winner as cash-strapped client become wary of increased media costs in traditional space and an up-turn in bid competition in paid search.
ROI on the Prize for SEO:
It's about time! ROI will no longer be a "nice to have" for those who practice SEO in 2009.
Again, the economy will dictate scrutiny of every marketing dollar spent, and clients are going to want to know ahead of time what they can expect from their SEO programs. ROI models, all with their own flaws, will control the landscape of organic search programs as search marketers hope to woo marketing dollars away from less successful or measurable competing tactics.
As part of a global agency, I welcome a shift to focusing on client returns. This may help the SEO profession gain acceptance and operate at a higher standard.
Local All Over Globe:
In the coming year, if you own brick-and-mortar locations you better get familiar with local search and put a program in place. Local search will be the big thing in 2009 for search.
Local search is far more measurable than a traditional organic listing and, therefore, lends itself better to demonstrated ROI benefits. Additionally, the number of mobile searches will only increase as mobile phones become more sophisticated. Marketers must make sure they show up in these results.
A Paid Inclusion Rebound:
If there's one paid search service that can thrive on '09, it's paid inclusion. Yahoo offers a unique PPC program called Search Submit Pro, which provides marketers with the ability to feed results directly into the organic listings. As organic results become more important than ever, marketers will try to get into the listing by any means necessary.
So far Yahoo is the only engine to offer this service, but I predict that we'll see similar offerings as other engines look for new revenue streams in 2009. These may not be straight text search results, but I don't think we've seen the last of paid inclusion.
The Year of Monetization:
This year will be interesting for search engines. As factors from recession to emerging technologies convene, engines will have to create new revenue. Only time will tell whether that revenue comes from acquisition and increased market share or new programs like Yahoo's SSP.
Read More...
Search engine marketing 'should target all e-commerce stages'
Marketers must ensure their company is present in search results at all stages of the buying process, an expert has indicated.
While data might point to one particular keyword as being the most used by consumers when visiting a company's website, the user could have started the process of searching for that company some time ago, using different keywords, according to .net magazine's Gary Reid.
Companies should therefore carry out the proper research and ensure their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies use the most relevant keywords at each stage of the buying cycle, he said.
"Blindly optimising for a set of keywords you think is appropriate is a quick way to waste time and money," Mr Reid stated.
"You really need to work smart to get the best from your efforts."
Search marketing strategies such as SEO and pay-per-click accounts for half of all spending on internet advertising globally, according to MarketingSherpa.
Read More...
While data might point to one particular keyword as being the most used by consumers when visiting a company's website, the user could have started the process of searching for that company some time ago, using different keywords, according to .net magazine's Gary Reid.
Companies should therefore carry out the proper research and ensure their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies use the most relevant keywords at each stage of the buying cycle, he said.
"Blindly optimising for a set of keywords you think is appropriate is a quick way to waste time and money," Mr Reid stated.
"You really need to work smart to get the best from your efforts."
Search marketing strategies such as SEO and pay-per-click accounts for half of all spending on internet advertising globally, according to MarketingSherpa.
Read More...
Monday, January 5, 2009
Keyword Research Is A Great Seo Strategy
As you will see all over the internet and on many forums, keyword research is very important if you want your site to rank well and be successful. Keyword research is the key to identifying the needs of your prospects. Keyword research is the first task in optimizing your web site and pay-per-click campaign. One of the best places to perform keyword research is the search engines themselves.
Two of the best-known keyword research tools are Word tracker and Overture. Well, there are many tools on the internet that record the phrases that people are typing and these tools are available online. The best tools to use for keyword research is paid for tools, the free tools just don't have the features. Using free keyword tools are for those marketers that are just starting out and playing around with internet marketing. Use keyword tools that you pay for or the free keyword tool good keywords to do the keyword research.
Tools like word tracker will help you to find that how many times keywords have been searched and how much competition there is for that particular keyword phrases.
When choosing the keywords and keyword phrases you need to have tools that can help identifying the words you will need. Once you find the keywords you are going to target you need to start using these keywords on your pages and on your links that point back to your site.
To maximize the profitability of your online venture, it has become a must that you should concentrate on a particular niche. A niche is a specialized segment of the market that is often overlooked. Determining a niche should be the first step of a sound business plan. Fortunately, deciding on which keywords encompass the entire niche is relatively easy if you have done your keyword research. Advertiser is paying - the higher the cost per click the more lucrative that particular niche is likely to be. This will tell you if people are buying and whether the niche is likely to be profitable.
Try not to choose keywords that all the other sites are using, find keywords that are searched on in a limited fashion this way you will establish a niche. So, finding the right words are important. When doing keyword research make sure you keep a record of the keywords that you researched and those words that have less competition and high searches. Domain names by themselves are no longer the most valuable location on the internet keywords are. Thus choosing the keywords is of the utmost importance. It has been said again and again, you need to have content that is keyword rich on your site to help with the search engine rankings. Keywords are the search words that people use when searching for information on the internet.
The first thing you need to do before you start your keyword research is to choose the words you would like to research on. How do you identify the keyword? The first step is to understand what the theme of your site is going to be. If your site is about cars then all of your keywords should revolve around cars. Research these keywords and find out how many times they have searched on, what is the competition like of these words is there a high demand of people looking for the particular keyword.
Read More...
Two of the best-known keyword research tools are Word tracker and Overture. Well, there are many tools on the internet that record the phrases that people are typing and these tools are available online. The best tools to use for keyword research is paid for tools, the free tools just don't have the features. Using free keyword tools are for those marketers that are just starting out and playing around with internet marketing. Use keyword tools that you pay for or the free keyword tool good keywords to do the keyword research.
Tools like word tracker will help you to find that how many times keywords have been searched and how much competition there is for that particular keyword phrases.
When choosing the keywords and keyword phrases you need to have tools that can help identifying the words you will need. Once you find the keywords you are going to target you need to start using these keywords on your pages and on your links that point back to your site.
To maximize the profitability of your online venture, it has become a must that you should concentrate on a particular niche. A niche is a specialized segment of the market that is often overlooked. Determining a niche should be the first step of a sound business plan. Fortunately, deciding on which keywords encompass the entire niche is relatively easy if you have done your keyword research. Advertiser is paying - the higher the cost per click the more lucrative that particular niche is likely to be. This will tell you if people are buying and whether the niche is likely to be profitable.
Try not to choose keywords that all the other sites are using, find keywords that are searched on in a limited fashion this way you will establish a niche. So, finding the right words are important. When doing keyword research make sure you keep a record of the keywords that you researched and those words that have less competition and high searches. Domain names by themselves are no longer the most valuable location on the internet keywords are. Thus choosing the keywords is of the utmost importance. It has been said again and again, you need to have content that is keyword rich on your site to help with the search engine rankings. Keywords are the search words that people use when searching for information on the internet.
The first thing you need to do before you start your keyword research is to choose the words you would like to research on. How do you identify the keyword? The first step is to understand what the theme of your site is going to be. If your site is about cars then all of your keywords should revolve around cars. Research these keywords and find out how many times they have searched on, what is the competition like of these words is there a high demand of people looking for the particular keyword.
Read More...
Seven deadly SEO sins you must avoid
1. Putting search engines before users
Optimisation is the process your website undergoes in order to help it achieve the best possible listings. The reason for hankering after a number one ranking? To attract targeted traffic. It's therefore surprising how many websites forget about their human users in the quest for search engine success.
Cramming as many keywords as possible into each page may yield short-term SEO results but is guaranteed to turn off human eyes. Well-written content is much more likely to result in a sale and win over the search engine web bots.
2. Link spamming
Link spamming sees the website chasing after as many links as possible, often using spurious excuses to answer forum questions or social media discussions in order to build external links. The reality here is that the links gathered are of little relevant use and no commercial value. Search engines rate links based on the authority of the sites they come from, so using link-spamming techniques actually devalues the site's authority.
A much better policy is to use time that would have been spent harvesting poor quality links for a more strategic campaign. By focusing link-building efforts on relevant sites, optimisation activities will also target the desired demographic.
3. Disregarding link text
The anchor text of the link should be written as carefully as possible. Search engines such as Google can use anchor text as an indicator of internal links (links from one page of the site to another). Unimaginative anchor text such as 'click here' also does little to add value to the user experience.
4. Not tracking progress
It's impossible to assess just how effective SEO activity is if there's no record of the starting point. Tracking is an often forgotten stage of SEO, with many people thinking the best measure of progress is simply improved organic listings. Not so. The number of sales and new search inclusions are all-important metrics indicating the success (or otherwise) of the SEO strategy. A reliable and regular report detailing these factors can be used to decide on any necessary changes in direction and assess the impact of such new activity.
5. Choosing the wrong keywords
Some SEO companies propose guaranteed listings for obscure keywords, showing just how easy it is to generate page one rankings for terms with little competition. But keywords involving product names and numbers are of little use in a strategic optimisation programme. Optimisation for 'flatscreen TV' would be a good goal for a company selling flatscreen TVs. Optimisation for 'Sony Flat Screen AB 123356BBBB' would not.
6. Overlooking accessibility
Website accessibility is a critical consideration – making your website navigable to all users regardless of disability or visual impairment. The Disability Discrimination Act 2004 is an essential guideline for any UK-based website. Making link text as descriptive as possible is a part of this, but accessibility goes much further with actions such as introducing relevant Alt and Title tags compliant with WC3 guidelines.
7. Not planning your SEO strategy
Planning a useful campaign is very much like planning a journey. One of the common mistakes made by newcomers is to be overtaken by enthusiasm and neglect to map out points of interest along the way. Rather than focusing on the end goal, set short-term objectives that are signposts towards the elusive page one ranking.
Read More..
Optimisation is the process your website undergoes in order to help it achieve the best possible listings. The reason for hankering after a number one ranking? To attract targeted traffic. It's therefore surprising how many websites forget about their human users in the quest for search engine success.
Cramming as many keywords as possible into each page may yield short-term SEO results but is guaranteed to turn off human eyes. Well-written content is much more likely to result in a sale and win over the search engine web bots.
2. Link spamming
Link spamming sees the website chasing after as many links as possible, often using spurious excuses to answer forum questions or social media discussions in order to build external links. The reality here is that the links gathered are of little relevant use and no commercial value. Search engines rate links based on the authority of the sites they come from, so using link-spamming techniques actually devalues the site's authority.
A much better policy is to use time that would have been spent harvesting poor quality links for a more strategic campaign. By focusing link-building efforts on relevant sites, optimisation activities will also target the desired demographic.
3. Disregarding link text
The anchor text of the link should be written as carefully as possible. Search engines such as Google can use anchor text as an indicator of internal links (links from one page of the site to another). Unimaginative anchor text such as 'click here' also does little to add value to the user experience.
4. Not tracking progress
It's impossible to assess just how effective SEO activity is if there's no record of the starting point. Tracking is an often forgotten stage of SEO, with many people thinking the best measure of progress is simply improved organic listings. Not so. The number of sales and new search inclusions are all-important metrics indicating the success (or otherwise) of the SEO strategy. A reliable and regular report detailing these factors can be used to decide on any necessary changes in direction and assess the impact of such new activity.
5. Choosing the wrong keywords
Some SEO companies propose guaranteed listings for obscure keywords, showing just how easy it is to generate page one rankings for terms with little competition. But keywords involving product names and numbers are of little use in a strategic optimisation programme. Optimisation for 'flatscreen TV' would be a good goal for a company selling flatscreen TVs. Optimisation for 'Sony Flat Screen AB 123356BBBB' would not.
6. Overlooking accessibility
Website accessibility is a critical consideration – making your website navigable to all users regardless of disability or visual impairment. The Disability Discrimination Act 2004 is an essential guideline for any UK-based website. Making link text as descriptive as possible is a part of this, but accessibility goes much further with actions such as introducing relevant Alt and Title tags compliant with WC3 guidelines.
7. Not planning your SEO strategy
Planning a useful campaign is very much like planning a journey. One of the common mistakes made by newcomers is to be overtaken by enthusiasm and neglect to map out points of interest along the way. Rather than focusing on the end goal, set short-term objectives that are signposts towards the elusive page one ranking.
Read More..
New SEO and email marketing blog launched
A new blog featuring expert guidance and advice about email marketing, search engine optimisation (SEO), social networking and Web 2.0 strategies has been launched.
Dr. Scott's Cool Marketing and Business Blog is the brainchild of Philadelphia marketing professor Dr Scott Testa who is hoping he can use his 20 years of experience and the knowledge of a number of guest writers to help educate people about the internet marketing sector.
Predicting what the next 12 months could have in store for the industry, he remarked: "I am really looking forward to 2009.
"Unique and inexpensive marketing techniques are going to be at the forefront."
As well as containing more than four dozen educational articles, the blog also acts as a hub for several other websites and blogs, linking to over 20 in total.
Email marketing, SEO and paid search should be at the heart of any online marketing strategy, according to Straight Up Search.
Read More..
Dr. Scott's Cool Marketing and Business Blog is the brainchild of Philadelphia marketing professor Dr Scott Testa who is hoping he can use his 20 years of experience and the knowledge of a number of guest writers to help educate people about the internet marketing sector.
Predicting what the next 12 months could have in store for the industry, he remarked: "I am really looking forward to 2009.
"Unique and inexpensive marketing techniques are going to be at the forefront."
As well as containing more than four dozen educational articles, the blog also acts as a hub for several other websites and blogs, linking to over 20 in total.
Email marketing, SEO and paid search should be at the heart of any online marketing strategy, according to Straight Up Search.
Read More..
4 Reasons Why PPC Is The Best Online Marketing Channel
PPC is one of the most profitable advertising and marketing channels. This view is shared by most online marketers, who in 2007, according to Marketing Sherpa, ranked PPC and email marketing as the two channels with the highest ROI.
1. Pay Per Click Yields a High Return on Investment
If you had to choose one, PPC or email, which would it be? Email marketing works best with house (not purchased) lists. Those take time to build, and one major way to build them is via PPC. Unless you have a strong house list and don’t want new customers, PPC is better.
We just went through the year-end agency/client review process of what did and didn’t work in 2008. We assessed the ROI of each marketing channel and helped them plan their 2009 budgets accordingly.
One of our biggest clients is planning a six to seven-figure AdWords spend in 2009. This is because their ROI from AdWords was, on average, five times stronger than other online advertising and marketing channels. In 2008 we helped this company increase its revenues by 36% in a vertical hurt by our recessionary economy.
2. Pay Per Click Gives You Instant Targeted Traffic
We frequently recommend PPC for new websites. SEO has long-term benefits and is a great investment in your site’s future value, but the big bottom-line results take months or years. PPC gets immediate traffic and can help generate significant sales within weeks. We recommend both strategies in parallel because of their complimentary pros and cons.
3. Pay Per Click Helps You Find Problems With Your Offering, Promos, or Website
As soon as you have traffic, you can see what your site does and doesn’t do well. At what rate is it converting sales or leads? If highly targeted traffic converts poorly, you need conversion optimization or a usability reassessment. Sometimes an uncaught programming error or design oversight obstructs critical site functionality. Noticeable lack of conversions or low conversion rate spurs PPC managers to investigate what’s wrong.
The disadvantage of starting a site with SEO but without PPC is that traffic can take months to ramp up to significant levels. If you have a usability or conversion problem in those first three to six months, you may not have enough data to detect it or to fix it quickly with conversion optimization.
4. Pay Per Click Brands Your Company While Selling Its Offerings
Some of our clients occasionally ask about branding with PPC. I won’t belittle branding because it really is an important strategy and discipline.
Sometimes what clients mean by branding is simply increasing their exposure to new prospects. Whenever I hear “We also want to do some branding,” I ask “What do you mean by branding? What are your ultimate goals? Leads? Sales? Email list building?” After three to six months of PPC, if the client doesn’t have the leads or sales that bring in the revenue, branding won’t seem like such a good idea anymore. If you went along just to make them happy or avoid the work of educating them, you won’t look so smart or effective at this point and you may lose the client.
Read More..
1. Pay Per Click Yields a High Return on Investment
If you had to choose one, PPC or email, which would it be? Email marketing works best with house (not purchased) lists. Those take time to build, and one major way to build them is via PPC. Unless you have a strong house list and don’t want new customers, PPC is better.
We just went through the year-end agency/client review process of what did and didn’t work in 2008. We assessed the ROI of each marketing channel and helped them plan their 2009 budgets accordingly.
One of our biggest clients is planning a six to seven-figure AdWords spend in 2009. This is because their ROI from AdWords was, on average, five times stronger than other online advertising and marketing channels. In 2008 we helped this company increase its revenues by 36% in a vertical hurt by our recessionary economy.
2. Pay Per Click Gives You Instant Targeted Traffic
We frequently recommend PPC for new websites. SEO has long-term benefits and is a great investment in your site’s future value, but the big bottom-line results take months or years. PPC gets immediate traffic and can help generate significant sales within weeks. We recommend both strategies in parallel because of their complimentary pros and cons.
3. Pay Per Click Helps You Find Problems With Your Offering, Promos, or Website
As soon as you have traffic, you can see what your site does and doesn’t do well. At what rate is it converting sales or leads? If highly targeted traffic converts poorly, you need conversion optimization or a usability reassessment. Sometimes an uncaught programming error or design oversight obstructs critical site functionality. Noticeable lack of conversions or low conversion rate spurs PPC managers to investigate what’s wrong.
The disadvantage of starting a site with SEO but without PPC is that traffic can take months to ramp up to significant levels. If you have a usability or conversion problem in those first three to six months, you may not have enough data to detect it or to fix it quickly with conversion optimization.
4. Pay Per Click Brands Your Company While Selling Its Offerings
Some of our clients occasionally ask about branding with PPC. I won’t belittle branding because it really is an important strategy and discipline.
Sometimes what clients mean by branding is simply increasing their exposure to new prospects. Whenever I hear “We also want to do some branding,” I ask “What do you mean by branding? What are your ultimate goals? Leads? Sales? Email list building?” After three to six months of PPC, if the client doesn’t have the leads or sales that bring in the revenue, branding won’t seem like such a good idea anymore. If you went along just to make them happy or avoid the work of educating them, you won’t look so smart or effective at this point and you may lose the client.
Read More..
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The Future Of Search Marketing In 2009
The experts are gazing into their crystal balls and sharing their visions for 2009 in terms of search, social, online, mobile and marketing in general.
Google will cull non-revenue generating services in an effort to exceed analyst expectations. The share price will not recover to its $600USD high.
Google will also face a massive legal challenge in 2009 from a non US country regarding its business practices.
The Web 2.0 bubble will burst with many companies entering the "dead pool". The only companies which will survive will be those who have a sustainable business model.
Twitter will be bought by a major internet player and whilst will remain free to use for basic version, a premium service offering will emerge. Will continue to be plagued by reliability issues whilst seriously challenging mainstream media and blogs in breaking news.
Yahoo! value will drop considerably, forcing even further reduction in forces worldwide. Their search market share will continue to decline at the benefit of Google and Microsoft. Microsoft will over take Yahoo! in terms of search share within the US, forcing Yahoo! to reconsider its search options.
Search spending growth will slow considerably in the first half of the year but still grow (single digits). Growth will accelerate to double digits by end of 2009.
2009 will be known as the year that SaaS becomes mainstream, with fortune 500 companies adopting it to reduce costs. Amazon will loose its place as the number one provider of cloud services to start ups, with major IT vendors all offering competiting products but with a far superior development interface i.e. merging of cloud services into traditional desktop development tools.
Read More..
Google will cull non-revenue generating services in an effort to exceed analyst expectations. The share price will not recover to its $600USD high.
Google will also face a massive legal challenge in 2009 from a non US country regarding its business practices.
The Web 2.0 bubble will burst with many companies entering the "dead pool". The only companies which will survive will be those who have a sustainable business model.
Twitter will be bought by a major internet player and whilst will remain free to use for basic version, a premium service offering will emerge. Will continue to be plagued by reliability issues whilst seriously challenging mainstream media and blogs in breaking news.
Yahoo! value will drop considerably, forcing even further reduction in forces worldwide. Their search market share will continue to decline at the benefit of Google and Microsoft. Microsoft will over take Yahoo! in terms of search share within the US, forcing Yahoo! to reconsider its search options.
Search spending growth will slow considerably in the first half of the year but still grow (single digits). Growth will accelerate to double digits by end of 2009.
2009 will be known as the year that SaaS becomes mainstream, with fortune 500 companies adopting it to reduce costs. Amazon will loose its place as the number one provider of cloud services to start ups, with major IT vendors all offering competiting products but with a far superior development interface i.e. merging of cloud services into traditional desktop development tools.
Read More..
Friday, January 2, 2009
101 Blogging Tips I’ve Learned in 2008
1. Choose WordPress
2. If you use blogspot, get your own domain
3. Choose the right hosting provider
4. If possible, have keywords on your domain
5. Use dashes for long domain name
6. Opt for .com or .net and avoid the rest
7. Have the post-install checklist
8. Optimize your permalink
9. Plugins does wonder to your blog
10. Choose the right plugins
11. Too many plug-ins will slow down your blog
12. Pick your niche carefully and stick with it
13. Be passionate about what you write
14. Aim to be an expert in your niche
15. Don’t lose your credibility by faking it
16. Be accountable to what you say write
17. Posting frequency is over-rated
18. Read more than you write. Organize your RSS subscription
19. Avoid chunk of long article. Break it down into paragraph
20. Use bold headings
21. Use list
22. Write long article to get traffic
23. Picture speaks a thousand words. Use images
24. Start and end with questions whenever possible
25. Proofread twice before you publish
26. Focus on keywords in post title
27. Write for both readers and search engines
28. Your readers come first, everything else second
29. Learn the importance of keyword research
30. Being #1 on Google doesn’t necessarily brings in the traffic
31. Keywords must be searchable. Check its average search volume.
32. Don’t be afraid to link out
33. To get attention, link out to inner pages and not homepage
34. Explain What is RSS? Not everyone is tech-savvy
35. Use feedburner
36. Offer email subscription
37. Don’t display your subscribership too early
38. The first 100 is the hardest. The next 100 is easier to achieve
39. Back up your blog
40. Speed up your blog
41. Optimize your blog
42. Design matters, first impression counts
43. Get a premium theme
44. If budget isn’t an issue, get a custom theme
45. Unclutter your sidebar
46. Have an “About Me” page. It makes it more personal
47. Don’t hide behind your blog
48. Mascot is the trend but real picture improves your credibility
49. Always have a “Contact Me” page
50. Dofollow your blog to get your community off the ground
51. Promote your blog via commenting
52. Leave relevant comments. One-line comments are frowned upon
53. Get yourself a gravatar and see #48
54. Link to inner pages when commenting
55. Use Fast Blog Finder
56. Be the first to comment
57. Avoid A-list blogs when you are new as
58. No one cares about your opinion unless you are John Chow
59. Moderate your comments. Use Akismet.
60. Always reply to comments
61. Don’t underestimate the use of keywords on your comment
62. Visit your commenters’ sites. Reciprocal commenting is the key
63. Activate top commentator plugin
64. Enable “Subscribe to Comment“
65. Join my PageRank list
66. Learn the art of pin-point commenting
67. Reward your top active commenters
68. Don’t monetize too early
69. Adsense isn’t going to make you rich overnight
70. Adsense works best with organic traffic
71. Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is higher on niche sites
72. Subscribers don’t click ads
73. Learn the art of affiliate marketing
74. Write product review
75. Check your stats
76. Study your popular pages and
77. Monetize those pages
78. Optimize your old articles for search traffic
79. Learn basic SEO
80. Make use of SEO tools
81. Duplicate content is a myth
82. Google sandbox is real
83. Focus on one-way link building
84. Have keywords on footer
85. Write a guest post and invite guest posters
86. Promote your blog site with article marketing
87. Learn the power of outsourcing
88. Use signature links on “dofollow” forums
89. Join Twitter and use it creatively.
90. Digg is useless
91. Use Squidoo and promote with Knol
92. Join Technorati and claim your blog
93. Make into 45n5 Top 100 list
94. Be patient. There isn’t any shortcut to blogging success.
95. Have perseverance. Your passion is your passport to success.
96. Find out what people want and help them get it.
97. For blogging tips, read ProBlogger
98. For copywriting tips, read CopyBlogger
99. For personal development tips, read Steve Pavlina
100. The ‘gurus’ are not always right
101. Create a 101 list
Read More..
2. If you use blogspot, get your own domain
3. Choose the right hosting provider
4. If possible, have keywords on your domain
5. Use dashes for long domain name
6. Opt for .com or .net and avoid the rest
7. Have the post-install checklist
8. Optimize your permalink
9. Plugins does wonder to your blog
10. Choose the right plugins
11. Too many plug-ins will slow down your blog
12. Pick your niche carefully and stick with it
13. Be passionate about what you write
14. Aim to be an expert in your niche
15. Don’t lose your credibility by faking it
16. Be accountable to what you say write
17. Posting frequency is over-rated
18. Read more than you write. Organize your RSS subscription
19. Avoid chunk of long article. Break it down into paragraph
20. Use bold headings
21. Use list
22. Write long article to get traffic
23. Picture speaks a thousand words. Use images
24. Start and end with questions whenever possible
25. Proofread twice before you publish
26. Focus on keywords in post title
27. Write for both readers and search engines
28. Your readers come first, everything else second
29. Learn the importance of keyword research
30. Being #1 on Google doesn’t necessarily brings in the traffic
31. Keywords must be searchable. Check its average search volume.
32. Don’t be afraid to link out
33. To get attention, link out to inner pages and not homepage
34. Explain What is RSS? Not everyone is tech-savvy
35. Use feedburner
36. Offer email subscription
37. Don’t display your subscribership too early
38. The first 100 is the hardest. The next 100 is easier to achieve
39. Back up your blog
40. Speed up your blog
41. Optimize your blog
42. Design matters, first impression counts
43. Get a premium theme
44. If budget isn’t an issue, get a custom theme
45. Unclutter your sidebar
46. Have an “About Me” page. It makes it more personal
47. Don’t hide behind your blog
48. Mascot is the trend but real picture improves your credibility
49. Always have a “Contact Me” page
50. Dofollow your blog to get your community off the ground
51. Promote your blog via commenting
52. Leave relevant comments. One-line comments are frowned upon
53. Get yourself a gravatar and see #48
54. Link to inner pages when commenting
55. Use Fast Blog Finder
56. Be the first to comment
57. Avoid A-list blogs when you are new as
58. No one cares about your opinion unless you are John Chow
59. Moderate your comments. Use Akismet.
60. Always reply to comments
61. Don’t underestimate the use of keywords on your comment
62. Visit your commenters’ sites. Reciprocal commenting is the key
63. Activate top commentator plugin
64. Enable “Subscribe to Comment“
65. Join my PageRank list
66. Learn the art of pin-point commenting
67. Reward your top active commenters
68. Don’t monetize too early
69. Adsense isn’t going to make you rich overnight
70. Adsense works best with organic traffic
71. Cost-Per-Click (CPC) is higher on niche sites
72. Subscribers don’t click ads
73. Learn the art of affiliate marketing
74. Write product review
75. Check your stats
76. Study your popular pages and
77. Monetize those pages
78. Optimize your old articles for search traffic
79. Learn basic SEO
80. Make use of SEO tools
81. Duplicate content is a myth
82. Google sandbox is real
83. Focus on one-way link building
84. Have keywords on footer
85. Write a guest post and invite guest posters
86. Promote your blog site with article marketing
87. Learn the power of outsourcing
88. Use signature links on “dofollow” forums
89. Join Twitter and use it creatively.
90. Digg is useless
91. Use Squidoo and promote with Knol
92. Join Technorati and claim your blog
93. Make into 45n5 Top 100 list
94. Be patient. There isn’t any shortcut to blogging success.
95. Have perseverance. Your passion is your passport to success.
96. Find out what people want and help them get it.
97. For blogging tips, read ProBlogger
98. For copywriting tips, read CopyBlogger
99. For personal development tips, read Steve Pavlina
100. The ‘gurus’ are not always right
101. Create a 101 list
Read More..
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Blog Tips for SEO
Blogs are the current rage, and many webmasters have blogs but fail to use their blog to it's full potential. Blogs provide a steady stream of fresh content, and if this content is written and managed properly, blogs have the ability to increase a website's ranking in the search engines.
1. Host Your Own Blog
In order to prosper from a blog, be sure to host it on your own domain. Hosting the blog on your own server will maximize the links to your website. Link popularity is one of the factors search engines use to rank websites. Resist the urge to use free hosting services, do not give away your link popularity!
2. RSS Feeds
All blogs should have an RSS feed. An RSS feed will allow for your blog posts to be easily syndicated. The syndication will result in links back to your blog from RSS directories or others who display the feed. Blog entries should be available via an RSS feed. Website visitors who subscribe to the feed will receive notification when new blog posts are added. If the title is of interest, they will click through to your website. This gives subscribers an easy way to know when a blog has been updated.
3. Use White Space
Be sure to make your content scannable. Few website visitors actually read blog posts; most web visitors simply scan a blog entry to determine its relevance or point. With that in mind, the blog posts should be displayed in short paragraphs. Overly long posts should be segmented into concise paragraphs or broken into bulleted lists to make scanning easier. Avoid the urge to "clutter" the post.
4. Titles Matter
You only have seconds to grab the attention of scanners browsing your blog. Use keywords and catchy titles to draw readers in. Blog post titles can be bolded for emphasis and white space should be used to buffer the content.
5. Grammar Matters
You will be judged by your knowledge and use of the English language. Search engines will make note of blog entries that lack proper punctuation or capitalization. If a blog post does not respect the rules of grammar and punctuation, it is possible search engines will make the assumption that a bot cobbled together the posts leading to a potential ban.
6. Legibility
As with any web design select fonts carefully, do not use micro or macro-fonts. Colors should be web safe, making it easy to discern and read. The background and background color should not obscure the text.
7. Navigate
Give readers somewhere to go, include links to additional information resources or extended information in the blog post. Including links in the actual blog post will ensure back links should the RSS feed be syndicated.
8. Communicate
If you create a post about someone, let them know, they might surprise you and link back or they might blog about your blog post, essentially creating a virtual dialogue. This is an easy way to build link popularity. Be warned however, simply mentioning a popular blogger on a blog will rarely result in a link back, the content of the blog post must "grab" their interest.
9. Incorporate SEO
Blog posts should be written as you would write a web copy. Posts should be natural and make sense while still incorporating keywords and keyword phrases that relate to the content.
10. Speed Matters
Web pages that are slow to load will frustrate users, be sure to use reliable web hosting. Compress graphics to maximize load time.
Use your blog to help your website attract traffic. Attention to search engine optimization details could mean the difference between popular and unpopular.
Read MOre...
1. Host Your Own Blog
In order to prosper from a blog, be sure to host it on your own domain. Hosting the blog on your own server will maximize the links to your website. Link popularity is one of the factors search engines use to rank websites. Resist the urge to use free hosting services, do not give away your link popularity!
2. RSS Feeds
All blogs should have an RSS feed. An RSS feed will allow for your blog posts to be easily syndicated. The syndication will result in links back to your blog from RSS directories or others who display the feed. Blog entries should be available via an RSS feed. Website visitors who subscribe to the feed will receive notification when new blog posts are added. If the title is of interest, they will click through to your website. This gives subscribers an easy way to know when a blog has been updated.
3. Use White Space
Be sure to make your content scannable. Few website visitors actually read blog posts; most web visitors simply scan a blog entry to determine its relevance or point. With that in mind, the blog posts should be displayed in short paragraphs. Overly long posts should be segmented into concise paragraphs or broken into bulleted lists to make scanning easier. Avoid the urge to "clutter" the post.
4. Titles Matter
You only have seconds to grab the attention of scanners browsing your blog. Use keywords and catchy titles to draw readers in. Blog post titles can be bolded for emphasis and white space should be used to buffer the content.
5. Grammar Matters
You will be judged by your knowledge and use of the English language. Search engines will make note of blog entries that lack proper punctuation or capitalization. If a blog post does not respect the rules of grammar and punctuation, it is possible search engines will make the assumption that a bot cobbled together the posts leading to a potential ban.
6. Legibility
As with any web design select fonts carefully, do not use micro or macro-fonts. Colors should be web safe, making it easy to discern and read. The background and background color should not obscure the text.
7. Navigate
Give readers somewhere to go, include links to additional information resources or extended information in the blog post. Including links in the actual blog post will ensure back links should the RSS feed be syndicated.
8. Communicate
If you create a post about someone, let them know, they might surprise you and link back or they might blog about your blog post, essentially creating a virtual dialogue. This is an easy way to build link popularity. Be warned however, simply mentioning a popular blogger on a blog will rarely result in a link back, the content of the blog post must "grab" their interest.
9. Incorporate SEO
Blog posts should be written as you would write a web copy. Posts should be natural and make sense while still incorporating keywords and keyword phrases that relate to the content.
10. Speed Matters
Web pages that are slow to load will frustrate users, be sure to use reliable web hosting. Compress graphics to maximize load time.
Use your blog to help your website attract traffic. Attention to search engine optimization details could mean the difference between popular and unpopular.
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Natural Writing vs. SEO Copywriting
While it’s well known that someone has to write the copy, there’s always been a question of whether SEO copywriting or natural writing is more effective in getting conversions. I, for one, am torn between the two, and I say that as a confident SEO copywriter and specialist.
The problem is that SEO is theory – not fact; witness the many conflicting tips, tricks, hints and information on the subject. For instance, one SEO guru may extol the virtues of keywords in the Meta tags, while another may tell you to forget the keyword tags all together.
In copywriting for SEO purposes, keywords “seem” to be the most important thing about the content. As you read articles on the Internet, you’ll find keywords that jump out at you; unnaturally placed, redundant, oddly written, some misspelled. Is this natural writing, written badly? No – it’s SEO.
Now, we in the optimization game know that SEO works. We prove it when our clients reach the first page of Google on a strong search term and their traffic and conversion numbers rise. What often happens, however, is what I call the “vitamin” effect. You take a lot of vitamins and you feel better, but you don’t know which ones are working and which ones aren’t so you keep taking them all.
While we may not know everything that works versus everything that doesn’t, we do know that key words and phrases are effective. So perhaps it isn’t the use of the keywords; perhaps it’s our implementation of them.
Read More..
The problem is that SEO is theory – not fact; witness the many conflicting tips, tricks, hints and information on the subject. For instance, one SEO guru may extol the virtues of keywords in the Meta tags, while another may tell you to forget the keyword tags all together.
In copywriting for SEO purposes, keywords “seem” to be the most important thing about the content. As you read articles on the Internet, you’ll find keywords that jump out at you; unnaturally placed, redundant, oddly written, some misspelled. Is this natural writing, written badly? No – it’s SEO.
Now, we in the optimization game know that SEO works. We prove it when our clients reach the first page of Google on a strong search term and their traffic and conversion numbers rise. What often happens, however, is what I call the “vitamin” effect. You take a lot of vitamins and you feel better, but you don’t know which ones are working and which ones aren’t so you keep taking them all.
While we may not know everything that works versus everything that doesn’t, we do know that key words and phrases are effective. So perhaps it isn’t the use of the keywords; perhaps it’s our implementation of them.
Read More..
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