tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67219889626161256302024-02-07T06:12:13.410-08:00Website Promotion & Search Engine OptimizationRobert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-24604375372646067272009-06-26T07:29:00.001-07:002009-06-26T07:33:19.897-07:00The Top 10 Essentials for Your Pay Per Click (PPC) SuccessWhether you're looking to do Paid Search Advertising yourself or to hire someone to do that for you - you should know what makes a Pay Per Click campaign successful - or you will end up suffering. Paid search advertising may look deceptively easy to do. Countless times small business owners decide (and correctly so) that PPC is going to do wonders for their business and 'dive' right into it...<br /><br />Unfortunately most of them don't really educate themselves enough on what to do and how to do it, and then they end up spending a helluva lot of money, with little to no results. Next they declare that Paid Search Marketing doesn't work and then they're out!<br /><br />Alternatively, the small business owner hires an overpaid, over-promising PPC management firm, and lets them do whatever they like - not knowing what to be aware of in order to make sure he's getting the best possible results for the best price...<br /><br />Well - despite the doom and gloom scenarios above, I'm here to tell you that PPC works for most businesses!<br /><br />It works very well, and can be one of the best, quickest, most cost effective and best tracked medium of advertising/promotion there ever was... Sure, there are other ways you can market your business, but if you know how to, and if you want almost immediate results that are fully tracked - then PPC can't be beaten.<br /><br /><br />OK, let's get to the top 10 essentials of Pay Per Click marketing:<br /><br /><strong>1. Know your market place</strong><br /><br />It's as obvious as daylight, but people still go into PPC without doing their research. Bear in mind that you may know your market place offline, but when you consider the internet - it may be a whole different environment. So make sure you look into it - even if you have to pay for professional research - it will be worth your while.<br /><br />If you're letting an agency manage your paid search, then make sure you ask them about your market - make sure they have done their homework thoroughly.<br /><strong><br />2. Know your target audience</strong><br /><br />Again an obvious one - and yet again people don't do this step properly. Don't just list out a bunch of demographics about your prospective customers. Get into character - engineer 'real-life' people profiles (avatars), describing everything about them.<br /><br />Creating about 3 customer avatars for your business, will help you understand your customers, and thus you'll be able to anticipate how they behave. Knowing how they are likely to behave, will allow you to setup a VERY effective PPC campaign process, that will guarantee you success.<br /><br />Remember - your customer just wants to feel understood, then if your product/service is good - they will buy.<br /><br /><strong>3. Know what you want your visitor to do</strong><br /><br />In other words decide - do you want a prospect visiting your site to:<br /><br />call you to make an appointment?<br />email you with more info about themselves, before setting up a consultation?<br />click on the "Buy Now" button on your landing page?<br />sign up to your membership site?<br />sign up to your free newsletter?<br />download a free report?<br />The clearer you are about what you want visitors to do, the easier it will be to entice them to do just that. If you don't tell your prospects what it is they need to do to progress this visit to something that is of benefit to them, they will click away, most likely to never be seen again...<br /><br /><strong>4. Know how they look for you & your product - i.e. understand searcher intent</strong><br /><br />This one's not so obvious. Only very good paid search marketers know that keywords have different intent behind them. In other words, if a searcher on Google types in "running shoes" they are highly likely to be doing some preliminary research on what types of running shoes there are.<br /><br />If the same searcher typed in "running shoes reviews" - then they are likely to be still researching - but they now know that they will buy - when they find the shoe that appeals to them.<br /><br />A prospect with 'buying' intent, however, will likely type in "buy asics gel kayano running shoes" or "asics gel kayano stockists". You get the idea...<br /><br /><strong>5. Start small - grow big later</strong><br /><br />This simply means that it is better to find the most suitable keyword phrases for your business, and run with that small group first. This will allow you to test the 'waters' and it will help you keep control of your budget.<br /><br />Later on, when you know what works and what doesn't you can add other phrases to your heart's content.<br /><br /><strong>6. Split test your ads</strong><br /><br />It is amazing how many people don't take advantage of this feature on Google AdWords. Split - testing will give you a constant way of improving on your ads. Your ad is the 'window' to your sales... so you cannot afford not to be constantly trying to make it better converting than before.<br /><br /><strong>7. Use landing pages (LP</strong>)<br /><br />Landing pages are powerful when using them correctly. They allow you complete control of what your visitor experiences. I always recommend that if you are only wanting one result from your prospect you should use LPs. But if your resources and knowledge are limited, then at least make sure you are leading the searcher to the most search-relevant page you have on your site.<br /><br /><br /><strong>8. Track everything</strong><br /><br />This says it all - even if you don't know how to, or with what - find someone that can help you. Outsource this job, or simply head over to Google and read all there is on their Analytics service. In some cases this is perfectly sufficient.<br /><br /><strong>9. Listen to your stats</strong><br /><br />Once you have your tracking working, make sure you look at your stats to see the results. I recommend you look at them once a day in the beginning - depending on the size of your campaign, the amount of traffic your keywords are getting, and the amount of money you've budgeted to spend.<br /><br />Once your campaign is working and making you profit, you can start looking at it less often, but at least once a week. Also make sure to optimize it regularly on the basis of your stats.<br /><br /><strong>10. Learn consistently and constantly</strong><br /><br />Learn from your successes, your failures, your competitors' successes and their failures too... I have a document template that I use for all my campaigns called - Lessons Learned. It's only through experience that you will be able to progress and optimize any paid search campaign.<br /><br />Well - hopefully you'll find the above list of PPC essentials very useful. Of course there are a lot of other important points to consider, like daily budget, competitive research, and return on investment requirements, but the above 10 will be able to start you off in a very strong way.<br /><br />Bear in mind that whether you're managing your own PPC campaigns, or you're hiring a professional to do it - you can use the list above to make sure you're getting the best out of your campaigns.<br /><br /> <br /><strong>About the Author</strong><br /><br />Anita Chaperon is an experienced Paid Search Marketing professional who's managed multi - national campaigns with large budgets for a variety of small and medium businesses. For more information on how to make paid search work for your business, visit OnTargt.com.<br /> <br /> <br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Check out: <strong><a href="http://obamaleadership.blogspot.com">The Chronicles of Barack Obama</a>, </strong><a href="http://creditra.com">Credit Repair va</a>, <a href="http://creditra.com">repair credit</a>, <a href="http://www.autofinanceinsider.com">f&i</a>, <a href="http://creditra.blogspot.com">Credit Repiar Blog</a>, <a href="http://autofinanceinsider.blogspot.com">F&I Manager Blog</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-6523868195544577582009-03-05T08:30:00.000-08:002009-03-05T08:51:30.146-08:009 Hot Tips to Increase Site ConversionsBy <a href="http://www.moonrisedesign.com/">Gary Klingsheim</a> (c) 2009 <br /><br /><br />"Site conversion" is a very dry and unexciting way of saying "how to get more profíts from the same amount of website traffic." Isn't that a more upbeat way of expressing it? Who doesn't want to get more profíts from the same number of visitors? <br /><br /><br />Increasing your conversion rate is a straightforward, even dramatic way of positively impacting your bottom line. It really cannot be emphasized too much that any improvement at all in your conversion rate means additional revenue that is total profít. <br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighVrjKkkKxIK098xI_JFptT1-OzqK9j4F8z8yS_XY9YjUsr4fnL8OMOmw95TEaT3JhcSebg798k8EF0tIgGvLK-3RZBXHQEzrZKSgQuiGiMAlGdLks1v3fuPNn_lhpZ4zLRnDsxONAt0/s1600-h/seo_site2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighVrjKkkKxIK098xI_JFptT1-OzqK9j4F8z8yS_XY9YjUsr4fnL8OMOmw95TEaT3JhcSebg798k8EF0tIgGvLK-3RZBXHQEzrZKSgQuiGiMAlGdLks1v3fuPNn_lhpZ4zLRnDsxONAt0/s320/seo_site2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309743883648713378" /></a><br /><br /><br />Remember this fact when you are told that the way to "make more money" is to invest in more traffic-generating schemes (and dreams, at times). Before you start spending more money to generate additional traffic, you need to do as much as you can with the traffic you are already getting. If you keep the horse ahead of the cart in your planning, you will have an efficient, stable, <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">measurable conversion rate</a> from which you can extrapolate x amount of additional profit from y amount of new-traffic generation.<br /><br /><br />The following tips are not in any particular order (except for Number 1), and can be modified and reordered to suit your particular situation. Take ownership of the change and improvement, and make sure everyone involved understands the importance of maximizing every revenue source, beginning with the existing ones! <br /><br /><br />1: Before you can repair or improve something, you have to have a good way of measuring where you are, what you're doing, where you're going, etc. You can sign up for a free Google Analytics account and use other low- and no-cost tools to develop your "analytics" and "metrics" - essentially fancy words that tell you how you're doing with numbers.<br /><br /><br />2: Create landing pages that are both keyword- and campaign-specific. Try separating any related pay-per-click keywords into smaller and tighter groups, and then create the landing pages for each of those new subgroups. Conversions will almost certainly be better if keywords, advertising approaches and landing pages are thematically related and tightly integrated.<br /><br /><br />3: Test different headlines and copy writing. This might be the most effective way of quickly showing improvements. Therefore, you need to write compelling copy or find someone else who can do it for you. There is plenty of <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">free advice</a> about this (much of it worth every penny you pay for it), but the importance of copywriting as it affects site conversions cannot possibly be overstated. This is key. <br /><br /><br />4: It is very important to test your pricing, as it really does make a huge difference in conversions. If your goal is to maximize customer value, then the highest converting price may not actually be the optimal one. In other words, if you raise your price by 50% and only see a 10% reduction in conversions, you will more than compensate for the drop. Going the other direction, if you lower the price 15% and this doubles or triples your ratio, your gain compensates for your price reduction. Test your prices, and test them in both directions.<br /><br /><br />5: Website load time has become an oft-overlooked item in this age of "broadband everywhere." Load time is critically important in reducing your "bounce rate" on landing pages. There are various online services that will measure your load speed (websiteoptimization.com), and when you know what it is, you can reduce it by compressing images, removing redundant items, optimizing your style sheets (CSS) and HTML code, and so on. The referenced website will also give you advice on other ways to improve your site's load speed.<br /><br /><br />6: Clearly identify the sales path(s) and discard any points of resistance, or bottlenecks. Even if you have just a single product, there may be a number of different "paths" that lead to a sale. Perhaps you have a landing page to acquire visitor contact data, which then takes them to a sales page, thence to an order page, and so on. Check your metrics and analytics carefully and you should start seeing patterns in how your visitors navigate your site. If you can see when, where and how visitors are leaving the site, you can delete unnecessary steps, enhance the sales copy or the "call to action," insert a few testimonials, emphasize your warranty or something else to capture that business. Do everything you can to keep the sales process <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">simple</a> and straightforward. The less confusing it is, the less resistance visitors will display.<br /><br /><br />7: Let your praises come from others' lips. Sometimes talking about oneself can sound egotistical, and it has been clearly proven that third-party testimonials boost conversions. In marketing it is called "social proof" when you bring in statements and assessments from others to buttress your message. If you add testimonials - short blurbs, highlighted quotes, letters - to your various landing pages, sales pages and even shopping cart pages, you will almost invariably notice an improvement in your conversion rate. <br /><br /><br />8: You need to understand the mind of your market, and your customer's experience with your website. Place an order on the site yourself as you step into the mind of a first-time visitor. Identify the hang-ups, inefficiencies and confusing or missing components that hinder your conversions. In concert with step #6 above, you want to identify why you are not converting, so that you can make the necessary improvements, whatever they may be, to improve your ratio.<br /><br /><br />9: Some people believe passionately in the power of media on landing, sales and order pages to raise conversions considerably. Others are not convinced, and there is not much hard data from controlled studies to consult. You should consider testing this idea yourself. You should try pages both with and without automatic play engaged. The idea is to lower buyer resistance, and if media helps, all the better. Music, motion graphics and video do add life and personality to your website, but there is a "sweet spot" (balancing point) and the fact remains that different age and cultural groups respond differently to the media. You need to make changes here in the context of your site's demographics. You wouldn't put rock music on your page of ladies' perfumes, probably - unless you have a 20-something demographic and it's a signature fragrance from U2 or some other chart-topping band.<br /><br /><br />Aren't most of these lists called the "top 10" this or that? You can count this tip as a bonus, then: Keep track of everything you do! Nothing "goes without saying" anymore, so you are hereby reminded that all your hard work can go for naught if you do not keep good records of what changes you are making, when, where, why and how. Chart your progress, review it regularly and don't be afraid to make continuing refinements as you move along your strategic path. <br /><br /><br />Finally, as a "super bonus tip" - use some kind of sales accelerator, "offer intensifier" or other method to move people faster through the sales process. It could be a special "one time" or "limited time" offer, a limíted quantity offer or even a "special event" promotíon. Research what's going on at other sites in your industry and others, and stay abreast of what seems to be working. Add your creativity to the mix, tailor things to your company's situation and you should start seeing increased conversion rates in short order. <br /><br />Good Stuff!!!<br /><br /><br /><strong>About The Author:</strong><br /><br />Moonrise Productions is a custom web design company specializing in <a href="http://www.moonrisedesign.com/">custom web development</a> and design. Whether you need <a href="http://www.moonrisedesign.com/">web application development</a> or social network design - contact us and we'll get it done right. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Check out: <strong><a href="http://obamaleadership.blogspot.com">The Chronicles of Barack Obama</a>, </strong><a href="http://creditra.com">Credit Repair va</a>, <a href="http://creditra.com">repair credit</a>, <a href="http://www.autofinanceinsider.com">f&i</a>, <a href="http://creditra.blogspot.com">Credit Repiar Blog</a>, <a href="http://autofinanceinsider.blogspot.com">F&I Manager Blog</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-76225597124681232392009-02-15T08:40:00.001-08:002009-02-15T09:39:33.198-08:00How to connect your Laptop/PC/Computer to your TV<strong>This works! </strong><br /><a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to-your-tv/">Link to source article at Online Tech Tips:</a> <br /><br />How to connect your Laptop/PC/Computer to your TV<br /><br />I’m writing this post on how to connect your PC or computer to a TV because last week I returned from a trip in India and wanted to show all of my pictures and videos to my family from my laptop onto our HDTV, but unfortunately I did not have the correct cords and so after fumbling around for 30 minutes trying to connect my computer to the TV, I had to tell everyone that they would have to wait till the next weekend! Pretty annoying considering the times we live in, it should be quite easy to connect the two together!<br /><br />So here’s a quick walk-through of all the methods that I know (if you know any more, please comment) to connect a laptop or PC to your TV:<br /><br /><strong>1. S-Video</strong> - This is probably the most common method out there currently because an <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to.html">S-Video cable</a> is cheap as heck and just about every TV under the sun has a S-Video port. You’ll have to make sure you laptop is equipped with this port. Remember, there are two types of S-Video cables: 4-pin and 7-pin. Most laptops and PC’s are equipped with a 7-pin port, so if your TV only has a 4-pin S-Video port, then this method will not work.<br /><br /><strong>2. VGA</strong> - If you have a HDTV, then you will be better off connecting using a <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to.html">VGA cable</a>. It gives much better quality than S-Video and as with S-Video, the cable is very cheap. You usually won’t find a VGA port on regular TV’s though, so this option is if you have an HDTV.<br /><br /><strong>3. DVI</strong> - DVI stands for Digital Visual Interface with “digital” being the key word there. The digital signal will give a higher quality picture than either S-Video or VGA. Of course, your computer will need to have a DVI connection and your TV will need to be an HDTV. This cord is definitely not cheap, it ranges anywhere from $40 to $80.<br /><br /><strong>4. HDMI</strong> - Using HDMI will give you the best quality by far. No computers that I know of yet have HDMI ports, but you can get a DVI to HDMI cable to connect it to your HDTV. <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to.html">HDMI is compatible with DVI</a>.<br /><br /><strong>5. Scan Converter Box</strong> - This is the last method that I could think of and it involves using a scan converter box, which takes a VGA signal and converts it into S-Video or component video.<br /><br />Here’s a graphic I created with some pictures of the various cables:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4YvPidqPuWgWcJQfNJ2JW2h5YpiXZ79hdLKJOMOXJlNozznzUl2v1o2mOsFisRg_1Agi_Pewqxyfrjc4-JALPF2mY0FK4414f5tgriL7iUDYLXiaREUlYDCyz5hNV3NFHur5EcbLLMU/s1600-h/laptop-to-tv.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4YvPidqPuWgWcJQfNJ2JW2h5YpiXZ79hdLKJOMOXJlNozznzUl2v1o2mOsFisRg_1Agi_Pewqxyfrjc4-JALPF2mY0FK4414f5tgriL7iUDYLXiaREUlYDCyz5hNV3NFHur5EcbLLMU/s320/laptop-to-tv.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5303065361242737138" /></a><br /><br /><br /><strong>Remember to print this article for your records.</strong><br /><br /><br /><strong>Helpful Comments and situations to help solve:</strong><br /><br /><br />1. Peter Mule said:<br /><br />tried using a <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">vga cord</a> connected to laptop and hdtv. tuned tv to pc mode but when laptop is switched on the screen just remains black as well as the tv screen..The only thing that works is that i can use the cursor on the laptop and it shows up on the hdtv but all remains black…what can i do..please,,,any suggestions….thank you<br /><br /><br />* You could try to do a few things for starters: go ahead and change the resolution on your laptop to something lower, maybe 800×600, sometimes that causes the problem. You can also change the color scheme to 24-bit if it’s set to 32-bit and see if that works. <br /><br />Also, you said you are changing the TV to PC mode, but what about the laptop? Sometimes, you have to press FN (function key) and F8 (the CRT/LCD) key to have the signal sent out to the TV. <br /><br /><br />2. Hmz said:<br /><br />Dude, the easiest and by far the best way I have seen is to set the advance timings on a pc just right and use a vga to scart cable (Maybe with audio of you don’t have the pc hooked up to an audio system of some sort). This is a nerdy approach but you get superb results for little money with stuff that’s standard on both the TV and PC. You can also get dvi to s-video or CVBS to make it happen.<br /><br />One on my favorite ways is to just stream it to my <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-connect-your-laptoppccomputer-to.html">TV via a computer</a> that is hooked up via DVI. This way you can have a silent, efficient and small htcp that can stream over your wan.<br /><br /><br />3. Nick H said:<br /><br />I have a Tevion 32″ LCD TV, my computer has 3 outputs, 1xVGA, 1xDVI, 1xS-Video. I bought a DVI-D cable (5 metres) and a DVI to HDMI Adaptor to connect the computer and the TV. <br /><br />The video works fine but of course I cannot get any audio since the TV does not appear to have a audio input related to the HDMI video input. Is there any other work arounds to get audio to work in this case?<br /><br />If there isn’t I will just get a DVI to VGA adaptor and a 5 metre VGA cable and connect that to my TV and use the 3.5mm “PC Audio In” to connect the audio. How much worse will the video look using VGA instead of DVI?<br /><br /><br />4. Mike said: <br /><br />I hooked my computer to my TV using the s-video cable, then I configured my my video card, and now I can see my comp image on my TV screen.. However, what Im really trying to do, is go the other way. I want my TV screen image to appear in a video program on my computer so I can capture the footage with my CPU.. How do I get my computer to find the TV?<br /><br /><br />5. Michael said:<br /><br />I was trying to hook my computer to my new HDTV, I was told to buy a DVI to HDMI cable, I went to the store and picked up a DVI-D to HDMI I connected it and I get an image but is not good at all, it has some kind of green stripes on the screen. Could it be becuase is a DVI-D? Does that have anything to do with it? Whats the difference bewteen DVI-D and DVI?<br />If anyone knows, I would aprreciate your help.<br />Thanks<br /><br /><br />6. faith said:<br /><br />I have a vga cable both male and attached it from my laptop to hdtv that has hdmi port, the cable fit the hdmi port but I don’t know what keys to turn from my laptop so I can watch watch the video from my laptop to hdtv. Where do I find the FN key it all shows f1 f2 f3 f4 etc. Can I use that vga cable to hdmi port? Please help.<br /><br />Thanks.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Help the community. Leave a comment!</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><br /><br />Check out: <strong><a href="http://obamaleadership.blogspot.com">The Chronicles of Barack Obama</a>, </strong><a href="http://creditra.com">Credit Repair va</a>, <a href="http://creditra.com">repair credit</a>, <a href="http://www.autofinanceinsider.com">f&i</a>, <a href="http://creditra.blogspot.com">Credit Repiar Blog</a>, <a href="http://autofinanceinsider.blogspot.com">F&I Manager Blog</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-10269318323216705672009-01-24T07:21:00.000-08:002009-01-25T10:28:06.845-08:00A Pretty Face is Not Enough (When it Comes to Your Website)By <a href="http://www.web4business.com.au">Ivana Katz</a> (c) 2009 <br /><br /><br />Imagine meeting someone new ... they have a beautiful face, lovely hair, stunning smile, drop dead gorgeous body and are dressed in designer clothes. Naturally you are attracted to their striking appearance, so you start talking to them. After a few minutes you realize this person has no personality, only talks about himself/herself and has no interest in finding out about you. Any attempt on your part to speak gets shut down and if you do manage to ask a question their answer is usually "Yes, but ... let's get back to me".<br /><br />How long do you think you would stay and chat to this person? Do you think you would want to become friends? Probably not. <br /><br /><strong>And the same goes for your website!</strong><br /><br />You can create the most stunning website, with flash animations, video or audio features, rotating logos etc but the truth is, if your website doesn't have any depth, no amount of "pretty" will get visitors to come back, let alone purchase anything!<br /><br />Just as Dr Phil warns against spending your entire time planning a wedding (and spending thousands of dollars on it), instead of preparing for a lifelong marriage, many first time entrepreneurs become absorbed by the visual aspects of their website. They spend hours agonizing over colour schemes and designs (and then spend thousands of dollars having special effects added), but sadly don't give any priority or time to the content of their website. True.<br /><br />Every month millions of new websites are being added to the internet and you are competing against all of them! Even if they are not in the same line of business as you are, they are competing with you for visitor attention.<br /><br />And even if you do manage to get a visitor to your website, but fail to provide the necessary information, your potential customer will click away in seconds, not to be seen again!<br /><br />As a new or prospective website owner, you are faced with <strong>three major issues</strong>, when it comes to having a successful website:<br /><br /><br />1. Driving traffic to your website <br />2. Converting visitors into paying customers <br />3. Getting customers to come back and purchase more <br /><br /><br /><strong>1. Driving traffic to your website</strong><br /><br />This is a broad subject and has been covered by an earlier article, entitled "30 ways to promote your business & website on a shoestring budget". <br /><br /><br /><strong>2. Converting visitors into paying customers</strong><br /><br />This is one of the areas in which most business owners fail. The main reasons are that they:<br /><br /><strong>(a)</strong> Don't provide information that their customers are looking for. For example, if you are selling furniture and your website only features a "general" category of products being sold, but not specific items, their prices and measurements, the customer will go somewhere else. If someone is looking on the internet for a sofa, they need to know whether it will fít into their home, whether it is within their budget and how it will look. The customer wants to know the information there and then. They are not going to wait until they can speak to someone on the phone or even drive to the store to find out. They will find another supplier (even an overseas one) who does provide the information. So when creating your website, <strong>PLEASE PLEASE</strong> ensure that you supply as much information as possible about each product and service, including its price (or price ranges).<br /><br /><strong>(b)</strong> Don't make it easy for their customers to find the information. It is important that your website is easy to navigate. This means placing your navigation bar at the top or left hand-side, as this is the first place majority of people look for. Contact details should be displayed not only on "Contact Us" page, but also at the bottom of each page.<br /><br /><strong>(c)</strong> Don't prove their credibility. Sure many companies speak about themselves and how great their products are and why you should buy from them, but the reality is no-one really believes them. International Marketer & Author Darrell Berg-Smith (<a href="http://www.darrellberg-smith.com">www.darrellberg-smith.com</a>) says that you should "Forget selling; prove your expertise. Start to position yourself as the expert on your product or service. You don't do this by claiming to be the expert, or displaying your impressive CV. You do it instead by sharing your knowledge and giving your customers helpful, relevant information, without a sales gimmick and for free."<br /><br />Another way to prove your credibility is by simply placing testimonials from happy customers on your website. If you don't have any, GET THEM NOW!<br /><br /><br /><strong>3. Getting visitors to come back and purchase more</strong><br /><br />In order for your customers to come back to your website, your first transaction with them must prove flawless. Your products/services need to be delivered exactly as stated on the website and be delivered on time (or sooner). In reality, you should under-promise and over-deliver. Provide your customer with bonuses, such as free information. If for example, you sell baby products, you can send your customers tips on how to settle their baby, a líst of child-friendly services in their area, advise on baby skin care etc. (fantastic advice)!<br /><br />You should also include as much information as possible on your website - free resources, articles, reports, ebooks relating to your industry, service and products. You can easily source free information on the internet. This will ensure that your customers will keep coming back to your website, even if it is just to get information. The more they visit, the more you will stick in their mind as an expert and the next time they are ready to order your products/services, you will be their first choice.<br /><br />Another way of staying in touch with your customers is by sending them a regular newsletter. This can be done, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. You can do it manually if you don't initially have many subscribers, but as your subscriptions grow, you should consider using inexpensive mailing software such as GetResponse (www.getresponse.com), which will not only handle your mailing líst, but also allow you to easily send out newsletters.<br /><br />Remember once you've created your website, the work doesn't stop there. You need to keep updating the content to keep your customers and search engines happy. Your marketing also needs to continue. There is no point in spending thousands of dollars on creating a beautiful looking website if no-one is going to visit it or worse still, refuse to buy products/services. <br /><br /><br /><strong>About The Author</strong><br /><br />Ivana Katz of Websites 4 Small Business makes it easy for you to get your business on the Net. If you're looking for a professional and affordable website designer, visit <a href="http://www.web4business.com.au">www.web4business.com.au</a> and download a free plan for your website. <br /><br /><br /><strong>From Ivana</strong>: Hi Robert Thank you for your kind words. Of course you are welcome to publish my article. There are other articles I've written at: http://www.web4business.com.au/Articles.htm <br /><br />Cheers.<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><strong>Remember to print this article for your records.</strong>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-89960212823306291232009-01-23T06:18:00.000-08:002009-01-23T06:36:38.762-08:005 Steps to Newsletter MasteryThis is the best advice I have read on designing effective newsletters. This fantastic advice came from <a href="http://www.entireweb.com">Entireweb.</a><br /><br /><strong>What is good email design? And how can you hone it to heighten the payoff of your email marketing investment over time?</strong><br /><br />Like any ambitious endeavor, success favors preparation. In this article is best practices for optimal email newsletter design and how, with careful cultivation, you can plant the seeds that will yield a bounty later. As you will discover, launching successful newsletters is not difficult--it simply involves a hearty combination of knowing your goals, drafting a plan and executing with precision. Staying committed to each is essential.<br /><br />Mastery Step #1: <strong>Define Your Purpose</strong><br /><br />Your email marketing program--and each newsletter within it--deserves a well-thought-out plan. It's essential to determine what goals you want to accomplish and how they align with your department's or your company's overall communications strategy. The idea is to send emails that convey context, reinforce company "voice," and build your brand by creating a positive user experience. Draft a rock-solid email messaging plan, listing yours goals and the content and design features that will support them. Ensure every element--imagery, copy, palette, tone--supports your brand and communicates consistency across campaigns.<br /><br /><br />Mastery Step #2: <strong>Know Your Audience</strong><br /><br />Always remember: Your audience is in cahoots with their own interests. That means, no matter what your plans are, if your newsletter doesn't speak to, reach, or intrigue your audience, then you're not going to see the response you want. Since you're also marketing to current or potential customers, it's imperative to understand what they want to see and how they want to see it.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Take into account the following demographic considerations and plan accordingly:</strong><br /><br />- Is your list comprised of B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer)?<br /><br />- Does your list skew to teens, middle-aged or elderly individuals?<br /><br />- Is it predominantly female or male? Age, generation and gender are big influencers in design. Vary font size, message relevancy, tone of voice, and color themes based on whose reading and why.<br /><br />- How well do recipients know you and your company? If you're emailing to prospects, delineate clear and relevant benefits in the subject line to deter spam alerts. If your list already knows you, personalize the message by including your name in the "from" line and put the recipient's name in the body.<br /><br /><br /><strong>A few quick tips on keeping the audience front and center:</strong><br /><br />- Execute "precision marketing:" create newsletter campaigns based on demographic information (age, sex, income, geography, buying habits)<br /><br />- Place the content most relevant to your target demographic above the fold.<br /><br />- Speak to your audience on the level they prefer, talk up not down to young adults, be respectful yet upbeat and friendly to seniors.<br /><br />- Create visual and content templates unique to each demographic group.<br /><br /><br />Mastery Step #3: <strong>Crystallize Your Message</strong><br /><br />To win the hearts of customers, you need a meaningful message--well told and well presented. To get there in a newsletter, it's essential to define your content's purpose. Do you mean to build customer loyalty, start a conversation, sell a product, offer a discount, or ask for opinions?<br /><br />Perhaps "all of the above" sounds good, but be warned: like any message, a newsletter saturated by multiple themes and intentions loses steam fast. Spare your readers the burden of too many links, options, and themes. If you don't, they'll likely abandon the search and leave. <strong>If your goal is to sell more, try saying less.</strong> Be precise. Showcase your products, offer incentives, and present obvious and enticing links. Save the rest for another round.<br /><br />Map out your newsletter with clear goals in mind--and don't overwhelm readers with too many or unrelated messages.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Remember these quick tips:</strong><br /><br />- One objective is best for all emails.<br /><br />- If you have multiple objectives, break it up into manageable sections or send several emails over time.<br /><br /><br /><strong>For example, of the following objectives, choose two or three per campaign:</strong><br /><br />- Build customer interaction/brand awareness<br /><br />- Drive customers to your Web site<br /><br />- Sell your products or services<br /><br />- Promote events or news<br /><br />- Recruit brand champions to spread your message<br /><br />- Communicate your unique selling position and cultivate customer interest<br /><br />- Build or introduce new brand attributes: color, logos, messaging and tone<br /><br />- Create hype and fuel social networking<br /><br /><br />Email marketing is essentially a speed game, word economy is a must. Don't take time getting to the point: say it now, fast, and clearly. Remember that your <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">newsletter</a> is about prompting readers to click to your site. Communicate enough benefit, briefly coined, so readers will want learn more.<br /><br />Make calls-to-action stand out with unique symbols, arrows, or font and color choices. Pick a style and stick with it--if you use a red triangle to denote section links, then always use them. This consistent effect trains your audience to quickly identify and to respond to links within the message.<br /><br /><br />Mastery Step #4: <strong>Carefully Chunk Content</strong><br /><br />Structure, design, nuance and message blend to create the force--powerful or weak--behind any communication. How these aspects coalesce in your newsletter content can affect your brand image, sales goals, customer relationships, and future business demand.<br /><br />As many big-name e-marketers know, achieving email newsletter success requires shapely, succinct, engaging and easy-to-follow content. Once you master the form of these design strategies, over time your newsletter's effectiveness will rise to the occasion.<br /><br />For starters, a carefully chunked page--that is, a page broken into bite-sized pieces served under clear, informative headings--creates a palatable design tempting to even the pickiest reader. <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">Content chunking</a> is cousin to several essential design tactics. For example, avoid the formidable "wall of text;" <strong>present brief, quick-read paragraphs that prompt a "click" rather than teach a lesson;</strong> and buffer sections with plenty of white space and complimentary, appropriate imagery.<br /><br />Akin to content chunks is the "6-second rule." Keeping this in mind will shape everything you do in your newsletter design and campaign, from subject line, to byline to calls to action. The gist is this: <strong>if your reader doesn't get it in six seconds or less, then they're gone.</strong> Do not collect $200. Do not pass go. They couldn't care less. That's because the way to your readers' hearts is through direct, clear, scannable content that piques their interest and offers quick benefits. How you convey that in the speed game of email marketing is with carefully and concisely structured pages.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Here are a few tips to assist you with 6-second rule mastery:</strong><br /><br />- Use headings to communicate the essential messages on the page.<br /><br />- Segment content to make the page "scannable".<br /><br />- Offer obvious and enticing links to your site or promotional page.<br /><br />- Restrict paragraphs to three lines or less.<br /><br />- Break key points into bullets rather than paragraphs.<br /><br />- Include title, byline, and call-to-action in each paragraph and bulleted list area.<br /><br />- If you have multiple objectives, chunk each one into bite size nuggets.<br /><br /><br />Mastery Step #5: <strong>Send Multi-Message Campaigns</strong><br /><br />We've covered the importance of limiting each newsletter to just one or two clear objectives. Now, what about big, complicated messages that still need to get out?<br /><br />Once you outline your campaign's <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">successive messaging goals</a>, list the topics for each email. Then you can run it as an ongoing conversation with your audience on a theme you make familiar by stretching it across days, weeks, or months. *** Always remember, the ultimate goal is to get them to your site.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Here are a few tips for multi-message success:</strong><br /><br />- Stay nimble and allow your Web site to do heavy lifting.<br /><br />- In each successive email, sprinkle intrigue elements--ask question, offer tidbits, lay breadcrumbs--to get them to your site.<br /><br />- Use teasers in each email about what's coming next week, month, etc.<br /><br />- Create reflective content on your site to pair with each message.<br /><br />- Maintain a consistent theme throughout the entire campaign, in your newsletter and on your Web site.<br /><br />- Suggest a timely, limited offer to create extra incentive to buy, click or return.<br /><br />- Plan multi-message campaigns to coincide with larger, yearly marketing strategies.<br /><br />Everyone needs to sign up for Entireweb's Newsletter. Save newsletter@entireweb.com to your address book and visit <a href="http://www.Entireweb.com">http://www.Entireweb.com</a> to register. (We are not affiliated with Entireweb, just fans).<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><strong>Remember to print this article for your records.</strong>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-82479257229879140102009-01-17T07:46:00.000-08:002009-01-17T08:00:37.339-08:00Video Search Engine Optimisation (VSEO) - tips and strategies(VSEO) - Video Search Engine Optimisation <br /><br />by <a href="http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/Video-Search-Engine-Optimisation-VSEO-tips-and-strategies.html">Caroline Rodgers</a><br /><br /><br />The use of video’s to promote your online content is becoming more and more important, and prevalent, in the expanding world of search engine optimisation. <br /><br />We should be seeing a big boost in VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimisation) in 2009. <br /><br />With the growth of video portals such as You Tube (www.youtube.com) and multi-submission sites such as Tube Mogul (www.tubemogul.com), it has never been easier to get your videos on the web. So why should you try and go down the root of selling VSEO to your customers? What is its selling power? Is there more to it that popping your video up on You Tube and hoping for the best? Or do you need to provide your customer with a full blown media centre?<br /><br /><strong>Why use Video SEO?</strong><br /><br />1. Video on independent websites seem to be quickly and heavily indexed and ranked by the major search engines.<br /><br />2. Including videos adds additional ways to optimise for your keywords and phrases. By adding content relevant to your keywords and phrases, combined with the related videos, will add weight to your site and its content.<br /><br />3. The video content can be duplicated on 3rd party website such as you tube without any duplicate content penalties.<br /><br />4. Allows for more text and pages to optimise your keywords and phrases around. Be sure to surround videos with relevant on-page content.<br /><br />5. Embedding videos in your site pages is a great way to increase the stickiness factor of your pages, which can increase both traffic and search rankings for a specific page. Google and most search engines use a variety of factors to determine the ranking importance a specific page online, one of which is average visitor session length on a page. <br /><br /><strong>* Visitor length on a page can be increased by embedding a video. These longer site visits may be interpreted by Google that the page has increased value and in turn may be given a bump that translates into higher search engine rankings.</strong><br /><br />6. Choosing a video that is themed to your content and informative can help with the stickiness factor – you need to give the search engines something to crawl. Adding an irrelevant video for the sake of adding a video will just confuse your visitors.<br /><br />7. Videos help in adding new, fresh and dynamic content to the site.<br /><br />8. It is important get your video content found by the search engines. This can be achieved through the use of sitemaps, RSS and MRSS (Media RSS) feeds. <br /><br />Google has introduced Video Sitemaps that will index the video content. If video files are named correctly this is valuable to the search engines. Click here to see Google tips on creating and adding a video sitemap: <a href="http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=10079">http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=10079</a> <br /><br />9. Videos are now listed in the search engine results pages adding valuable links and alternative sources to your brand name and web site.<br /><br /><strong>Tips for implementing Video SEO</strong><br /><br />A) File Names - Give the video file a catchy and relevant name that is related to your keyword or phrase. Once you have uploaded your video sitemap there is added opportunity for these keywords and phrases to be found and indexed by the search engines.<br /><br />B) Meta Data - Add meta data to your video files. Again, use relevant meta data, like you would when you are carrying out other Search engine optimisation campaigns.<br /><br />C) Transcripts - Transcripts of the video will add credible content to the page and give the spiders relevant information to crawl. The transcript should make reference to keywords, relevant content and your brand.<br /><br />D) Outbound Linking - If you add video content to other sites such as You Tube, make sure that you avail of their ability to link back to your own site.<br /><br />E) Video Length - Add shorter videos to keep your audience interested. If your video is quite lengthy, consider breaking it down into smaller chunks. This will also give more quality video content to optimise.<br /><br />F) Branding – Have your branding displayed in your video to enhance your brand awareness.<br /><br />G) Inbound Linking – link your videos to important keywords throughout your site to enhance their value.<br /><br />H) Rating – allow users / visitors to rate your video<br /><br /><strong>What can you provide to your customer to boost your sales and in turn boost their rankings?</strong><br /><br />The first step is getting your client to see the value in undertaking Video Search Engine Optimisation. <br /><br />Using the information supplied in this document you should be able to present a fairly strong case to your client. <br /><br />You will also need to provide them with a viable strategy that will get their rankings up. For a simple solution, you can offer to add content to video sites, implementing the tips outlined above. <br /><br />Another option is to provide them with a video library on their site that will have separate pages for the individual videos. This will allow you to add valuable content and meta data, plus the ability to link to these pages from within your site.<br /><br />An excellent article by Caroline Rodgers,Biznet IIS. Caroline Rodgers, SEO Executive, <a href="http://www.biznet-solutions.com/">Biznet IIS</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><strong>Remember to print this article for your records.</strong>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-84877570923100793812009-01-03T06:43:00.000-08:002009-01-03T06:46:08.362-08:00Adding a Sitemap to GoogleHere is the Link to learn about how to add a Sitemap to Google:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html#download">https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html#download</a><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-17647356850023053602009-01-02T11:43:00.000-08:002009-01-02T12:06:28.029-08:008 Ways To Increase How Long A Visitor Stays On Your Siteby <a href="http://www.sitepronews.com/2008/12/26/8-ways-to-increase-how-long-a-visitor-stays-on-your-site/">Jeff Schuman</a> <br /><br />How long do people stay on your site when they get there? In this article let’s talk about 8 ways to increase how long a visitor stays on your site so you can achieve more positive responses!<br /><br />Getting traffic to your website is only half of the battle. The other half is getting them to stay long enough to complete a positive action. The more positive responses you get from your website visitors the better your Internet business will do.<br /><br />Do you use any type of site statistic tracking on your site? <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">Google Analytics</a> is very good and can tell you how long a website visitor is staying on your site.<br /><br />Before we get to ways to increase how long a visitor stays on your site lets talk about what positive response is. Since we know that everyone who comes to your website is going to leave you want to get them to do something positive before they do.<br /><br />Examples of a positive response would be subscribing to your newsletter, clicking on a pay per click ad, filling out a lead form, bookmarking your site, subscribing to your RSS feed if you have a blog, going to another page on your site, buying something, contacting you by email for more information, and so on.<br /><br />These are all things that someone could do while they’re on your site that would be considered a positive response. This also increases the amount of time that they spend on your site.<br /><br /><br /><strong>8 ways to increase how long they stay:</strong><br /><br /><br />1. <strong>Offer only fresh content</strong>. If your content is unique and interesting a person will spend more time reading it. Using private label right content is generally not the best way to do this because your visitors may already be familiar with it having seen it on someone else’s site.<br /><br />2. Make your site interesting by <strong>adding video, audio, graphics</strong>, and so on to liven it up a little bit. Understanding how social media works is a very good way to come up with ideas to make your site more interesting.<br /><br />3. Remind your visitors they can <strong>print out content</strong> on your website. While it’s printing it gives them an opportunity to look at other things on your site.<br /><br />4. Encourage visitors to <strong>participate in a survey</strong> in exchange for a free gift. Once they complete the survey send them to another page on your site where they can access the freebie.<br /><br />5. As opposed to sending your visitors to affiliate webpages, create a file with a <strong>redirect name</strong> to another page of your own. You will get credit for another page view and the time a person spends on your site will increase.<br /><br />6. Pay attention to <strong>how fast your site loads</strong>. Today people are in a hurry and they do not have a lot of time to wait for webpages that load slow. If your pages are not loading fast consider what is slowing them down and change it.<br /><br />7. Make sure your website is <strong>professional</strong> in every way. This includes the text that you are using on your pages. It should be easy to read and the pages themselves should be easy to navigate around them.<br /><br />8. <strong>Brand yourself</strong> in every way so that as a visitor goes from one page to the next they always feel like they are still on your site. This includes having the same background color for every page including your blog. Your header should be the same on every page, and any logos should be consistent as well.<br /><br />These are 8 ways increase how long a visitor stays on your site. By keeping your visitors around longer you increase the odds of having a positive response from more of them.<br /><br />Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his make money online website for JV With Jeff free training, blogging blueprint, and Hands Off Article Marketing. Visit http://www.Team-Schuman.com<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><strong>Remember to print this article for your records.</strong>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-65458574406166086382008-12-29T14:02:00.000-08:002009-01-02T05:21:04.756-08:00How to put AdSense in the middle of Blogger posts<strong>Problem</strong><br /><br />In the famous Google AdSense heat map are reported the most profitable areas where to put advertising for your site or blog.<br /><br />There is no mention of a placement in the middle of your posts. <br /><br /><strong>Why?</strong><br /><br />Because by default Blogger, the blogging platform offered by Google, doesn’t offer a way to break a post in the middle and put there an ad.<br /><br />But, if you search very carefully on the Net, you’ll find that several webmasters tried to put ads in that position and report a significant increase in profits.<br /><br />This post doesn’t confirm an increase in profits when an ad is in the middle of a post, but explains how to put AdSense in the middle of a Blogger post.<br /><br /><strong>Solution</strong><br /><br />There is a simple way to solve this problem: move post body around the advertising code, just with a bunch of JavaScript and a couple of DIVs. In 2 easy steps:<br /><br /><strong>In your Blogger template:</strong><br /><br />Find the tag <data:post.body/> (you must check Expand Widget Templates in Blogger console) and replace it with following code:<br /><br />...<br /><br /><strong>*** EDITOR COMMENTS: - Google obviously doesn't want ads in the middle of Blogger posts. this is the second time the html I posted to put adsense in the middle of Blogger posts has vanished. In addition, the code also disapeared from the test blog it was put on.<br /><br />For the betterment of the SEO movement, this blog cannot get "black listed" by Google, so we need to move to a different topic. ANY FEEDBACK?</strong><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Improve Search Engine Rankings</a> link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-20696329090275919272008-12-13T14:24:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:40:31.826-08:00Savvier Keyword Research for GoogleThe late Ken Giddens, who was a first-rate web marketing<br />genius in his own right, said 'If Content is King on the Internet,<br />then Keywords are Queen.'<br /><br />That's exactly right. Discovering just one new pocket<br />of keywords that you hadn't thought of before<br />can double your traffic in 10 minutes.<br /><br />One of the most valuable things you can do is get<br />a 'competition level' of various keywords. How many<br />people search? How many bidders? How many pages<br />are there on the Internet about this topic?<br /><br />Before I start a Google campaign, I take a look to<br />find out how many bidders are bidding on my keyword.<br />If there's less than 10, it's going to be a day at the<br />beach. More than 30, we'd better sharpen our pencils.<br />More than 60: Only experienced web marketers should play.<br /><br />Every conceivable combination of keywords represents<br />a market.<br /><br />There's an infinite number of keyword phrases.<br /><br />So there's an infinite number of markets out there<br />for you to tap into.<br /><br />Search Engine marketing is all about niches. It's not<br />about being all things to all people, it's about being<br />a few specific things to a few specific people. The<br />profit is in areas where there's a lot of need and not<br />very many bidders. <br /><br />Example:<br /><br />There are 103 Google bidders on the phrase 'used car.'<br /><br />But there are only 13 bidders on the phrase 'used japanese car.'<br /><br />And there are only 24 bidders on 'san diego used car.'<br /><br />It's always better to be a big fish in a little pond,<br />*especially* if you're just getting started. The narrower<br />the niche, the more valuable the click usually is, and also<br />the less that click normally costs you.<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Improve Search Engine Rankings</a> link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-58021419388074382072008-12-02T13:06:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:40:21.443-08:00How to Build a Keyword ListPerhaps the most important task in any search engine marketing campaign – whether it is for organic search engine optimisation (SEO) or pay per click (PPC) advertising, is building a list of relevant and searched keywords. <br /><br />Unfortunately, most people do not know what keywords are actually being used to find what they are offering. <br /><br />Developing a list of keywords takes time and patience. <br /><br />In order to develop a comprehensive set of keywords, <strong>plan on spending at least 8 hours of work if not much more.</strong> It could actually take days to develop your first list and from there on it is an ongoing process.<br /><br />Here are the basic steps to conducting keyword research for either organic search engine optimisation (SEO) or pay per click (PPC) advertising:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.bruceclay.co.za/ppc/keywordshowto.htm">READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE FROM BRUCE CLAY:</a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-15144892755919217772008-12-02T12:56:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:40:51.054-08:00Importance of Keyword Selection in a PPC CampaignExcellent advice from <a href="http://www.bruceclay.co.za/ppc/landingpages.htm">Bruce Clay</a>. <br /><br />To a large extent, search engine marketing is about choosing keywords for your Web site that will be most effective, and keywords in a PPC campaign are just as important as in an SEO campaign. <br /><br /><strong>What is a keyword?</strong> <br /><br />A keyword is a word or phrase that people (consumers or businesses) would employ to locate information on the products or services or topic that they are interested learning more about or purchasing.<br /><br />For example: A professional bull rider is interested in purchasing new boots. He turns on his computer and visits his favorite search engine. <br /><br />In the search box he enters the keyword cowboy boots. In addition, he may also enter men’s cowboy boots, western cowboy boots, or authentic cowboy boots. <br /><br />Of course, since he is a cowboy, certain brands of boots are important so he might also enter designer cowboy boots, Justin cowboy boots, or Tony Lama cowboy boots. <br /><br />Finally there are different styles of cowboy boots: round toe cowboy boots, crepe sole cowboy bots, and narrow or point toe cowboy boots. <br /><br />The core idea behind keyword selection is identifying the words or phrases that are important to your target audience and therefore will be the most effective to use on your Web site. <br /><br />When search engine visitors click in your PPC ad, they are sent to a page on your Web site. As an advertiser, you are only charged when a visitor clicks on your advertisement to visit your Web site.<br /><br />Making sure you are bidding on keywords that people will be searching for is critical to the success of a pay advertising campaign. <br /><br />Up front, it is all about visibility. The more eyeballs that see your ad – if it is relevant to what they want – the better chance you have of making a sale or getting a lead.<br /><br />Bidding on the wrong keywords will only frustrate you and waste your hard earned money. <br /><br />Bidding on the right keywords can bring you rich rewards but be warned, you will need to research the cost of bids for keywords because some good keywords can also break you. <br /><br />Incorporate some niche keywords into your campaign that might not cost you as much. You will also want to balance the keywords that will bring you visitors at the short end of the tail or buying cycle as well as the long end of the buying cycle.<br /><br />Learn more about how to perform <a href="http://www.bruceclay.co.za/ppc/keywords.htm">proper PPC keyword research</a> to identify what words are being used in searches today. <br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com"><strong>BACK THE WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</strong></a><br /><br />LEARN HOW TO:<br />Improve Search Engine Rankings link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-19570759016463086802008-12-02T12:50:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:41:59.334-08:00Writing Effective PPC Ads (Creatives) for Your Pay Per Click CampaignsExcellent advice from <a href="http://www.bruceclay.co.za/ppc/landingpages.htm">Bruce Clay</a>.<br /><br />For ad copy to convert readers to visitors, it must grab the reader’s attention. <br /><br />Whether it's a print ad in a magazine, a pay per click ad on a Web page, or a sponsored listing on a search engine results page (SERP), your message must call out to the person reading it. <br /><br />You may be advertising in the right place at the right time, however, without the right message, you will have a problem. <br /><br />If you’re not appealing directly to the person who is reading your ad, you risk them seeing it without realising how it relates to them.<br /><br />If the ad is a pay per click (PPC) ad, your potential customer has executed a search and is looking for something specific. If you write your PPC creatives to speak directly to them, there's a better chance they will click on it and visit your Web site.<br /><br /><strong>So what characteristics do you look to include when writing ad copy?</strong><br /><br />First, be sure to use your keywords in your title and even in the description when you can. <br /><br />If possible, start your title with the keyword or keyword phrase. <br /><br />For the description, understand that people want to accomplish or learn something, be entertained or take advantage of an offer. <br /><br />People are motivated by fear, money, hope, lust, despair, health, safety, education, appearance, status etc. (Although maybe not all at the same time!) <br /><br />You will want to include a reason for someone to choose to respond to your ad and take action. <br /><br />Care about their problem and create an emotional statement using action oriented language. Remember W.I.I.F.M. What’s in it for me?<br /><br />For example, perhaps you are offering a health resort holiday package. You might appeal to potential customers about the opportunity to get in shape and improve their appearances. Or maybe they just need a holiday from the daily stress of home and work. <br /><br />Appeal to their wants and needs and they'll be enticed to click-through.<br /><br /><strong>Your PPC ads might look something like this:</strong><br /><br />Health Resort Special<br />Relax, Rejuvenate & Meditate.<br />Join us for a wellness stay.<br /><br />Holiday Get-away<br />Pamper Yourself & Relax.<br />Join us for a stress-free stay.<br /><br />Beach Holiday Rentals<br />Stressed, tired, need to escape?<br />Feel your cares melt away...<br /><br />Health Resort Holiday<br />Get in shape today at our<br />private paradise holiday getaway.<br /><br /><strong>However, effective ads are only a part of the campaign.</strong> <br /><br />Once your PPC creatives persuades a searcher to click, your <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2008/12/landing-pages-for-ppc-campaigns.html">landing page</a> must now convert them. <br /><br />It should look professional and above all offer them what they were looking for in the first place. They will be more likely to convert into a customer or a lead if the page they go to gives them exactly what they were looking for. <br /><br />Appeal directly to your target audience with both your ad and your landing pages and you will experience greater quality visitors and better conversions. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com"><strong>BACK THE WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</strong></a><br /><br />LEARN HOW TO:<br />Improve Search Engine Rankings link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-54330711864030902582008-12-02T12:41:00.001-08:002008-12-13T14:44:19.763-08:00Landing Pages for PPC CampaignsExcellent advice from <a href="http://www.bruceclay.co.za/ppc/landingpages.htm">Bruce Clay</a>.<br /><br /><br />With a PPC campaign, content or Web design changes are not necessary, although in order to create really effective Pay Per Click Internet advertising, you might want to make some changes. <br /><br />In fact, a Web site is not even really needed. A Web page that answers the searchers query and points them in the right direction for more information is all that is really required. <br /><br /><strong>Compelling content that gives visitors what they are looking for and converts them into buyers or leads is what you really need.</strong><br /><br />Your PPC Campaing landing pages should load fast. This means you shouldn’t clutter them with heavy images and unnecessary information. <br /><br />Don’t let your visitors wait too long because they are likely to get frustrated and go somewhere else. And all this after you paid for them to click to your site.<br /><br /><strong>Create Compelling Content:</strong> <br /><br />For the most part, visitors tend to scan websites, looking for the information or offer they saw in your ad. It’s best to leave out extraneous content that does not fit into your ad's objectives. A cluttered website can be confusing so it’s important to organize relevant information in a clear and concise format. Use a clear and compelling call to action to lead your visitor to your offer.<br /><br /><strong>Use Easy to Follow Navigation:</strong> <br /><br />Make it easy for your visitors to find what they are looking for. They are there to accomplish a task, be entertained, learn something or take advantage of an offer. Make it easy for them to do what they and you want them to do. A user-friendly website is an efficient website that maximizes productivity and minimizes frustrations. It values the visitor providing them with a positive & rewarding experience. <br /><br /><strong>Follow Some Simple Usability Rules:</strong> <br /><br />Consider what your visitors experience might be after they click on your ad. For example, if your target market is baby boomers or senior citizens, they most likely will have difficulty reading smaller text, so create landing pages with larger, easy to read fonts. If your demographics are mostly women, use language that appeals to women. Be sure your page loads quickly and there is a compelling and prominent call to action.<br /><br /><strong>Track Conversions:</strong> <br /><br />If your Web site is not a product driven e-commerce Web site, you might also consider using a short form for your visitors to fill out requesting more information or to obtain a free product or sample. You can then use this form to track conversions at least at the PPC campaign level. If it is product driven, and they can purchase directly from your Web site, be sure to put some form of metrics in place for tracking conversions.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com"><strong>BACK THE WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</strong></a><br /><br />LEARN HOW TO:<br />Improve Search Engine Rankings link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-67521804169419101322008-11-28T17:45:00.000-08:002009-01-03T06:47:41.298-08:00Search Engine Optimization: 11 Basic SEO Strategies for BeginnersFantastic Advice by Donna Gunter<br /><br />Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process getting your website ready to be found in organic webs searches. By organic searches, I'm referring to web searches that appear naturally as the result of a search for a particular keyword or phrase, rather than appearing in the sponsored links (pay-per-click advertising) section of a search page.<br /><br />Frankly, for the first few years I was online, the thought of doing my own SEO made my eyes cross, and I was overwhelmed at where to start. I even toyed with the idea of hiring a specialist to do this for me, but never got around to it. However, over time, I slowly began to see a pattern emerging, and started to optimize some of my sites accordingly. One of the best days of my business was when I recently ranked #1 for a particularly competitive search term.<br /><br />I'm not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.<br /><br />Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:<br /><br /><strong>1. Page title tags</strong>. This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.<br /><br /><strong>2. Domain name</strong>. If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. Example: http://www.yoursite.com/internet-marketing.htm if your keyword is Internet marketing.<br /><br /><strong>3. Meta tags</strong>. These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, that is no longer the case. However, you shouldn't ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.<br /><br /><strong>4. Header tags</strong>. Header tags are the HTML code that indicates a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword one time in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.<br /><br /><strong>5. Alt image tag</strong>. The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image isn't able to be displayed. The best use of any <ALT> tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.<br /><br /><strong>6. Content formatting</strong>. Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.<br /><br /><strong>7. Keyword density</strong>. Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% - 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.<br /><br /><strong>8. Anchor text</strong>. Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to "click here" in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in "click here for dog training tips."<br /><br /><strong>9. Inbound links</strong>. Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I'll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submit articles to high traffic article directories and submit press releases to paid press release services.<br /><br />A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listing your site in search engine-friendly directories in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.<br /><br /><strong>10. New content</strong>. Content is still king, so one way to increase your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.<br /><br /><strong>11. Site maps</strong>. There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps, http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/, to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.<br /><br />Search engine optimization strategy is not a difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you don't have to?<br /><br />Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com Copyright (c) 2008 OnlineBizU.com<br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Improve Search Engine Rankings</a> link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-21732598453325343362008-11-27T18:41:00.000-08:002008-12-13T14:49:27.037-08:00After creating my website, how should I handle the traffic and convert prospects into customers?><br />You as a website owner will be constantly visiting your website traffic logs to see how many visits your sites are getting. After noting that people spend considerable time on your website and then move away after reaching the shopping page, you wonder if all this work is ever going to be worth the effort. <br /><br />It’s not that easy to convert a user into a customer <strong>unless you show a potential reason to the visitor that your website is worthy for the money that they want to spend.</strong><br /><br />Now converting those visitors into buyers or clients is a little tricky. As they say the first impression is the last impression, the graphics used on the website definitely strike the attention of the end user but too much design and graphics might just make it cluttered. <br /><br />As the visitor decides to surf through your website, it is important to build trust with the prospect. <br /><br />If the prospect wishes to shop on your website make sure the process is simple yet robust so that it is an easy transition for the prospect into a customer. <br /><br />But would you ensure a smooth experience for the user? Naturally, if the buyer is in full control of the buying process and there are no sneaky questions or promotional elements during the process, they will have no hassle parting away with their money. <br /><br /><strong>A full disclosure of your services is as important as the privacy of your customer.</strong> <br /><br /><br />*** Now before we suggest you some tips on improving your shopping cart experience, there are a few general points that you should consider regarding your website. <br /><br />Every small thing counts here;<br /><br />* Most of the times, the visitors to your website enter through the homepage so it is essential that the objective is clearly mentioned to the visitor. The service or product offerings should be listed clearly on the page.<br /><br />* Make call to action for the visitors clear so that they walk through the path that you have full control over.<br /><br />* Introduce the customers to the products and create a sense of need or urgency to acquire that product as they are unlikely to revisit or buy the product later. A good description and benefits come in handy here. Don’t go overboard here or sound desperate.<br /><br />* And after all who doesn’t love a clean website design! Avoid cluttering all elements and keep the visitors engaged. <br /><br /><br /><strong>Some important tips to keep in mind for strengthening your customers shopping experience:</strong><br /><br />1. With so many online frauds happening, the visitors are a little circumspect. So the first thing they look for in the website is trust and credibility. There are various ways through which you can build trust with the online customer which include many safe and reliable online portals and associations which monitor each transaction closely. <br /><br />2. Clear, Easy and User-friendly navigation plays a great role in making a better shopping experience with very less time consumption. <br /><br />3. Have a link to the FAQ page which can assist the customer in case he/she feels lost or hits a roadblock.<br /><br />4. Ensure that any kind of policy – be it shipping, privacy, affiliate etc... is clearly laid out to the customer in a simplified language. <br /><br />5. Have a contact form for the customers in case they have any queries. It could become a good source of hot leads for your business. And remember that the turnaround time for your response should be as low as possible.<br /><br />6. You should have the means of accepting and processing all kinds of cards. And suggesting an alternative to the customers makes it even better and reflects on your services.<br /><br />7. Offering shipping to the clients takes you one step closer to closing the deal.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Improve Search Engine Rankings</a> link building pricing PPC Setup Seo Services Seo Specialist Service Web Solution & Internet Marketing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search engine optimization</a> Better Rankings Web Marketing Advice <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO: Search Engine Optimization</a> Google Adwords Management <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization And Link Building</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-73482977394938276302008-10-16T14:33:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:51:48.116-08:00Search Marketing 101: Choosing the Best Keywords For SEOBy <a href="http://esitesecrets.com/articles/122/1/Search-Marketing-101-Choosing-the-Best-Keywords-For-SEO/Page1.html">John Hill</a><br /><br />Every website owner has heard of them, every search engine uses them, and if you are into SEO you just can't ignore them. Yes, we're referring to 'keywords'. Perhaps the most crucial aspect of search marketing are keywords, and choosing the most 'relevant' keywords can be the difference between success and failure of your web-based venture. <br /><br /><strong>Search marketing and knowing your keywords </strong><br /><br />A keyword is as single word or a phrase which is used to help search engines index your site. Generally, keyword can be a one to five word phrase that can be used by people during search to find your website. However, choosing <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">'relevant' keywords</a> for your SEO strategy is not easy. Some business owners tend to use keywords that are internally focused rather than being based on the kinds of searches people actually make. Other times, people tend to be almost 'careless' in researching their keywords and choose generic or irrelevant keywords that have extremely high competition. Some examples of generic keywords could be SEO, website, search engine, UK etc. <br /><br />The best way to choose keywords for your business is by thinking like a person interested in your service/product. What type of word or words would they type in the search engine browser to find your offering? What are the qualities of your product or service? Answering those questions will better help you in choosing the best keywords for SEO. <br /><br /><strong>Choosing the best keywords for SEO</strong> <br /><br />When you target generic keywords outside your area of business, it exhibits carelessness or a desire to aggressively increasing your visibility and rank. However, going all out to increase ranking on search engines can be detrimental to your SEO campaign because very <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">generic keywords</a> such as free or SEO don't add any value at all. Also being too focused can lead to fluctuating ranking for your website. So the best way to ensure you reap rich dividends for every single SEO penny you spend is to understand the process to research effective keywords. Typically, there are many different methods to find best and relevant keywords and some of these steps are: <br /><br /><strong>Finding words that people use to find product or service similar to your offering.</strong> <br /><br />- Keyword research tools such as Google AdWords Keyword tool, Wordtracker, Trellian Keyword Discovery, etc., are tools that help you pick the most searched and relevant keywords for your website. <br /><br />- Historical analytics data <br /><br />- Data mining the search information at your site's level (if you have included a site search facility) <br /><br />> A keyword list helps you understand your target audience 'search psyche.' So, create a keyword list to find the best combination of primary and <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">secondary keywords</a> that: <br /><br />- Drive traffic to your website <br /><br />- Spike the conversion rate for your business <br /><br />- Ensure that the search engines index your website for the optimum terms <br /><br />> Examine what will be your 'long tail' terms and optimise for those. <br /><br />> Finding related keywords used for search on large and small search engines. <br /><br />> Discovering keywords using trend related tools such as Google trends & Google Insights <br /><br />> Discovering news, forums, and blog related keywords <br /><br />> Utilizing Lexical FreeNet, which is a tool that helps find related keywords from a very large database <br /><br />Finally, remember that the main goal for choosing the best and most <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">relevant keywords</a> for SEO is to divert large amounts of targeted traffic to your site and stay ahead of your competitors.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-79973783712187469672008-10-16T14:18:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:52:52.342-08:00Bad Ways to Build Back LinksBy <a href="http://esitesecrets.com/articles/124/1/Bad-Ways-to-Build-Back-Links/Page1.html">Todd Daon</a> <br /><br />When it comes to SEO many webmasters think of link building in order to boost their rankings, generate traffic and earn money during the process, however the methods used by many people are less than appropriate and the same practices are replicated by many others who want to make a quick buck. When it comes to link building, the end doesn't justify the means. <br /><br />If you are brainstorming your link building campaign here is a good checklist of things to avoid while optimizing your sites. <br /><br /><strong>Spamming Wikipedia</strong> <br /><br />As many of you know, this particular site has tremendous value for the end user, it has unbiased information which can be used for research because it is factual and not based on emotions and speculations; in fact this is one of the reasons why it ranks so high on the search engines, particularly Google. Many webmasters have thought of editing an article related to their site with the purpose of obtaining a high <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">PR link</a>, the only problem is that in order for your article to get accepted at this online encyclopedia it must be well researched, well written and unbiased; while it may sound easy to do, it is actually quite hard since you have to eliminate sales speech and provide pure information. With all of this said, you might want to reconsider your plans of "spamming Wikipedia" <br /><br />Incidentally, Wikipedia has been using the "no-follow" attribute for some time now, so your site will not get the link equity you might be after. <br /><br /><strong>Spamming Youtube and other Video Sharing Sites</strong> <br /><br />This is yet another "opportunity" for people desperate for back links. Just like Wikipedia, video sharing sites have implemented the "no-follow attribute" which provides no SEO benefit to your site. Moreover, people hate it when they are having a discussion relevant to the video being watched and all of the sudden someone bluntly suggests a site which is not even relevant to the conversation, if you ever decide to do this you would be killing your <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">SEO campaign</a> since potential visitors now hate your site because you have been spamming it all over video sharing sites. <br /><br /><strong>Spamming Forums</strong> <br /><br />Message board spam has been around for quite some time. Message boards or forums were designed to attract people who would like to share their ideas and opinions with people interested in the same topic, as you see forums are all about content relevancy which is what most "<a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">sig-spammers</a>" forget. <br /><br /><strong>Spamming Blogs </strong><br /><br />If you have ever had the change of starting your own web-log, you may have noticed that several individuals tend to post "comments" which are highly irrelevant to the post and are also filled with a plethora of links. Bloggers dislike this practice very much, that is why blogging platforms such as Wordpress have implemented anti-spam plug-ins such as Akismet in order to minimize this "comment-abuse" Again, building links this way gives your site a bad image. <br /><br /><strong>Spamming Webmasters </strong><br /><br />It is very annoying to check an email client just to find out that one more webmaster has sent a poorly written and sometimes irrelevant <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">link exchange request</a>, there is a really good chance to acquire strong links this way, however sending machine generated messages to a random list of webmasters will not get you anywhere, in fact, it will hurt you. When building reciprocal links, it is always a god idea to focus on relevancy and quality instead of quantity. <br /><br /><strong>Link Pages (not relevant or useful) - Site-wide reciprocals </strong><br /><br />When webmasters were caught on the "<a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">link-fever</a>" a few years ago, the creation of generic link pages became popular. People added links to a huge list which offered absolutely no value to the surfer, if this is what you are doing then you might want to research new ways to attract inbound links. Exchanging reciprocals with other sites is not a bad idea if it is done the right way, so forget link pages and place those reciprocals on pages which have content and are directly relevant to your trades, this will also avoid site-wide links which look like an effort to artificially create weight and page rank. <br /><br /><strong>Submitting Undeveloped or Poor Sites to Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, Business.com, Joeant.com, etc)</strong> <br /><br />The sites quoted above provide great <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com">SEO benefits</a> if your site gets listed and indexed within their categories, the main reason people get rejected from these directories is because their sites are not fully developed or provide no value to the visitor, if this is the case you might want to add content thinking about the end user rather than the search engines because in the end, the ones clicking your ads and buying your products are not the search engine spiders but the "human visitors"<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-29567937946670987092008-08-28T07:56:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:53:13.177-08:00Article Submission LinksGoing with the theme of creating backlinks to assist in seo, you need to have articles published that contain links to the website you are promoting.<br /><br />A good article submission company that I found is Article Marketer. Here are a few links to their submission page: <a href="http://www.articlemarketer.com/10097-0-3-1.html" target="_blank">Submit your articles to thousands of publishers - with one click.</a><br /><br />Another link:<br /><a href="http://www.articlemarketer.com/10097-0-3-6.html" target="_blank">Free Article Marketing Resources, Classes, E-Books and Audio.</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>This is a good resource. Bookmark this page.</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.articlemarketer.com/10097-0-1-5.html" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.articlemarketer.com/idevaffiliate/banners/am_468x60b.gif" width="468" height="60"></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-28796946744293245842008-08-21T16:37:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:53:59.079-08:006 Ways to get your Blog Ranked High on Google<strong><br />Getting your blog ranked high on Google is a fantastic way to attract potential clients. Here’s how it’s done.</strong><br /><br />1. Select Your Keywords and Keyword Phrases<br />Choose the keywords and keyword phrases you want your blog post to rank high for on the Google search engine results page. For example, I want my blog post to rank high for the term, “blog ranked high on Google.” Currently there are approximately 286,000 pages using this term so I’ll have to do everything in my power to compete with these web pages to get my blog post on the first page of the Google results page for that term.<br /><br />My keyword phrase also includes other keyword phrases like, “ranked high on Google” with about 310,000 competing pages and “high on Google” with over 71 million competing pages. Getting to the first page for these terms would be a bonus.<br /><br />2. Use Your Keywords in Your Blog Title<br />Google pays very close attention to the words and phrases you use in your blog title. Notice how I used the term, “blog ranked high on Google” in the title of this article. It’s important to use your keyword phrase in your blog title if you want to rank high for that phrase on the Google results page.<br /><br />Another reason you want to use your keyword phrase in your blog title is to give your reader an immediate understanding as to what your blog post is about. If your blog is listed at the top of the search engine results page for your keyword phrase but no one reads it, it’s of no value. Use a title that will cause people to click through to your blog post.<br /><br />The New York Times creates two different titles for their articles. They use a catchy, creative or humorous title for their newspaper, and a keyword specific title for the articles and blogs they post to the Internet. They do this because people looking for jokes about the eating habits of nuns generally go to a search engine and type, “jokes about the eating habits of nuns,” not “Nuns, Buns and Puns.”<br /><br />3. Use Your Keywords in Your Blog Text<br />Notice how the keyword phrase, “blog ranked high on Google,” is used throughout this blog post. Google pays attention to the text on a blog in order to understand what the blog post is about. Once Google comprehends the content of the blog post, it will categorize the blog based on that information. By using your keyword phrase in your text, both Google and your readers can quickly understand what your blog post is about, allowing Google to accurately categorize your blog making it easy for your clients to find.<br /><br />In the past, search engine consultants encouraged writers to use their keyword phrase in the first 25 words of their text and again in the last sentence. Today, the search engines don’t seem to pay as much attention to word placement, but reader’s do.<br /><br />If your article is about your keyword phrase, it’s a good idea to use it in the first and last sentence because it helps your reader quickly know what your blog post is about. It’s also a good idea to use your keyword phrase in the first sentence because that is the text that is most likely to show in the description text on the search results page.<br /><br />4. Link To Your Blog With Keyword Rich Anchor Text<br />Get as many one-way links leading back to your blog post as possible from as many quality blogs and websites as you can. Do your best to insure that the text people click on to get back to your site includes your keywords and keyword phrases. This is known in Internet marketing circles as anchor text.<br /><br />In this example I want the anchor text leading back to my blog post to have the keyword phrase, “blog ranked high on Google,” as the clickable text. The clickable text is the means by which all of those other web sites and blogs tell Google what your blog post is about.<br /><br />Google provides far more weight to the theme of your blog post based on the quality and size of the sites linking back to your blog than the text on your blog. For example, if you do a Google search for the term, “click here,” you will be taken to the Adobe Reader download web page. It’s interesting to note the term “click here” doesn’t appear anywhere on that page. The reason the Adobe Reader download page comes up first for this term is because there are millions of other sites that use the anchor text, “click here,” to direct people to the Adobe Reader download page.<br /><br />There are two wonderful ways to get keyword rich anchor text directing people back to your blog post. The first is to write and submit an article about your blog post to other web site and blog owners who will upload your article to their site. In return those web site and blog owners will provide you with a keyword rich anchor text link from your article back to your blog. They get great content for their web site and you get a valuable one-way link back to your blog post.<br /><br />The second way is to encourage other blog owners to write about your blog post. In doing so, they are very likely to use your blog title as the anchor text leading readers back to your post. This is another reason why it’s so important to use your keyword phrase in your blog title.<br /><br />5. Ask Your Readers To Digg Your Blog Post<br />Ask your readers to tell the rest of the world about your blog post by submitting it to one of the social bookmarking sites. They include DIGG, Stumble, Blink and many others. If the title of your blog post includes your keyword phrase, it is likely that this is how your readers will describe your blog post to the social bookmarking sites. This helps Google decide where to rank your site on the search results page.<br /><br />6. Blog On A Community Site<br />Recognized Expert, Active Rain, and Christian Blog are all examples of niche community blog sites. Recognized Expert is a site for marketing experts, Active Rain is for real estate professionals and the Christian blog is for, you guessed it, Christians. These niche sites have tons of traffic along with the undivided attention of Google and the other search engines.<br /><br />If you’re a marketing expert for example, blogging on a site like Recognized Expert will push your blog post to the top of the search results page in a matter of hours. That’s a huge reason to blog on a community site. If you wrote the same content on your own blog, it may take months to be seen by Google, and you may never get close to the first page for your keyword phrase.<br /><br />Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and the other search engines explore busy community sites for new content every few minutes. On the other hand, they visit newer and smaller sites every few months. If you’re serious about generating business from blogging, consider blogging on a topic specific community site.<br /><br /><br />Good article from <a href="http://www.earlyspinblog.com/">EarlySpinBlog.com</a><br /><br /><a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/"><br />BACK TO WEBSITE PROMOTION AND SEO HOMEPAGE:</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-90553598357582550752008-08-02T10:34:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:54:29.975-08:00Blogging, Syndication and RSS<a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2008/08/video-search-engine-optimization.html">Blogging</a>, <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2008/08/seo-on-page-code-optimization.html">Syndication</a> and <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/2008/08/seo-on-page-code-optimization.html">RSS</a> <br /> <br />Powerful new technologies exist to position your site's content across the web. This results in hundreds or thousands of one way, inbound, natural links from relevant sites to your content.<br /><br />Create fresh content for your web site and install it in a weblog resident on your server. Use RSS and XML technology to distribute this content across the web, where it is republished by third party web sites. As each article is embedded with <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6721988962616125630&postID=8924078921727987950">anchor text links</a> to your web site, your site's link popularity quickly grows.<br /><br />Additionally, distribute your content via <strong>distribution channels</strong> on the web. Web users and webmasters pick this content up and republish it. The effect is the same - your content is being republished across the web. Google and the others see this - and take note of it - as you are now an <strong>"authority" on the subject</strong>. An authority site ranks higher than a site not considered an authority by the search engines.<br /> <br />Borrowed from Arteworks.biz website. Original article <a href="http://www.arteworks.biz/bloggingrss.php">HERE.</a><br /><br /><br /><strong>NUGGET - Write Articles!!!</strong><br /><br /> <br />Tags: <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Optimize web site</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-8832614803915879232008-08-02T10:22:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:55:07.806-08:00Video Search Engine OptimizationLink Bait, Social Media, Video Search Engine Optimization<br /><br />Link bait is content on your web site that encourages ("baits") people to link to your site. As inbound linking is so important to Google rankings, the creation of quality link bait is an integral component of any effective search marketing strategy.<br /><br />Articles, blogs, tools and widgets, even audio and video content, can be attractive fodder for inbound links.<br /><br />Video optimization is becoming increasingly important, as videos seem to be doing especially well in universal search and are very attractive to site owners as targets of links. Video content can have a viral effect as well, <strong>by providing code for the insertion of your videos on third party sites</strong>, your video content can be easily dropped into any third party site, pre-configured with links back to your site!<br /><br />Full service video editing, production, and social media optimization<br />We offer a full range of video services and can assist you in planning videos for Internet distribution. We can then professionally edit the video, adding titles, effects, and audio clips, and <strong>exporting the video into popular Internet formats</strong>.<br /><br />It doesn't stop at production, however. We are experts in video optimization. We will embed the <strong>proper meta content into each video</strong>, as well as distribute the video content on <strong>YouTube, MetaCafe, MySpaceTV</strong>, and similar sites. We will make sure the videos get bookmarked and seen, with the goal of creating a viral buzz about your video content.<br /><br />Video content is a great way to benefit your actual site users as well. It makes your site appear more professional and legitimate. And, <strong>if you are adding new video content on a regular basis, it will keep your users coming back for more.</strong><br /><br />Borrowed form Arteworks.biz website: <a href="http://www.arteworks.biz/link-bait.php">Source Article Here</a><br /> <br /><strong>Video: our next seo nugget.</strong><br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Optimize web site</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-85971884538468689862008-08-02T09:58:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:56:04.014-08:00SEO - "On Page" Code Optimizationborrowed from Arteworks.biz website. Original article <a href="http://www.arteworks.biz/keyphrase.php">found here</a> <br /> <br />Optimization of web site code accomplishes two primary goals. First, it makes your site relevant to your desired search engine queries. Second, it makes your site friendly to search engines, by which we mean that search engines are able to easily crawl or index all of the pages and content of your site. <br /><br />One of the many search engine myths is that any competent web site designer knows how to properly optimize a web site for the search engines. This is like saying that the framer of a house is qualified to be the architect. It simply is not true.<br /><br />Web site design and search engine optimization are two entirely different things.<br /> <br />The first step in any search engine optimization effort is to conduct detailed keyphrase research and competitive intelligence. This is a crucial step and is skipped over by many firms, who simply take the word of the client. It is important to remember in keyphrase research that the client is not always right.<br /> <br />The point of keyphrase research is to discover the keyphrases the client hasn't thought of, and to optimize for those, as well as the client's suggested keyphrases. Typically, a client may only be aware of a small fraction of keyphrases relevant to their business. As the goal of search engine optimization is increased traffic and, presumably, sales, keyphrase research allows us to ascertain additional, high traffic keyphrases which people are actually searching for on the search engines. <br /><br />But how do we know this? We use a real time database of Internet search engine queries provided by <strong>Keyword Discovery.</strong> This is the keyphrase research tool of choice by industry experts. This database of real search engine queries allows us to examine keyphrases related to the client's suggested keyphrases, and discover those hidden gems which have high search engine query volume while at the same time have gone largely ignored by your competition. <br /><br />We are not saying we will only optimize for "long tail" keyphrases for which nobody is searching. We will optimize for the keyphrases you ask us to. But, we will also optimize for additional keyphrases which are likely to generate a large volume of traffic to your site. <br /><br />As an example, let us use the term "search engine optimizaton". It is one thing to optimize a site for that term. It is quite another thing to optimize for "search engine optimization austin texas". And quite another thing still to optimize for "search engine marketing firms". So, while a client might come to us with a suggested keyphrase, we will optimize for that keyphrase, as well as others that may have been missed by the client. This results in <strong>maximum visibility for your business</strong> over the spectrum of search engine queries performed by your potential customers.<br /><br />Once the keyphrase research is completed, we begin the process of <strong>competitive intelligence</strong>. We want to discover what your competition is doing, so that we can do it better and beat them. This is a process by which we examine various keyphrases, who is ranking for them, and most importantly why.<br /><br />We look at a number of factors in our search for the "why". We look at on page optimization factors as well as external factors such as inbound linkage and the nature of those inbound links. Once we are armed with this sort of competitive intelligence, we develop a powerful search engine strategy designed exclusively for your business. In other words, we beat the competition at their own game. We do everything they are doing, plus things that they are not doing, to get you to the top of the heap.<br /><br /><strong>AFI: how can an individual do this on his/her own?</strong><br /><br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Optimize web site</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-89240789217279879502008-08-02T08:29:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:56:44.932-08:00It is not about link popularity - it is about trusted link popularity. There is a difference.<br /><br />This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to getting top search engine rankings. Despite the rumors and myths to the contrary, "on page" code optimization is simply not enough. Off page work is absolutely necessary. This is why effective search engine optimization strategies take time and cannot be achieved with a one time "optimization" of meta tags or other code elements.<br /><br />An effective strategy for building text link popularity should only involve natural, one way, inbound links from trusted, relevant sources. This means:<br /><br />• Natural - Links that are not bought, sold, traded, or part of a link exchange scheme. Natural links are links that individual webmasters make from their sites to your unique, original, and fresh content. <br /><br />• One Way - Links to your site are inbound links only, they are not reciprocal links in which you trade links with other sites. This would include link swaps, link exchanges, and the like. <br /><br />• Trusted Source - Sites that Google trusts based on past behavior and the link popularity of that site and of sites pointing to that site. A site earns a reputation by being a responsible site providing useful content to Internet users. <br /><br />• Relevant - Links that come from sites related to your industry. Link popularity services that do nothing more than go out and get links from any site whatsoever will not get you relevant links. You want links from sites that are similar to yours in some way. <br /><br /><strong>If we are not building your link popularity via link exchanges, link farms, or any of the other ways described above, what do we do?</strong> <br /><br />The secret is the creation of relevant, fresh content on a regular basis. Our copywriters create useful, informative and educational articles for you and syndicate that content out via a variety of methods such as blogging, article distribution, and RSS newsfeeds. Third party sites pick up and republish this content, then link back to you as the source of that content. As the content we produce for you is relevant to your site, only sites in related industries will republish this content. Therefore, you are getting the relevant, one way, trusted, natural links for which Google and the others are looking.<br /><br />borrowed from Arte Works.biz website. <a href="http://www.arteworks.biz/naturallinkbuilding.php">Link to article here</a><br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Optimize web site</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6721988962616125630.post-83727191255455905612008-08-02T08:12:00.000-07:002008-12-13T14:57:15.310-08:00Setting the Tone for This BlogThis first post will set the tone for this blog. I will catalog the nuggets of wisdom learned from researching everything about search engine optimization (SEO) and website promotion. <br /><br />All sources will be cited giving them back links and credit for the information.<br /><br />Bookmark this site and subscribe to my posts. We can learn together.<br /><br />AFI<br /><br /><br />Tags: <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Search Engine Optimization</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">SEO</a> <a href="http://ainsider.blogspot.com/">Optimize web site</a>Robert Linkonis Sr.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17006194089617624003noreply@blogger.com0