I have a background in sales and public relations which transfers nicely to the internet, which is just another form of media with the same human beings with the same wants, needs and reactions as those who read the newspaper and watch TV.
As a means of increasing my affiliate products income, as of the date of writing this, I've been going to topic related websites in order to secure interesting products and services I may offer to others for a commission. Because I'm already Clickbank merchant, using them to pay my own affiliate partners and take my orders, I did my search for other merchants using the same service.
What I found is this: The great thing about the internet is anyone can try to start making money by making a sales web page. The bad thing about the internet is anyone can try to start making money by making a sales web page.
That's right folks, with no training whatsoever you to can get started and make many of the same mistakes I've seen on some of these websites some of which may still even be uncorrected on my huge whatever you need discount type site.
Here are some of the conclusions I developed while studying these sites for product inclusion and sales potential:
1.Use Your Title Tag Home Page doesn't give anyone including search engines enough with which to work. Would you open the door to a building without sufficient signage? Then why should a prospective buyer click on the link on a search engine that says Index?
2.Description tags Come Second to Importance
This is the description that search engines will use. It's your job in your description not just to describe, but to sell me on the idea of clicking on your link to visit your site. If your sales pitch sounds better than your description then put some of that pitch into your description tag!
Two book stores happen to be located side by side. Both have attractive store names, but one is offering comfortable chairs and coffee as you browse. The other store may offer the same thing but how do I know that without the description of the benefits of going into that book store? Which store would I go into? Which link would you click? The one describing benefits or the one with just the title?
3.A Large Font Descriptive Compelling Title
Okay, I'm at your page, you have about five seconds to get me to stay on your page and keep reading, listening, watching etc..
How to Take Strikes and Counter-Attack Even When You're Hurt http://KirkhamsebooksMartialArt/Martial_Arts_Videos/
This title obviously attracts martial artists, boxers and those interested in self-defense.
Graphics
Due to an experiment in making my sales pages copy and pasteable into emails some of my pages are lacking graphics. Graphics include a book cover please. Some of my older books still lack book covers and I'm finding a good titled, colorful book cover will attract attention, give prospects more confidence in your product and therefore potentially increase sales.
Samples
When I go to an off line book store, I'll read the cover, read the inside flap, table of contents and flip through pages. Admittedly, I'm still correcting this in some of my own ebooks, but I see the importance in giving the public the same options as they would in an off line book store. Providing a downloadable free version of your ebook would give your prospects the same privileges as if they trekked through the rain, paid $3.00 per gallon for gas and drove to their local book store. An on-line version with the page linked should be considered as an alternate option.
This will help with search engines and help with a problem I myself have. I will often download a sample of a product and sometimes not look at it for over a month. 'What's the hurry', I think to myself, 'it's on my hard drive.' Sometimes I feel reading it online will tempt me faster to buy.
Customer Service
Okay you're at the book store and you have a question about a book or you can't find the book you're looking for. So you look for the staff, which are no where to be found. What do you do? Well hopefully go to my book store, but probably go to the the next book store down the street, find an attentive staff member, get your questions answered and buy your book there. By the way, which book store will you refer your friends to?
My fellow authors and business friends, all of this is true on the internet, only your competitors are only a click away not a block away.
Don't worry about spam, you have filters just like a book store may have a staff member to screen calls. Worry more about having better communication with your guests than your one click away competitors have with theirs.
Post Visit Contact
Ever notice how book stores will do everything possible to stay in contact with you and get you to come back. They know you may not buy that expensive book, CD or DVD on your first visit. Being a multi-product store as opposed to a single product as some of you are including myself, the book store will send you offers and discounts in both snail mail and email. Every book store and coffee shop I walk into has a card for me they punch every purchase I make and after a set number I get a free product.
Do not forget about your prospects after they buy or after they leave your site.
The big point here being you're losing a lot of sales and future sales without offering incentives to stay in contact with your previous visitors as well as making it to their advantage to revisit your site due to fresh content. Do you archive your newsletters on your website with a link to those archives on the newsletter you're sending out? Do all of your newsletters contain a clickable link to your sales page. Giving prospects a chance to read your archives could peak their interest enough to buy your product. The links to your sales page will help your search engine ranking a bit as well.
Conclusion
Familiarity leads to comfort, comfort leads to confidence, confidence leads to increased sales and happy clients confident enough to buy again from you and refer others to your website. The next time you go to a successful book store or comparable off line store similar to your product or service, think to yourself, are my guests offered the same benefits?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
How to scrutinize your web design professional when building your accessible website
In all extent, creating something by with a tiny basic knowledge can be stunning and exigent task for all in any view. Stunning because, you are going to produce something by holding elfin knowledge on it and exigent because of the ways and means that one needs to take in order to finish the development.
When you're starting a new online business your first wish to create a website that will looks to be specialized and decipherable. Then you have to search for the best web design professional who will guide you the traditions to build the creative website design which will represent you and your business theme. What are the symbols for a graceful professional website builder? How to identify affordable and accessible web design? Who will save you wealth by combining numerous features of a traditional website program into attractive website? These may be your thoughts arises in your mind but it is viewed that ethical productive website builders are also easy to use. They offer you a way to fabricate a small business website design without the need of knowing a lot of technical stuff or html.
When choosing a cheap professional website builder, just remember to judge the following features which are crucial when building a productive handsome web presence for your business:
1. To build a professional-looking website they must have little bit basic knowledge on FTP, HTML, web designing styles and java script. If these are all new to you, you should learn them through different online resources and tutorials.
2. They should identify your target market and then made a vast RND on it. Remember, they will be creating your website for that market. They should realize the criteria and features of the visitor’s means what they would like to see on your site, as well as the content.
3. Advice them to study your competitors. Recommend them to visit the websites of your competitors and identify the things they used to effectively attract visitors.
4. Plan ahead. Write down the sections and features you would like to be included in your website and discus with them. Combine your ideas with the demands of your potential clients.
5. Navigation should be in first preference when they build your website. Make sure that your website is easy to navigate. Make sure that all buttons and links can be easily located. Also, put a link on every page that will take your visitors to you homepage.
6. Suggest them to consider effective color combination. You can't simply use pink and red on your website just because they are your favorite colors. Advocate them, to build your website look professional; you will need to stick with neutral colors.
7. Advice them to make your homepage tantalizing. This is the first page that will be presented to your visitors. Thus you have to concentrate on it vastly. Make sure that it is eye-catching so your visitors will be convinced to explore the whole website.
8. Advocate them to seal your website with unique quality content. Make your website will be a great resource of information to entice your visitors to visit again that site.
9. Shopping cart - When someone is fascinated in a product or service on your site, you'll need to have a shopping cart for them to place that item. Consult with your web design professional about this function. If the builder you're looking at doesn't provide this, you might want to look elsewhere.
10. Templates and image libraries - Some website builders have templates and they will suggest you to use any of them, and some even provide gallery images that you can add to your site. However, a really good professional website builder will have more than just a few. It is better to you to create just what you have in mind. Efficiently designed websites might be a little costly issue but it is a good to one time investment. Online business is fast grabbing up and more and more people turn to shop online as it is time saving and cost effective views. Thus you have to consider the emotions of those visitors who will visit your website and your simple idea to restrict them into your site in long time basic.
When you're starting a new online business your first wish to create a website that will looks to be specialized and decipherable. Then you have to search for the best web design professional who will guide you the traditions to build the creative website design which will represent you and your business theme. What are the symbols for a graceful professional website builder? How to identify affordable and accessible web design? Who will save you wealth by combining numerous features of a traditional website program into attractive website? These may be your thoughts arises in your mind but it is viewed that ethical productive website builders are also easy to use. They offer you a way to fabricate a small business website design without the need of knowing a lot of technical stuff or html.
When choosing a cheap professional website builder, just remember to judge the following features which are crucial when building a productive handsome web presence for your business:
1. To build a professional-looking website they must have little bit basic knowledge on FTP, HTML, web designing styles and java script. If these are all new to you, you should learn them through different online resources and tutorials.
2. They should identify your target market and then made a vast RND on it. Remember, they will be creating your website for that market. They should realize the criteria and features of the visitor’s means what they would like to see on your site, as well as the content.
3. Advice them to study your competitors. Recommend them to visit the websites of your competitors and identify the things they used to effectively attract visitors.
4. Plan ahead. Write down the sections and features you would like to be included in your website and discus with them. Combine your ideas with the demands of your potential clients.
5. Navigation should be in first preference when they build your website. Make sure that your website is easy to navigate. Make sure that all buttons and links can be easily located. Also, put a link on every page that will take your visitors to you homepage.
6. Suggest them to consider effective color combination. You can't simply use pink and red on your website just because they are your favorite colors. Advocate them, to build your website look professional; you will need to stick with neutral colors.
7. Advice them to make your homepage tantalizing. This is the first page that will be presented to your visitors. Thus you have to concentrate on it vastly. Make sure that it is eye-catching so your visitors will be convinced to explore the whole website.
8. Advocate them to seal your website with unique quality content. Make your website will be a great resource of information to entice your visitors to visit again that site.
9. Shopping cart - When someone is fascinated in a product or service on your site, you'll need to have a shopping cart for them to place that item. Consult with your web design professional about this function. If the builder you're looking at doesn't provide this, you might want to look elsewhere.
10. Templates and image libraries - Some website builders have templates and they will suggest you to use any of them, and some even provide gallery images that you can add to your site. However, a really good professional website builder will have more than just a few. It is better to you to create just what you have in mind. Efficiently designed websites might be a little costly issue but it is a good to one time investment. Online business is fast grabbing up and more and more people turn to shop online as it is time saving and cost effective views. Thus you have to consider the emotions of those visitors who will visit your website and your simple idea to restrict them into your site in long time basic.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Strategic Domain Name Selection for Increasing Traffic and Conversion Rates
The days of a domain name being just a web address are long gone; today, domain names are a critical element of your marketing toolbox. In this presentation, learn how you can build a portfolio of traffic-generating “Direct Navigation” domain names to drive additional traffic to your web site while simultaneously increasing conversion rates.
“Direct Navigation” domain names—essentially highly-targeted descriptive domain names that users type directly into their browser—are one of the fastest growing advertising channels: in 2007, nearly 10% of all paid search clicks—an estimated $1 billion worth—were derived from direct navigation portals.
Do you know how to take advantage of direct navigation traffic? Who are these users who search via domain names rather than Google, and how can you best sell to them?Via case studies and empirical research, Johnston will help attendees learn:
What is direct navigation traffic?
How does your choice of domain name effect search engine placement?
How does your choice of domain effect your ad click-through rates?
How can you capture traffic from users “searching without a search engine?”
How can you build a portfolio of descriptive domain names that will generate targeted traffic for
many years to come?
“Direct Navigation” domain names—essentially highly-targeted descriptive domain names that users type directly into their browser—are one of the fastest growing advertising channels: in 2007, nearly 10% of all paid search clicks—an estimated $1 billion worth—were derived from direct navigation portals.
Do you know how to take advantage of direct navigation traffic? Who are these users who search via domain names rather than Google, and how can you best sell to them?Via case studies and empirical research, Johnston will help attendees learn:
What is direct navigation traffic?
How does your choice of domain name effect search engine placement?
How does your choice of domain effect your ad click-through rates?
How can you capture traffic from users “searching without a search engine?”
How can you build a portfolio of descriptive domain names that will generate targeted traffic for
many years to come?
Blogging for Profit and Traffic
Blogging for profit involves specific knowledge of how to make money online, although if you are only blogging for traffic then you are guaranteed that if you link your website to your blog.
In order to blog for profit, or to make money in other words, you need to understand the principles of Google Adsense, a selling advertising space on your blog and affiliate marketing.
You could also advertise your products on your blog if you have any to sell, but you will likely be doing the selling from your website and that is another technique altogether. Before discussing ways in which you can use your blog to make money, let’s first discuss your blog, and where you are operating it from.
If your blog is a Blogger or Wordpress blog hosted by either of these two, then your options are very limited when compared to uploading your own blogging software from wordpress.org. If you are serious about blogging for money then you should do so from your own website. If you have no web host as yet, and are seeking one from which to operate your blog, then make sure that your host offers MySQL.
You will need that to run Wordpress from your website. The reason that Wordpress is recommended is that it is the best blogging software online if you have your own website. If you do not, then many people prefer Blogger, although others still use Wordpress from the Wordpress.com site. I will not go further into this because it is not the object of this article, which is to recommend ways of making money from a blog.
First register with Google Adsense. Enter that into your browser and follow all of the instructions. You will be able to offer adverts on your blog, and will be paid every time somebody clicks on an advert. They don’t have to buy anything, just click on the advert. You should place your Adsense blocks somewhere on your sidebar, and also at the bottom of your blog so that when people have finished reading they have something to click on.
If your reader reaches the end of your article, page of blog, it means that are interested in what are writing, otherwise they would have left and clicked on to somewhere else. If you have nothing at the end of the post or the page, then people will feel somewhat let down. If you provide them with something to do, even just to click on an advert that interests them, then that is what they are liable to do.
The theme of the adverts are determined by the Google contextual algorithm often called LSI, that determines the theme of your content through the vocabulary that you use in it. You can also offer affiliate links on your blog: links to products being sold by others whereby you get a proportion of the sales price for each sales (frequently 50%).
You can find lots of affiliate products to sell on Clickbank.com. or simply by entering the term into your favourite search engine. These links can take the form of banner ads, text links or clickable logo, and you can place them anywhere on your blog. This applies predominantly for blogs run from your own website, where you have total editing over the html of the various components of your blog: the stylesheet that controls each complete page, the headers, footers, sidebars and everything else that makes up your blog.
You do not have this degree of control over a hosted blog. If you want to use your blog to make real money, then it is necessary to have your blog on your own website rather than on a blog host such as Bloggit or Wordpress.com.
There are other ways in which to use your blog to make money, and blogging for profit and traffic is a combination of many sources of income and traffic generation techniques. Once you understand how to use these, you will find your blog a lot more useful than just a simple website. Pete has been blogging for less than a year, but already his blogs are making him good money. Find out how he does it on his blog Blog on Blog and also check out his website Create a Blog for more information on how to use blogs to make money and generate traffic to your website.
In order to blog for profit, or to make money in other words, you need to understand the principles of Google Adsense, a selling advertising space on your blog and affiliate marketing.
You could also advertise your products on your blog if you have any to sell, but you will likely be doing the selling from your website and that is another technique altogether. Before discussing ways in which you can use your blog to make money, let’s first discuss your blog, and where you are operating it from.
If your blog is a Blogger or Wordpress blog hosted by either of these two, then your options are very limited when compared to uploading your own blogging software from wordpress.org. If you are serious about blogging for money then you should do so from your own website. If you have no web host as yet, and are seeking one from which to operate your blog, then make sure that your host offers MySQL.
You will need that to run Wordpress from your website. The reason that Wordpress is recommended is that it is the best blogging software online if you have your own website. If you do not, then many people prefer Blogger, although others still use Wordpress from the Wordpress.com site. I will not go further into this because it is not the object of this article, which is to recommend ways of making money from a blog.
First register with Google Adsense. Enter that into your browser and follow all of the instructions. You will be able to offer adverts on your blog, and will be paid every time somebody clicks on an advert. They don’t have to buy anything, just click on the advert. You should place your Adsense blocks somewhere on your sidebar, and also at the bottom of your blog so that when people have finished reading they have something to click on.
If your reader reaches the end of your article, page of blog, it means that are interested in what are writing, otherwise they would have left and clicked on to somewhere else. If you have nothing at the end of the post or the page, then people will feel somewhat let down. If you provide them with something to do, even just to click on an advert that interests them, then that is what they are liable to do.
The theme of the adverts are determined by the Google contextual algorithm often called LSI, that determines the theme of your content through the vocabulary that you use in it. You can also offer affiliate links on your blog: links to products being sold by others whereby you get a proportion of the sales price for each sales (frequently 50%).
You can find lots of affiliate products to sell on Clickbank.com. or simply by entering the term into your favourite search engine. These links can take the form of banner ads, text links or clickable logo, and you can place them anywhere on your blog. This applies predominantly for blogs run from your own website, where you have total editing over the html of the various components of your blog: the stylesheet that controls each complete page, the headers, footers, sidebars and everything else that makes up your blog.
You do not have this degree of control over a hosted blog. If you want to use your blog to make real money, then it is necessary to have your blog on your own website rather than on a blog host such as Bloggit or Wordpress.com.
There are other ways in which to use your blog to make money, and blogging for profit and traffic is a combination of many sources of income and traffic generation techniques. Once you understand how to use these, you will find your blog a lot more useful than just a simple website. Pete has been blogging for less than a year, but already his blogs are making him good money. Find out how he does it on his blog Blog on Blog and also check out his website Create a Blog for more information on how to use blogs to make money and generate traffic to your website.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Traffic Generation and Affordable SEO Services
In order to help you achieve the type of traffic you need to make your online business a success, we shall look at each of these statements separately and discuss what options are available to enable you to attract the visitors that are essential to your online future.
Although there are ways to attract traffic other than through search engine optimization, it is definitely to your benefit if you can secure traffic by means of the free advertising that a high listing in search engines such as Google and Yahoo can provide you with. There are many ways in which you can make your website as search engine friendly as possible and improve its capacity for traffic generation. Did you notice the mistake I just made there? I mentioned websites in the same sentence as search engine.
True search engines look at web pages, not web sites. More on that in a minute. In order to make it easier for me (and you) I am going to apply the name Google whenever I write about ‘search engine’, since although Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Ask, etc are important, no one can deny that Google is the biggest search engine. Not only that, but it was the first true search engine. Yahoo started life off as a web directory, and if your site was not in the Yahoo directory, it would not be listed in a search. Now, however, in addition to being a website directory, Yahoo, MSN and Ask are true web search engines, the same as Google.
I will explain the difference later from my website that you can access from the link in my Resource Box. For the moment, accept the fact that Google and the other true search engines crawl the whole World Wide Web for the web pages that are most relevant to the search term that your customers are using to find the information they are seeking. Did you notice what I just wrote there? ‘Web pages’? Not ‘web sites’ but web pages, as I mentioned earlier. Google and the rest list individual web pages in order of relevance to its interpretation of the words that your potential visitors use to find their information.
That is very important to keep in mind. How do they do that? How do the search engines decide what is relevant and what is not to a character string – that is all that your search term is. That is another story really, but it is connected with what is commonly termed ‘Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)’, a misnomer for a mathematical statistical analysis of the vocabulary on each of your web pages.
I say misnomer, because LSI is not an indexing technique, but an analysis method that uses character strings and known juxtaposition of characters, to determine what you are writing about through the use of contextual relevance of the whole passage of your text to the keyword, or theme, that you have highlighted by means of the search engine optimization techniques available to you. Nobody can make a web page LSI compliant, or ‘use’ LSI on a website. It is akin to saying that you can use probability equations to write an article on fly fishing. It is a nonsense that even the best known internet gurus believe, unless they are lying to us and I sure that they would not do that. They must therefore be more ignorant than we believed them to be, which explains quite a lot all things considered. Which of the two options would they admit to I wonder. You no longer need the oft-quoted 1% - 3% keyword density on your web page, but instead more vocabulary and content on your page that makes the topic of that page clear, without any doubt, to software that parses our page for its meaning in additional to human readers who can tell that at a glance. You have to use more vocabulary than just repeat the keyword or Google and the rest of the search engines will not list your page.
The most affordable SEO services will provide you with the small things that you do to your individual web pages to improve your listing position and traffic generation capability. Such services need not be expensive, although the sites you find online that offer them tend to charge high prices since they are targeting large companies rather than individuals with single small websites of a hundred pages or less. One technique that they all mention, however, is the use of meta tags. Many get it wrong! The only important meta tags are the Title and Description tags. You should also point out to the spiders what your more important vocabulary is by use of H tags, bold text, italics and underlining. Google appreciates that, but while you might be rewarded for doing so, you will not be punished for not doing so.
There is a massive difference between breaking the rules and failing to give a helping hand. Your linking strategy is of critical importance, and you must have a good number of links back to your web page from other relevant web pages. Take note of the two important words I have used there: ‘pages’ and ‘relevant’.
I could write 10 pages on Google PageRank without doing it justice, so won’t start now. Just believe me that you get a share of the Google PageRank of a page linking to yours (not of the home page of that site), and since most linking pages are designed only to hold URL links and consequently contain masses of other links on them, then your share is practically zilch. Do not therefore give a website a link from your home page that reciprocates with one from deep inside the directory structure that provides you with absolutely no benefit. You cannot lose PageRank by providing a link, but why should you give more than you get. Come to an arrangement: you will provide a link from your PR 5 page if the other party reciprocates. Not if their link is from a PR 0 page. There are many more ways in which you can legally attract search engines to your website and achieve high listings and to generate loads of traffic.
There are also many illegal methods of doing so. It is the end result that counts, but before you can even begin to understand what the term ‘black hat’ means, you must first understand what SEO means! Traffic generation is critical to your success, and if you can find affordable SEO services to help you to achieve that, then you are most of the way there. The effect that good search engine optimization has on the generation of traffic to selected pages within your website cannot be over-estimated and will likely determine your future over the next year.
Peter enjoys the game of contesting the search engines with his SEO techniques, and this article is continued on his web page Traffic Generation. His site Seociousalso provides screenshots of how he gets his sites in Google’s top 10 only a few days after submission using one of his simple website designs.
Although there are ways to attract traffic other than through search engine optimization, it is definitely to your benefit if you can secure traffic by means of the free advertising that a high listing in search engines such as Google and Yahoo can provide you with. There are many ways in which you can make your website as search engine friendly as possible and improve its capacity for traffic generation. Did you notice the mistake I just made there? I mentioned websites in the same sentence as search engine.
True search engines look at web pages, not web sites. More on that in a minute. In order to make it easier for me (and you) I am going to apply the name Google whenever I write about ‘search engine’, since although Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Ask, etc are important, no one can deny that Google is the biggest search engine. Not only that, but it was the first true search engine. Yahoo started life off as a web directory, and if your site was not in the Yahoo directory, it would not be listed in a search. Now, however, in addition to being a website directory, Yahoo, MSN and Ask are true web search engines, the same as Google.
I will explain the difference later from my website that you can access from the link in my Resource Box. For the moment, accept the fact that Google and the other true search engines crawl the whole World Wide Web for the web pages that are most relevant to the search term that your customers are using to find the information they are seeking. Did you notice what I just wrote there? ‘Web pages’? Not ‘web sites’ but web pages, as I mentioned earlier. Google and the rest list individual web pages in order of relevance to its interpretation of the words that your potential visitors use to find their information.
That is very important to keep in mind. How do they do that? How do the search engines decide what is relevant and what is not to a character string – that is all that your search term is. That is another story really, but it is connected with what is commonly termed ‘Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)’, a misnomer for a mathematical statistical analysis of the vocabulary on each of your web pages.
I say misnomer, because LSI is not an indexing technique, but an analysis method that uses character strings and known juxtaposition of characters, to determine what you are writing about through the use of contextual relevance of the whole passage of your text to the keyword, or theme, that you have highlighted by means of the search engine optimization techniques available to you. Nobody can make a web page LSI compliant, or ‘use’ LSI on a website. It is akin to saying that you can use probability equations to write an article on fly fishing. It is a nonsense that even the best known internet gurus believe, unless they are lying to us and I sure that they would not do that. They must therefore be more ignorant than we believed them to be, which explains quite a lot all things considered. Which of the two options would they admit to I wonder. You no longer need the oft-quoted 1% - 3% keyword density on your web page, but instead more vocabulary and content on your page that makes the topic of that page clear, without any doubt, to software that parses our page for its meaning in additional to human readers who can tell that at a glance. You have to use more vocabulary than just repeat the keyword or Google and the rest of the search engines will not list your page.
The most affordable SEO services will provide you with the small things that you do to your individual web pages to improve your listing position and traffic generation capability. Such services need not be expensive, although the sites you find online that offer them tend to charge high prices since they are targeting large companies rather than individuals with single small websites of a hundred pages or less. One technique that they all mention, however, is the use of meta tags. Many get it wrong! The only important meta tags are the Title and Description tags. You should also point out to the spiders what your more important vocabulary is by use of H tags, bold text, italics and underlining. Google appreciates that, but while you might be rewarded for doing so, you will not be punished for not doing so.
There is a massive difference between breaking the rules and failing to give a helping hand. Your linking strategy is of critical importance, and you must have a good number of links back to your web page from other relevant web pages. Take note of the two important words I have used there: ‘pages’ and ‘relevant’.
I could write 10 pages on Google PageRank without doing it justice, so won’t start now. Just believe me that you get a share of the Google PageRank of a page linking to yours (not of the home page of that site), and since most linking pages are designed only to hold URL links and consequently contain masses of other links on them, then your share is practically zilch. Do not therefore give a website a link from your home page that reciprocates with one from deep inside the directory structure that provides you with absolutely no benefit. You cannot lose PageRank by providing a link, but why should you give more than you get. Come to an arrangement: you will provide a link from your PR 5 page if the other party reciprocates. Not if their link is from a PR 0 page. There are many more ways in which you can legally attract search engines to your website and achieve high listings and to generate loads of traffic.
There are also many illegal methods of doing so. It is the end result that counts, but before you can even begin to understand what the term ‘black hat’ means, you must first understand what SEO means! Traffic generation is critical to your success, and if you can find affordable SEO services to help you to achieve that, then you are most of the way there. The effect that good search engine optimization has on the generation of traffic to selected pages within your website cannot be over-estimated and will likely determine your future over the next year.
Peter enjoys the game of contesting the search engines with his SEO techniques, and this article is continued on his web page Traffic Generation. His site Seociousalso provides screenshots of how he gets his sites in Google’s top 10 only a few days after submission using one of his simple website designs.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Choosing Small Business Website Names
I disagree with the comment made by some web developers that all the good domain names are taken. Search engine optimization, or seo, does not depend heavily on the www name you select. For my clients just starting out the decision choosing small business website names has never been an issue. It is a fact that all the 3 character and 4 character domain names with the key extensions are taken. Furthermore, I agree that a vast number of choice domain names are no longer available; however, the selection of a suitable www domain for your small business is possible if you remain flexible.
The real value in the name you choose from a search perspective is how easy it is to spell and remember. Of the two types of visitors to your site, the human visitors and search engines, the ability of a person to remember your domain name and spell it correctly to pass it on to others outweighs any SEO value. Search engines are robots and don't care. Using words like "greatest", "best", or other exaggerated terms in your domain name is thought by some to be a disadvantage and penalized by search engines.
Search algorithms change often and likewise that theory, and although you may not be penalized for using such words, consider the reaction of your human visitors. They may not stick around if they feel you boast without the content to back it up. For a serious small business commercial enterprise, my advice is avoiding adjectives in the domain name entirely. In some cases new clients approach me to redesign an existing website, and it surprises me that some of the basics are overlooked. For example, a commercial enterprise in business for profit should not select a dot ORG domain simply because the dot COM was taken. This was the case from a conversation with a client interested in a site makeover.
Their ORG version was online for two years with little or no backlinks or serious indexing from search engines. The mindset of getting one particular name should be reconsidered especially if it's your first online venture. Here's a breakdown of the most desirable domain extensions and the usual purpose of each: COM - Commercial for profit enterprise INFO - Information only related website NET - Companies providing internet services ORG - Non-profit organizations Certainly there are many more like BIZ, US, WS, and others which are all reasonable choices, but for your commercial small business my recommendation is always acquire a dot COM www domain name. The client mentioned earlier did not realize a dot ORG was intended for a non-commercial enterprise, and they decided the poor website SEO performance was something that justified getting a new dot COM. We easily found an available www domain using their company initials and one key word about their target market which is medical. Despite my advice that they keep the existing site and simply change the theme, they decided to just let it go when it expired. My commercial site choice was my first and last name, and very unique at that. Using your name is okay, and expected if you're famous. There is, however, little or no value as far as keywords in my www domain to attract visitors, so is that a mistake for search engine optimization? Certainly not.
The fact that I have collected more than 100 screenshots of generic phrases relative to my business that made Google page one is evidence the content, not the domain, is key. Here's some advice to help you when choosing a new dot COM small business website domain name. Start out with a list of about 10 domain names that you would like to have. Next, make a list of market related single word terms about what you do and the customer base you service. If your market is localized, consider geographical terms that relate to where you sell or provide services. Spend 30 minutes brainstorming to come up with the initial names and additional lists of single word terms. You may want another list of significant initials. Next, search for "WhoIs" in Google to find free online services that keep a database of available domain names, and follow the link in the search results. Each database has a search box which allows you to input the domain name and extension. Begin with your first choice and work down the list and keep track of available names for review later. It may not be easy, so try combinations of the key terms as you continue to search, and keep in mind you want a domain name that is easy to spell and remember. By the time you're done you should have a half dozen or more available names, so take your time and select the best one, and then register the name immediately. Tip: The domain name may not be significant for search engine optimization, but the length of your registration can be. My advice is registering domains for 2 years minimum, and 5 to 10 years if that's in your budget. Search engines consider that the length of your registration reflects your commitment to be online long term, so at today's prices 5 years is practical and should cost less than $50 USD. There's nothing wrong with getting the dot COM domain name you want, and then registering the other major extensions that are available for the same name.
If you are highly successful in your online venture, having the other extensions registered in your name prevents others from attempting to take advantage of your reputation by association. In conclusion, the concept that all the good domain names are taken is a myth. You may not get exactly what you want, but practical options are available with a little research and due diligence. Jim Degerstrom writes small business advice based on 30 years in management, sales, and marketing, including GM or President of small companies in 5 states. He is proficient in website and graphic art design, and runs his online Small Business Resource Center and offers advice on his Small Business Advice Blog from Kissimmee, Florida USA.
The real value in the name you choose from a search perspective is how easy it is to spell and remember. Of the two types of visitors to your site, the human visitors and search engines, the ability of a person to remember your domain name and spell it correctly to pass it on to others outweighs any SEO value. Search engines are robots and don't care. Using words like "greatest", "best", or other exaggerated terms in your domain name is thought by some to be a disadvantage and penalized by search engines.
Search algorithms change often and likewise that theory, and although you may not be penalized for using such words, consider the reaction of your human visitors. They may not stick around if they feel you boast without the content to back it up. For a serious small business commercial enterprise, my advice is avoiding adjectives in the domain name entirely. In some cases new clients approach me to redesign an existing website, and it surprises me that some of the basics are overlooked. For example, a commercial enterprise in business for profit should not select a dot ORG domain simply because the dot COM was taken. This was the case from a conversation with a client interested in a site makeover.
Their ORG version was online for two years with little or no backlinks or serious indexing from search engines. The mindset of getting one particular name should be reconsidered especially if it's your first online venture. Here's a breakdown of the most desirable domain extensions and the usual purpose of each: COM - Commercial for profit enterprise INFO - Information only related website NET - Companies providing internet services ORG - Non-profit organizations Certainly there are many more like BIZ, US, WS, and others which are all reasonable choices, but for your commercial small business my recommendation is always acquire a dot COM www domain name. The client mentioned earlier did not realize a dot ORG was intended for a non-commercial enterprise, and they decided the poor website SEO performance was something that justified getting a new dot COM. We easily found an available www domain using their company initials and one key word about their target market which is medical. Despite my advice that they keep the existing site and simply change the theme, they decided to just let it go when it expired. My commercial site choice was my first and last name, and very unique at that. Using your name is okay, and expected if you're famous. There is, however, little or no value as far as keywords in my www domain to attract visitors, so is that a mistake for search engine optimization? Certainly not.
The fact that I have collected more than 100 screenshots of generic phrases relative to my business that made Google page one is evidence the content, not the domain, is key. Here's some advice to help you when choosing a new dot COM small business website domain name. Start out with a list of about 10 domain names that you would like to have. Next, make a list of market related single word terms about what you do and the customer base you service. If your market is localized, consider geographical terms that relate to where you sell or provide services. Spend 30 minutes brainstorming to come up with the initial names and additional lists of single word terms. You may want another list of significant initials. Next, search for "WhoIs" in Google to find free online services that keep a database of available domain names, and follow the link in the search results. Each database has a search box which allows you to input the domain name and extension. Begin with your first choice and work down the list and keep track of available names for review later. It may not be easy, so try combinations of the key terms as you continue to search, and keep in mind you want a domain name that is easy to spell and remember. By the time you're done you should have a half dozen or more available names, so take your time and select the best one, and then register the name immediately. Tip: The domain name may not be significant for search engine optimization, but the length of your registration can be. My advice is registering domains for 2 years minimum, and 5 to 10 years if that's in your budget. Search engines consider that the length of your registration reflects your commitment to be online long term, so at today's prices 5 years is practical and should cost less than $50 USD. There's nothing wrong with getting the dot COM domain name you want, and then registering the other major extensions that are available for the same name.
If you are highly successful in your online venture, having the other extensions registered in your name prevents others from attempting to take advantage of your reputation by association. In conclusion, the concept that all the good domain names are taken is a myth. You may not get exactly what you want, but practical options are available with a little research and due diligence. Jim Degerstrom writes small business advice based on 30 years in management, sales, and marketing, including GM or President of small companies in 5 states. He is proficient in website and graphic art design, and runs his online Small Business Resource Center and offers advice on his Small Business Advice Blog from Kissimmee, Florida USA.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Your chance for online success?
When building a business and a brand on the Web, your chosen domain name is everything. Website domain names - the Internet address the helps Web surfers find your site - are the backbone on which we all locate things on the Web and thus are the communications glue that makes the web work as well as it does.
For any new or existing business, selecting a domain name can be the most challenging and frustrating process that a business can undertake. This process can often times cause an existing business to change it’s name to fit a domain name. It simply is getting harder to find a good name that has not been registered.
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