A few weeks ago I wrote about building your website from the ground up. This article did not dive into great detail on any specific topics, but rather touched on the key points you will want to address. In this article I will place most of the focus on the promotíon aspect of this previous article. Image of bullhorn saying 'Promoting Your New Website'
While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away!
SEO
If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promotíon will help you get those search rankings.
Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will seriously reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule.
Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible.
Press Releases
The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to include a link back to your website, preferably with your target phrase hyperlinked as well. Submit this press release to an aggregator such as PRWeb. This will help get the word out that your site is live, draw some attention from the public, and also get you that first valuable link to your website.
Search Engine Submission
These days search engines will find your site on their own, and submitting to them is not necessary. If you feel you must submit your site to the engines, submit it only once and shortly after the site goes live.
In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, the best thing you can do in terms of submissions, is to create and submit an XML sitemap. Submit this sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tools account, and also be sure to include a call to it within your robots.txt file by adding the following line including a complete path to your sitemap:
Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a líst of some of these tools on their "Third Party Programs" page.
Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to, especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category possible.
Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to grow your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links. Links are one of those strategic tools that won't ever be a bad investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you customers well into the future.
Explore the different ways to build links to your site. A steady progressive rise in inbound links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be afraid of.
Social Media
Promotíon largely consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.
To help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos. You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr, amongst many others.
These pages often act as backlinks to your site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.
Your use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For instance, let's say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform, while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not identical - you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.
Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles. Consider also writing for your blog to help grow your site content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site.
Pay Per Click
While Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off, so it is definitely worth considering.
Summary
In general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get your site lísted in the key directories for your industry. The more eyes you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in the search engines.
For many industries it can literally take years to get those coveted first page results - in some industries it may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start promoting that new site of yours immediately.
Friday, October 10, 2008
10 Key Tips on Choosing the Best Hosting Package for You
This is not exactly a "top 10" líst, as all of the following things could easily be listed as the most important consideration. Individuals, small companies and big corporations all need to consider the same things when choosing a hosting package.
The overall "tip" here is that you need to get accurate information to make comparisons among hosts. Therefore, each individual tip is another, separate aspect of the hosting relationship that you need to investigate. You should take them all seriously.
1. Traffic ("data transfer" or "bandwidth") - These terms refer to the amount of information, measured in bytes, that is delivered from your website to visitors. Although you will hear about "unlímited bandwidth", check to see if the same terminology used for marketing purposes is reflected in the contract. In other words, read the contract before signing on the dotted line. Unless you will be uploading photo archives or using your site to swap large files, your small- to mid-size website should normally use no more than 3GB of bandwidth monthly. Watch out for "overage" charges (per additional GB, usually) and consider upgrading your account if the site traffic increases.
2. Disk space - Apply the same skeptical approach to the "unlímited disk space" deals, as you did to the claims about traffic above. Again, the majority of small to mid-size sites need 10-20MB of web space at most, so unless 500MB or "unlímited space" is part of the basic package, don't bite. You can easily determine how much storage you need by checking your file sizes and adding them up - all the HTML pages (which are small) plus all the images (some of which can be big).
3. Uptime ("reliability") – The minimum figure for uptime should be 99%. Today, in fact, that is the minimum advertised amount, as 99.5% or more is referred to all the time. Many people would consider this the most important consideration.
4. Tools and security (FTP, PHP, SSI, etc.) – Some hosts require getting prior approval to install various scripts like CGI or PHP. You would be less constrained with a host that does not make you wait for approval. To properly maintain databases, set up security measures and otherwise customize your site, you need the full tool set. Once you find out what you get in the way of tools, press a bit further and find out about restrictions on their use, if any.
5. Email – What's the use of having a custom-named domain for your business if you continue using Hotmail or other web-based mail applications? Every hosting plan will include e-mail services, allowing you to look and sound like a "real company" with its own e-mail addresses. The quality of such add-ons as auto-responders, mail filters and mailing managers will vary among potential hosts. Don't forget to verify that you will also have "webmail" (web-based access to your mail server) and make sure to evaluate the anti-spam tools that are available.
6. Technical support – As things often break down at the worst possible times, you want tech support available as much as possible. Sometimes "24/7 support" is more like "12/5 support", so find out about coverage on weekends and holidays. It is also important to speak with a human being rather than be stuck in a circle of FAQ pages and e-mail service requests. If you face an emergency that threatens your business, you also want to know that the tech staff is knowledgeable. Ask about their training.
7. Remote controls – It may be called your "control panel", it may be called a "tool kit", but every host will give you utilities with which to manage your account. Often, there is a certain web page established from which to do this. Managing your e-mail, mail accounts, passwords and anti-spam tools are all basic chores for webmasters. With a powerful set of tools, the important control over your business stays in your hands.
8. Server architecture – There are numerous reasons for choosing one type of server over another. If you want to use the ASP web programming language, for example, it is only available on Windows servers. However, cost-wise, it is often better to use a Unix system running Apache server software, which is stable, dependable and lets you manage error pages, block specified IP addresses, stop email harvesting and more, without waiting for your host to approve anything. Also, if yours will be an e-commerce site, you will want to get SSL (Secure Socket Layer), MySQL and shopping cart functionality.
9. Costs and payment plans – Price, quite obviously, is an important factor, but the most expensive hosts are not always the best ones. Consider cost, of course, and beware of dramatic price differentials on what are really quite similar plans. You can pay via annual or quarterly payment plans that will discount the monthly rate, and the more you pay at once (and upfront), the less you will pay per month.
10. Reputation and reviews – Search the Internet and talk to all of your business colleagues. Track down both complaints and praises about your potential hosts, but remember to consider the source of the comments.
You will save yourself a lot of frustration if you do your homework. If you are unclear or uncertain about any of the particulars, ask someone you know who has more expertise for assistance. You can also take the bull by the horns and use the Internet as your school, to learn what you need to know about hosting companies and how they work.
The overall "tip" here is that you need to get accurate information to make comparisons among hosts. Therefore, each individual tip is another, separate aspect of the hosting relationship that you need to investigate. You should take them all seriously.
1. Traffic ("data transfer" or "bandwidth") - These terms refer to the amount of information, measured in bytes, that is delivered from your website to visitors. Although you will hear about "unlímited bandwidth", check to see if the same terminology used for marketing purposes is reflected in the contract. In other words, read the contract before signing on the dotted line. Unless you will be uploading photo archives or using your site to swap large files, your small- to mid-size website should normally use no more than 3GB of bandwidth monthly. Watch out for "overage" charges (per additional GB, usually) and consider upgrading your account if the site traffic increases.
2. Disk space - Apply the same skeptical approach to the "unlímited disk space" deals, as you did to the claims about traffic above. Again, the majority of small to mid-size sites need 10-20MB of web space at most, so unless 500MB or "unlímited space" is part of the basic package, don't bite. You can easily determine how much storage you need by checking your file sizes and adding them up - all the HTML pages (which are small) plus all the images (some of which can be big).
3. Uptime ("reliability") – The minimum figure for uptime should be 99%. Today, in fact, that is the minimum advertised amount, as 99.5% or more is referred to all the time. Many people would consider this the most important consideration.
4. Tools and security (FTP, PHP, SSI, etc.) – Some hosts require getting prior approval to install various scripts like CGI or PHP. You would be less constrained with a host that does not make you wait for approval. To properly maintain databases, set up security measures and otherwise customize your site, you need the full tool set. Once you find out what you get in the way of tools, press a bit further and find out about restrictions on their use, if any.
5. Email – What's the use of having a custom-named domain for your business if you continue using Hotmail or other web-based mail applications? Every hosting plan will include e-mail services, allowing you to look and sound like a "real company" with its own e-mail addresses. The quality of such add-ons as auto-responders, mail filters and mailing managers will vary among potential hosts. Don't forget to verify that you will also have "webmail" (web-based access to your mail server) and make sure to evaluate the anti-spam tools that are available.
6. Technical support – As things often break down at the worst possible times, you want tech support available as much as possible. Sometimes "24/7 support" is more like "12/5 support", so find out about coverage on weekends and holidays. It is also important to speak with a human being rather than be stuck in a circle of FAQ pages and e-mail service requests. If you face an emergency that threatens your business, you also want to know that the tech staff is knowledgeable. Ask about their training.
7. Remote controls – It may be called your "control panel", it may be called a "tool kit", but every host will give you utilities with which to manage your account. Often, there is a certain web page established from which to do this. Managing your e-mail, mail accounts, passwords and anti-spam tools are all basic chores for webmasters. With a powerful set of tools, the important control over your business stays in your hands.
8. Server architecture – There are numerous reasons for choosing one type of server over another. If you want to use the ASP web programming language, for example, it is only available on Windows servers. However, cost-wise, it is often better to use a Unix system running Apache server software, which is stable, dependable and lets you manage error pages, block specified IP addresses, stop email harvesting and more, without waiting for your host to approve anything. Also, if yours will be an e-commerce site, you will want to get SSL (Secure Socket Layer), MySQL and shopping cart functionality.
9. Costs and payment plans – Price, quite obviously, is an important factor, but the most expensive hosts are not always the best ones. Consider cost, of course, and beware of dramatic price differentials on what are really quite similar plans. You can pay via annual or quarterly payment plans that will discount the monthly rate, and the more you pay at once (and upfront), the less you will pay per month.
10. Reputation and reviews – Search the Internet and talk to all of your business colleagues. Track down both complaints and praises about your potential hosts, but remember to consider the source of the comments.
You will save yourself a lot of frustration if you do your homework. If you are unclear or uncertain about any of the particulars, ask someone you know who has more expertise for assistance. You can also take the bull by the horns and use the Internet as your school, to learn what you need to know about hosting companies and how they work.
The Evolution of Online Advertising Technology - More Targeting, Less Privacy (Part One)
Please bear with me as I go through a brief history of basic online advertising. The evolution of targeted online advertising is interesting, because I believe the perceived harmlessness of early advertising technology and targeting tactics lulled many people into a sense of complacency or perhaps even false security.
In the beginning of targeted online advertising, there were banner ads. As many people recall, these were supposed to drive the Internet marketing industry in its infancy. Scads of publishers paid scads of money based on a CPI (cost per impression) model or simply paid huge dollars for banner ads and other targeted online advertising on well-trafficked sites.
Then something crazy happened - nothing. It turns out that the banner advertising technology on the Internet was not the magic bullet it was purported to be. The old way of making money based on providing content (the way magazines and newspapers ran advertising) just didn't seem to work in this context.
This new advertising technology was part of the reason for the collapse of the dot-bomb era. All the talk was about "eyeballs," "stickiness," "bleeding edge," "cradle to grave," and several other terms that, in retrospect, would have sounded more at home in a Wes Craven movie than in an emerging industry. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of business models depended on a traditional marketing strategy working more or less the same as it always had when introduced into a non-traditional setting.
All the while, one company, originally called GoTo, then Overture, and finally bought by Yahoo!, actually formulated a targeted online advertising system that worked - keyword advertising. Companies could bid on a per-click basis for certain key terms, which sent valuable traffic to its website.
Obviously, the improvement in advertising technology had to do with the model itself, which was perpetuated on relevance. By only bidding on keyphrases that you wanted, you could only pay for visitors who had already shown an interest in your products or services. This targeted online advertising model was soon copied by Google, who tweaked it and made it better.
There were not many raised eyebrows at this time, in terms of privacy. After all, the user was the one entering the query, and nobody suspected at the time that search engines might one day actually create individual profiles on users. We were all just really enjoying "having the information at our fingertips" without the potential hazards of ink stains and paper cuts that traditional research required.
Google then took a similar idea a step further. Instead of just serving up targeted online advertising on its home page, the company created a content distribution network called AdSense. In this program, owners of websites could sign up to have the ads placed on their sites. Google would then use a "contextual" logic to determine which ads to place where. In other words, Google would "read" the content on a page and then serve up targeted online advertising in the area provided by the site owner that was relevant to the content.
There were a few missteps with this new advertising technology (one classic example was when the online version of the NY Post ran a story in 2004 about a murder victim whose body parts had been packed into a suitcase. Running alongside the story was an ad that Google served up for Samsonite Luggage). Yet this targeted online advertising service also caught on, with nary a cry from privacy people. After all, you don't have to visit the sites. And the site owners don't have to sign you up for the service, right?
Suddenly, Gmail was offered and that raised some eyebrows. Gmail, of course, is Google's free email-based platform. Gmail gave people an (at that time) unprecedented 1 gigabyte of email space (Yahoo!, if memory serves, offered 4 megs for free email accounts and charged people for more memory). The only caveat – Gmail would use a similar advertising technology platform as AdSense, but it would decide which ads to serve up by reading through your emails.
Well, this new approach to advertising technology creeped some people out, and privacy advocates were a bit more vocal about using targeted online advertising by parsing through people's emails. A California lawmaker tried to introduce some legislation preventing the practice. International privacy groups chimed in with their own concerns. In the end, however, the fact remained that one had to sign up for a Gmail account and everyone that did was (presumably) aware of how the service worked before they did sign up. So it was an opt-ín system – If you didn't want Google parsing through your email and serving up relevant, targeted online advertising, you didn't have to use the service.
So there we all were, happily surfing away, not a care in the world. What most of us didn't realize was that enough free cookies were being distributed to each of us to turn the otherwise docile Keebler elves into tree-dwelling Mafioso erroneously plotting a turf war.
These cookies, of course, are the ones that websites place on your computer when you visit – little packets of information that record your visit, and sometimes, your activity there. Certainly, there's a legitimate reason for this. When you return to a website, it can help if it remembers your last visit and you can pick up where you left off. Assume, for example, that you were making multiple purchases from an e-commerce site and had a bunch of stuff in your shopping cart but were forced to abandon the site before completion. It's nice to go back and pick up where you left off without having to do it all over again.
Digital advertisers, however, saw another opportuníty for targeted online advertising. They invented advertising technology that would scour through the cookies on your personal machine, figure out what you liked and disliked by looking at the types of sites you went to, and then feed up highly targeted online advertising based upon your browsing history. These companies included aQuantive, DoubleClick, ValueClick, and others. Of the companies I mentioned, only ValueClick is still independent. Google snapped up DoubleClick, while Microsoft snapped up aQuantive. Clearly, these companies believe in the future of Internet advertising technology and also believe in the long-term legality of this technology.
Now some real red flags were raised. I've written about this advertising technology before, so I'm not going to go over it all again here. Suffice to say that some government regulators were pretty skeptical about this new form of advertising technology and there have been numerous suggestions for regulation. The lack of uproar from the public, however, has not really created any backlash for the companies in question. It could be because there is widespread ignorance about Internet advertising technology (and I believe there is, based on conversations with people of average Internet experience). Perhaps a part of it is also that privacy has been eroding on the Internet one incremental step at a time.
To be continued in part two...
In the beginning of targeted online advertising, there were banner ads. As many people recall, these were supposed to drive the Internet marketing industry in its infancy. Scads of publishers paid scads of money based on a CPI (cost per impression) model or simply paid huge dollars for banner ads and other targeted online advertising on well-trafficked sites.
Then something crazy happened - nothing. It turns out that the banner advertising technology on the Internet was not the magic bullet it was purported to be. The old way of making money based on providing content (the way magazines and newspapers ran advertising) just didn't seem to work in this context.
This new advertising technology was part of the reason for the collapse of the dot-bomb era. All the talk was about "eyeballs," "stickiness," "bleeding edge," "cradle to grave," and several other terms that, in retrospect, would have sounded more at home in a Wes Craven movie than in an emerging industry. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of business models depended on a traditional marketing strategy working more or less the same as it always had when introduced into a non-traditional setting.
All the while, one company, originally called GoTo, then Overture, and finally bought by Yahoo!, actually formulated a targeted online advertising system that worked - keyword advertising. Companies could bid on a per-click basis for certain key terms, which sent valuable traffic to its website.
Obviously, the improvement in advertising technology had to do with the model itself, which was perpetuated on relevance. By only bidding on keyphrases that you wanted, you could only pay for visitors who had already shown an interest in your products or services. This targeted online advertising model was soon copied by Google, who tweaked it and made it better.
There were not many raised eyebrows at this time, in terms of privacy. After all, the user was the one entering the query, and nobody suspected at the time that search engines might one day actually create individual profiles on users. We were all just really enjoying "having the information at our fingertips" without the potential hazards of ink stains and paper cuts that traditional research required.
Google then took a similar idea a step further. Instead of just serving up targeted online advertising on its home page, the company created a content distribution network called AdSense. In this program, owners of websites could sign up to have the ads placed on their sites. Google would then use a "contextual" logic to determine which ads to place where. In other words, Google would "read" the content on a page and then serve up targeted online advertising in the area provided by the site owner that was relevant to the content.
There were a few missteps with this new advertising technology (one classic example was when the online version of the NY Post ran a story in 2004 about a murder victim whose body parts had been packed into a suitcase. Running alongside the story was an ad that Google served up for Samsonite Luggage). Yet this targeted online advertising service also caught on, with nary a cry from privacy people. After all, you don't have to visit the sites. And the site owners don't have to sign you up for the service, right?
Suddenly, Gmail was offered and that raised some eyebrows. Gmail, of course, is Google's free email-based platform. Gmail gave people an (at that time) unprecedented 1 gigabyte of email space (Yahoo!, if memory serves, offered 4 megs for free email accounts and charged people for more memory). The only caveat – Gmail would use a similar advertising technology platform as AdSense, but it would decide which ads to serve up by reading through your emails.
Well, this new approach to advertising technology creeped some people out, and privacy advocates were a bit more vocal about using targeted online advertising by parsing through people's emails. A California lawmaker tried to introduce some legislation preventing the practice. International privacy groups chimed in with their own concerns. In the end, however, the fact remained that one had to sign up for a Gmail account and everyone that did was (presumably) aware of how the service worked before they did sign up. So it was an opt-ín system – If you didn't want Google parsing through your email and serving up relevant, targeted online advertising, you didn't have to use the service.
So there we all were, happily surfing away, not a care in the world. What most of us didn't realize was that enough free cookies were being distributed to each of us to turn the otherwise docile Keebler elves into tree-dwelling Mafioso erroneously plotting a turf war.
These cookies, of course, are the ones that websites place on your computer when you visit – little packets of information that record your visit, and sometimes, your activity there. Certainly, there's a legitimate reason for this. When you return to a website, it can help if it remembers your last visit and you can pick up where you left off. Assume, for example, that you were making multiple purchases from an e-commerce site and had a bunch of stuff in your shopping cart but were forced to abandon the site before completion. It's nice to go back and pick up where you left off without having to do it all over again.
Digital advertisers, however, saw another opportuníty for targeted online advertising. They invented advertising technology that would scour through the cookies on your personal machine, figure out what you liked and disliked by looking at the types of sites you went to, and then feed up highly targeted online advertising based upon your browsing history. These companies included aQuantive, DoubleClick, ValueClick, and others. Of the companies I mentioned, only ValueClick is still independent. Google snapped up DoubleClick, while Microsoft snapped up aQuantive. Clearly, these companies believe in the future of Internet advertising technology and also believe in the long-term legality of this technology.
Now some real red flags were raised. I've written about this advertising technology before, so I'm not going to go over it all again here. Suffice to say that some government regulators were pretty skeptical about this new form of advertising technology and there have been numerous suggestions for regulation. The lack of uproar from the public, however, has not really created any backlash for the companies in question. It could be because there is widespread ignorance about Internet advertising technology (and I believe there is, based on conversations with people of average Internet experience). Perhaps a part of it is also that privacy has been eroding on the Internet one incremental step at a time.
To be continued in part two...
Sunday, October 05, 2008
How to Get Free Press
Free press is one of the best ways to spread the word about your website, your product, and your brand. However, most people don't know where to start. Fortunately, it's really not as hard as you might think.
There are thousands of articles being published every single day on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Bloggers, writers, and journalists have pages to fill and all of them are actively looking for interesting topics to write about.
Many people forget that PR is about public relations. It's not just about writing a press release. It's about getting to know the journalists. Find out what kind of stories they're working on and see what you can do to help them. PR is really about listening and engaging key influencer's.
You need to connect. Connect with journalists who are writing about stories in your industry. Send them a quick note to tell them what you like about their writing. Provide them with story ideas within your industry. Provide them with value and they will have open ears whenever you want to pitch your story.
But remember, a journalist is extremely busy. You must respect their time. Keep everything short and sweet. Get to the point quickly and concisely.
Most journalists can be easily contacted through email, which can be found on their website, in their byline, or within the publication they write for. However, many writers and journalists can also be found on a number of different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media platforms are another great way to connect with bloggers and mainstream media journalists.
However, what if you could get reporters and writers for major publications like the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal to actually come to you for their information for articles?
This is exactly what you'll get with PR Leads, a service which connects experts with reporters. At $99 per month, this is one of the best publicity bargains around without actually hiring a full time PR agency.
This is one of the easiest ways to get your name in print. PR Leads connects you with journalists in your area of expertise. They put you in direct contact with reporters who are actively looking for quotes. In fact, you'll get 3-5 emails per day sent directly to your inbox.
However, if $99 is a bit too high for you, there's also a free service called Help a Reporter Out that offers a similar service. It's run by a New York PR guy named Peter Shankman.
Much like PR leads, they connect you with PR people and journalists who are looking for sources.
Each day, they will send you up to 3 emails containing anywhere from 2-10 queries per email. You can then respond to any queries that are targeted within your niche.
This free service actually started out as a group on Facebook called "If I can help a reporter out, I will." However, it got so big that Peter decided to start sending the enquiries by email. They now have over 10,000 members getting free PR leads.
You can sign up now at www.helpareporter.com .
Have you ever wanted to be a featured guest on National Television?
If you're looking to get on national TV shows, there's a specialized directory that will provide you with all the contact info you'll need to apear on top TV shows, including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN Fox News, CNBC, Nightline, Bloomberg TV, and many more.
This incredible service is known as "Harrison's Guide" and will give you 927 key contacts for 259 top national TV and cable shows that interview guests.
You'll find out exactly who to contact at each show and what to say to get them to put you on the air.
Find out more at http://www.freepublicity.com/getontoptv/ .
Participation is the key to good press. Get to know the influencers. But most importantly, get to know your readers. In today's world of social media, word of mouth can spread faster than ever. Everyone is now a content creator, a blogger, a social bookmarker, and an evangelist. These are the people you want to connect with.
People used to say that you had to get out there and knock on doors, but today you need to leave blog comments, interact on social networks, and above all: provide value. Contribute to the conversation.
Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Ning, Google Groups, and many others can bring massive amounts of traffic, links, and attention. However, many people miss out on one of the biggest benefits of social media...
Feedback
Your customers are having conversations at this very moment in forums, social networks, blogs, and other media outlets. Connect with them and you'll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you'll get back.
This feedback can then be used to improve your products, your content, and your customer experience.
Building good PR is a process of building relationships with key influencers, building relationships with your community of readers and customers, and most importantly: creating insanely valuable content.
By being remarkable, you'll naturally be noticed by bloggers, reporters, journalists, and talk show hosts. Build a business that's worth talking about and people will start talking.
There are thousands of articles being published every single day on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Bloggers, writers, and journalists have pages to fill and all of them are actively looking for interesting topics to write about.
Many people forget that PR is about public relations. It's not just about writing a press release. It's about getting to know the journalists. Find out what kind of stories they're working on and see what you can do to help them. PR is really about listening and engaging key influencer's.
You need to connect. Connect with journalists who are writing about stories in your industry. Send them a quick note to tell them what you like about their writing. Provide them with story ideas within your industry. Provide them with value and they will have open ears whenever you want to pitch your story.
But remember, a journalist is extremely busy. You must respect their time. Keep everything short and sweet. Get to the point quickly and concisely.
Most journalists can be easily contacted through email, which can be found on their website, in their byline, or within the publication they write for. However, many writers and journalists can also be found on a number of different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media platforms are another great way to connect with bloggers and mainstream media journalists.
However, what if you could get reporters and writers for major publications like the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal to actually come to you for their information for articles?
This is exactly what you'll get with PR Leads, a service which connects experts with reporters. At $99 per month, this is one of the best publicity bargains around without actually hiring a full time PR agency.
This is one of the easiest ways to get your name in print. PR Leads connects you with journalists in your area of expertise. They put you in direct contact with reporters who are actively looking for quotes. In fact, you'll get 3-5 emails per day sent directly to your inbox.
However, if $99 is a bit too high for you, there's also a free service called Help a Reporter Out that offers a similar service. It's run by a New York PR guy named Peter Shankman.
Much like PR leads, they connect you with PR people and journalists who are looking for sources.
Each day, they will send you up to 3 emails containing anywhere from 2-10 queries per email. You can then respond to any queries that are targeted within your niche.
This free service actually started out as a group on Facebook called "If I can help a reporter out, I will." However, it got so big that Peter decided to start sending the enquiries by email. They now have over 10,000 members getting free PR leads.
You can sign up now at www.helpareporter.com .
Have you ever wanted to be a featured guest on National Television?
If you're looking to get on national TV shows, there's a specialized directory that will provide you with all the contact info you'll need to apear on top TV shows, including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN Fox News, CNBC, Nightline, Bloomberg TV, and many more.
This incredible service is known as "Harrison's Guide" and will give you 927 key contacts for 259 top national TV and cable shows that interview guests.
You'll find out exactly who to contact at each show and what to say to get them to put you on the air.
Find out more at http://www.freepublicity.com/getontoptv/ .
Participation is the key to good press. Get to know the influencers. But most importantly, get to know your readers. In today's world of social media, word of mouth can spread faster than ever. Everyone is now a content creator, a blogger, a social bookmarker, and an evangelist. These are the people you want to connect with.
People used to say that you had to get out there and knock on doors, but today you need to leave blog comments, interact on social networks, and above all: provide value. Contribute to the conversation.
Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Ning, Google Groups, and many others can bring massive amounts of traffic, links, and attention. However, many people miss out on one of the biggest benefits of social media...
Feedback
Your customers are having conversations at this very moment in forums, social networks, blogs, and other media outlets. Connect with them and you'll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you'll get back.
This feedback can then be used to improve your products, your content, and your customer experience.
Building good PR is a process of building relationships with key influencers, building relationships with your community of readers and customers, and most importantly: creating insanely valuable content.
By being remarkable, you'll naturally be noticed by bloggers, reporters, journalists, and talk show hosts. Build a business that's worth talking about and people will start talking.
10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools
Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Happy Birthday Google!
One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.
It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.
You can find out more about Google Impact Project here: 10 to the 100
Google Has Already Impacted Many People
Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...
Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.
It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.
And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.
With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.
10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools
Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.
For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.
Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.
Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.
Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:
1. Google Analytics
Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.
Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.
You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.
2. Google Sitemaps
Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.
3. Google Alerts
Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.
4. Google Froogle
Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.
Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.
5. Google Checkout
Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.
Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.
6. Google eBlogger
Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.
7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version
Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...
Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.
8. Google Groups
Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.
Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.
9. Google Adsense
One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.
For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.
Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.
10. Google Docs
A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.
Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.
Honorable Mention - Google Trends
This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.
Final Note
Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.
One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.
It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.
You can find out more about Google Impact Project here: 10 to the 100
Google Has Already Impacted Many People
Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...
Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.
It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.
And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.
With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.
10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools
Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.
For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.
Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.
Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.
Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:
1. Google Analytics
Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.
Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.
You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.
2. Google Sitemaps
Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.
3. Google Alerts
Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.
4. Google Froogle
Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.
Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.
5. Google Checkout
Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.
Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.
6. Google eBlogger
Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.
7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version
Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...
Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.
8. Google Groups
Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.
Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.
9. Google Adsense
One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.
For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.
Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.
10. Google Docs
A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.
Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.
Honorable Mention - Google Trends
This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.
Final Note
Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.
Monday, September 29, 2008
How to Use Forums to Drive Laser Targeted Traffíc to Your Site in 7 Steps
There is no doubt about the fact that Forum posting works when it comes to driving traffic to a site. On many occasions, I have successfully used posting to forums to gain exposure to my affiliate landing page, squeeze page, sales page, etc.
I tell you, if you're really smart, the goal of every forum post you make is to get as many people to subscribe to your líst! Posting to forums is a very fast and powerful way to build your base of subscribers in as little as 30 minutes. Below is a step-by-step guide:
Step 1 - Find Forums About Your Niche Very Easily
Just Google the following:
+"your niche" +forum
or
+"your niche" +"discussion board"
For instance, if I am looking for Forums in the Internet Marketing field, I type +"Internet Marketing" +forum. The results show the top Internet marketing Forums such as:
Online Pharmacy
Drugs Rx Guide
All Vitamins Online
Step 2 - Join the Forums and Set Up Your Signature
Remember to include your website address in your signature. Signature is another name for your resource box. Your resource box is just like an 'about the author info'. This appears at the end of every post you make and drives traffic to your website.
Step 3 - Read the Rules and Regulations of the Forum Before Posting
This ensures that your posts are not deleted by the Administrators of the Forum. Now, don't go about spamming all members of the Forum with your website advert. In fact, I will advise you not to post an obvious ad. It's a pure waste of time because it will be deleted.
So, what's next?
Step 4 - Ask for Input
Approach from a weak man's position. Assuming you've written an article on your site entitled "13 Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Site." You could make a post asking folks to check out the article and see if you missed anything. Or you can ask for additional points to add to your article. Of course you'll have your opt ín box at the end of the article with a compelling offering.
Let's say you've written an article on meeting the right partner. You could post a message like this: "If you had a chance to learn how to meet your right partner now, what would you do?"
It's a great way to get the attention of forum members to your article. You also get them engaged in the article by asking for their input. And who knows, you may also get other publishers who would use your content in their ezines, thereby getting more exposure for your site.
Step 5 - Ask for a Critical Assessment
If you are the type that is not easily hurt by honest feedback even when it hurts, you can go to a forum and ask for a honest critique. You may think this will not make people sign up for your líst, but I tell you, many people will end up subscribing to it. It's a more indirect and acceptable way to ask people to check out your site without blatant advertising.
Plus, the feedback they give you may help to make your squeeze page even more compelling. Ask them if it would persuade them to give it a try, assuming they were in your target market (of course, you already know they are by the forum you selected). And, if they say no, ask them why. You can get valuable information on what they want (and don't want) this way.
There are two types of forums where you should ask for critiques: the niche forum itself and a marketing forum. You'll likely get more sign-ups from the niche forum and good advice to test out from the marketing forum (although you'll get some opt-ins there as well).
Step 6 - Ask Your Target Market What They Want
Unknown to most people, this is one of the best ways to develop products and services. And most times, Forum members are ready to tell you what they'll buy and give you ideas for articles, auto-responder content, your blog posts, whatever you need. People guess the products their target market will want and create them only to discover no one is interested in the product, but with this approach, you have real people telling you what product they want, how they want it and how much they are prepared to pay for it.
The way you would use this technique to get them to subscribe is to post something like, "what's your biggest question about loosing weight?" Or "what's the single most important thing you'd like to know about building a business?"
Don't forget to ask if they're willing to pay for solutions to their problems and have them give you an indication of how much they would be willing to pay. Powerful stuff!
Let them know you've already answered 10 questions (your 10 step mini-course loaded in your auto-responder), for example. Then they'll be more likely to sign-up. Make sure you point out that you'll add to your mini-course with the answers to the questions they've provided, and that they'll get answers to the existing questions in your mini-course PLUS the new ones when they subscribe. Everybody wins!
Step 7 - Provide a Step-By-Step Guide or Video Tutorial
If someone asks how to create an ebook, give them a progression of steps they can take. Or, make a Camtasia tutorial video showing them how. Now that you've got them to your site, you'll want to "make them a proposal they can't refuse."
Provide a Líst of Resources and Websites
In addition to checklists, resource lists with website URLs make a great site for them to bookmark! Make sure you supply more than just links. Make it a huge info-page of information. A collection of resources, links to everything you have - articles, video, audio, your blog, other useful sites, tools, you name it.
Solve a Problem for People
If someone asks for help or asks a question, provide your experience and try to help them. But to maximize your odds of getting both the asker of the question and everyone else who reads the post to subscribe to your líst, try to phrase your answer in one of the following two ways:
1. Give them tips, techniques, shortcuts, secrets, or anything that offers both the promise of exclusive information and fast results. A shortcut to success.
2. Whenever possible, supply them with specific results. Think about it. When you want to learn how to make income online, you go to someone who is making revenue online to guide you. This quickly establishes you as an authority in that area.
And by helping them, maybe - just maybe - they'll click on the link in your signature to check out your website. If you direct them to a blog post or article you wrote to answer their question, they'll be even more likely to investigate.
That's all there is to it but at the end of the day, it's a failure-proof way to drive serious traffic to your website using Forum Posts. Apply it and see your traffic soar through the roof. Don't say I didn't warn you!
I tell you, if you're really smart, the goal of every forum post you make is to get as many people to subscribe to your líst! Posting to forums is a very fast and powerful way to build your base of subscribers in as little as 30 minutes. Below is a step-by-step guide:
Step 1 - Find Forums About Your Niche Very Easily
Just Google the following:
+"your niche" +forum
or
+"your niche" +"discussion board"
For instance, if I am looking for Forums in the Internet Marketing field, I type +"Internet Marketing" +forum. The results show the top Internet marketing Forums such as:
Online Pharmacy
Drugs Rx Guide
All Vitamins Online
Step 2 - Join the Forums and Set Up Your Signature
Remember to include your website address in your signature. Signature is another name for your resource box. Your resource box is just like an 'about the author info'. This appears at the end of every post you make and drives traffic to your website.
Step 3 - Read the Rules and Regulations of the Forum Before Posting
This ensures that your posts are not deleted by the Administrators of the Forum. Now, don't go about spamming all members of the Forum with your website advert. In fact, I will advise you not to post an obvious ad. It's a pure waste of time because it will be deleted.
So, what's next?
Step 4 - Ask for Input
Approach from a weak man's position. Assuming you've written an article on your site entitled "13 Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Site." You could make a post asking folks to check out the article and see if you missed anything. Or you can ask for additional points to add to your article. Of course you'll have your opt ín box at the end of the article with a compelling offering.
Let's say you've written an article on meeting the right partner. You could post a message like this: "If you had a chance to learn how to meet your right partner now, what would you do?"
It's a great way to get the attention of forum members to your article. You also get them engaged in the article by asking for their input. And who knows, you may also get other publishers who would use your content in their ezines, thereby getting more exposure for your site.
Step 5 - Ask for a Critical Assessment
If you are the type that is not easily hurt by honest feedback even when it hurts, you can go to a forum and ask for a honest critique. You may think this will not make people sign up for your líst, but I tell you, many people will end up subscribing to it. It's a more indirect and acceptable way to ask people to check out your site without blatant advertising.
Plus, the feedback they give you may help to make your squeeze page even more compelling. Ask them if it would persuade them to give it a try, assuming they were in your target market (of course, you already know they are by the forum you selected). And, if they say no, ask them why. You can get valuable information on what they want (and don't want) this way.
There are two types of forums where you should ask for critiques: the niche forum itself and a marketing forum. You'll likely get more sign-ups from the niche forum and good advice to test out from the marketing forum (although you'll get some opt-ins there as well).
Step 6 - Ask Your Target Market What They Want
Unknown to most people, this is one of the best ways to develop products and services. And most times, Forum members are ready to tell you what they'll buy and give you ideas for articles, auto-responder content, your blog posts, whatever you need. People guess the products their target market will want and create them only to discover no one is interested in the product, but with this approach, you have real people telling you what product they want, how they want it and how much they are prepared to pay for it.
The way you would use this technique to get them to subscribe is to post something like, "what's your biggest question about loosing weight?" Or "what's the single most important thing you'd like to know about building a business?"
Don't forget to ask if they're willing to pay for solutions to their problems and have them give you an indication of how much they would be willing to pay. Powerful stuff!
Let them know you've already answered 10 questions (your 10 step mini-course loaded in your auto-responder), for example. Then they'll be more likely to sign-up. Make sure you point out that you'll add to your mini-course with the answers to the questions they've provided, and that they'll get answers to the existing questions in your mini-course PLUS the new ones when they subscribe. Everybody wins!
Step 7 - Provide a Step-By-Step Guide or Video Tutorial
If someone asks how to create an ebook, give them a progression of steps they can take. Or, make a Camtasia tutorial video showing them how. Now that you've got them to your site, you'll want to "make them a proposal they can't refuse."
Provide a Líst of Resources and Websites
In addition to checklists, resource lists with website URLs make a great site for them to bookmark! Make sure you supply more than just links. Make it a huge info-page of information. A collection of resources, links to everything you have - articles, video, audio, your blog, other useful sites, tools, you name it.
Solve a Problem for People
If someone asks for help or asks a question, provide your experience and try to help them. But to maximize your odds of getting both the asker of the question and everyone else who reads the post to subscribe to your líst, try to phrase your answer in one of the following two ways:
1. Give them tips, techniques, shortcuts, secrets, or anything that offers both the promise of exclusive information and fast results. A shortcut to success.
2. Whenever possible, supply them with specific results. Think about it. When you want to learn how to make income online, you go to someone who is making revenue online to guide you. This quickly establishes you as an authority in that area.
And by helping them, maybe - just maybe - they'll click on the link in your signature to check out your website. If you direct them to a blog post or article you wrote to answer their question, they'll be even more likely to investigate.
That's all there is to it but at the end of the day, it's a failure-proof way to drive serious traffic to your website using Forum Posts. Apply it and see your traffic soar through the roof. Don't say I didn't warn you!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily
No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms... SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.
Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the líst.
Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.
1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses that supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must provide quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.
2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.
3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, make sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing of all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... optimized (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters).
Remember, your title and description should be keyword targeted and are the first contact/impression anyone will have of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.
4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffíc and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution, including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sell your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to improve your rankings and traffic.
7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain, but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls, but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.
8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you haven't any knowledge of installing server-side scripts. Besides, search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.
9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming, but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in. I like using the simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.
10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.
First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines. They give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.
Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.
Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffíc into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketíng, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.
Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffíc you're seeking. Just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all.
Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the líst.
Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.
1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses that supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must provide quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.
2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.
3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, make sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing of all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... optimized (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters).
Remember, your title and description should be keyword targeted and are the first contact/impression anyone will have of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.
4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.
6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffíc and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution, including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sell your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to improve your rankings and traffic.
7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain, but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls, but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.
8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you haven't any knowledge of installing server-side scripts. Besides, search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.
9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming, but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in. I like using the simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.
10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.
First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines. They give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.
Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.
Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffíc into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketíng, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.
Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffíc you're seeking. Just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all.
Monday, September 22, 2008
10 Ways to Drive Massive Traffic to Your Website
Targeted traffíc is the lifeblood of any successful business. In this article, I'm going to show you how to get laser targeted traffíc in just a few simple steps.
1. Article Marketing - One of the best ways to drive targeted traffíc to your website is through the use of article marketing. This is one of the oldest techniques for generating traffic, but it's still one of the best.
[Free Webinar - Sept. 25th!]
Once you have written your article, you can then submít it to some of the top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp. For a listing of the top article directories online, go to...
Online Pharmacy
You can also publish your website to Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, and Gather.com.
For a complete listing of Web 2.0 sites, go to...
Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant
Article marketing is even more powerful when you submit exclusive articles to bloggers and owners of newsletters. This technique has sent me thousands of visitors with a single article. The key is to find the right distribution outlets.
Just imagine if you spend just one hour each day writing and distributing one article. In three months you would have 100 articles all sending you traffic on a daily basis.
So get out there and start syndicating your articles, submitting guests posts, and writing for online newsletters.
2. Viral Ebooks - Why not bundle your articles together and create a viral ebook? Giving away free ebooks is one of the best ways to generate traffic online. It's also one of the best ways to build your mailing líst.
You can submit your PDF ebooks to:
Scribd
eSnips
DocStoc
Calameo
Issuu
Yudu
FreeIQ , and
ButterflyReports
For a complete líst of ebook directories you can submit to, go to Free Ebook Directories .
Quick Tip: You can also convert your ebooks to exe files and submít them to all the different software directories online. You can convert your ebooks using a free piece of software called WebsiteZip Packer .
3. Blogging - Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business. Blogging is a great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular subject. They are then posted together on on blog - called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted.
This creates an excellent opportuníty to get your blog posts shared on other blogs.
There are a number of benefits to participating in blog carnivals. Not only will you generate extra traffic, but it also provides you with quality backlinks and an excellent opportuníty to connect with other bloggers.
To submit your article to a blog carnival, go to Blog Carnival - Blog Communities Publishing Magazines . For extra exposure, submit to multiple blog carnivals. Just make sure they're all relevant to your topic.
This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is one of the biggest factors when it comes to ranking high in Google.
5. Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites.
Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest ways to get extra traffic and links coming into your blog. Social bookmarking allows Internet users to save and organize bookmarks to a public website, tag them with keywords, share them with others, and browse what others have bookmarked.
Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Digg are just a few of the social bookmarking sites you can use to maximize your exposure.
You can do a semi-automated submission to over 50 social bookmarking sites at AutoPoster.com .
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
You can also encourage your blog readers to bookmark your posts as well with a Wordpress plugin called ShareThis.
6. Ustream.tv - Ustream allows you to create your very own tv station on the Web. However, it's better than TV because it's a live, interactive experience. While you're broadcasting the video, you're also getting feedback from the live chatroom.
Ustream gives your business a human face and a real personality. This is extremely valuable, because people like to buy and interact with people, not impersonal companies.
Live video allows you to reach entirely new audiences and develop a much greater level of engagement. A deeper level of engagement almost equates to a higher conversion rate when done correctly.
It's also an excellent way to get feedback from your audience.
7. Forum Marketing - Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature.
You can put a link back to your website in your signature. It's critical that you use your signature to provide something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
The biggest benefit of marketing in forums is that they are centered around a very tight group of people who are all interested in the same subject. This is essentially a community of raving fans for a particular topic, making them extremely targeted prospects.
Forums are also an excellent way to connect with other bloggers, meet other marketers, and gain insights into your market.
8. Interviews are another great way to generate traffic.
When you interview a fellow blogger, they will almost always publish a link to the interview on their blog. At the same time, you are also sending traffic to their website by posting the interview on your blog.
This can be a very effective technique for generating traffic and meeting new bloggers. Unfortunately, most people are just afraid to ask.
9. Build a List - If you're not building a líst, you're missing out on a major source of ongoing traffic. Your líst is the most valuable asset in your business.
Best of all, it can be leveraged at anytime to drive a funnel of visitors to your website.
10. Video Marketing - Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, making them one of the best places to generate lots of extra traffic.
And don't worry, your video doesn't have to be a Spielberg classic. In fact, it can just be a PowerPoint presentation with audio. Even simple videos can drive thousands of visitors to your site.
Once you've created your video, you can then submit it to the top video submission sites with a tool called TubeMogul .
And finally, My Favorite...
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to generate extremely targeted traffíc online. By following just a few basic principles, you can get lots of traffic from the search engines every month.
1. Article Marketing - One of the best ways to drive targeted traffíc to your website is through the use of article marketing. This is one of the oldest techniques for generating traffic, but it's still one of the best.
[Free Webinar - Sept. 25th!]
Once you have written your article, you can then submít it to some of the top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp. For a listing of the top article directories online, go to...
Online Pharmacy
You can also publish your website to Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, and Gather.com.
For a complete listing of Web 2.0 sites, go to...
Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant
Article marketing is even more powerful when you submit exclusive articles to bloggers and owners of newsletters. This technique has sent me thousands of visitors with a single article. The key is to find the right distribution outlets.
Just imagine if you spend just one hour each day writing and distributing one article. In three months you would have 100 articles all sending you traffic on a daily basis.
So get out there and start syndicating your articles, submitting guests posts, and writing for online newsletters.
2. Viral Ebooks - Why not bundle your articles together and create a viral ebook? Giving away free ebooks is one of the best ways to generate traffic online. It's also one of the best ways to build your mailing líst.
You can submit your PDF ebooks to:
Scribd
eSnips
DocStoc
Calameo
Issuu
Yudu
FreeIQ , and
ButterflyReports
For a complete líst of ebook directories you can submit to, go to Free Ebook Directories .
Quick Tip: You can also convert your ebooks to exe files and submít them to all the different software directories online. You can convert your ebooks using a free piece of software called WebsiteZip Packer .
3. Blogging - Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business. Blogging is a great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
4. Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular subject. They are then posted together on on blog - called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted.
This creates an excellent opportuníty to get your blog posts shared on other blogs.
There are a number of benefits to participating in blog carnivals. Not only will you generate extra traffic, but it also provides you with quality backlinks and an excellent opportuníty to connect with other bloggers.
To submit your article to a blog carnival, go to Blog Carnival - Blog Communities Publishing Magazines . For extra exposure, submit to multiple blog carnivals. Just make sure they're all relevant to your topic.
This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is one of the biggest factors when it comes to ranking high in Google.
5. Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites.
Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest ways to get extra traffic and links coming into your blog. Social bookmarking allows Internet users to save and organize bookmarks to a public website, tag them with keywords, share them with others, and browse what others have bookmarked.
Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Digg are just a few of the social bookmarking sites you can use to maximize your exposure.
You can do a semi-automated submission to over 50 social bookmarking sites at AutoPoster.com .
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
You can also encourage your blog readers to bookmark your posts as well with a Wordpress plugin called ShareThis.
6. Ustream.tv - Ustream allows you to create your very own tv station on the Web. However, it's better than TV because it's a live, interactive experience. While you're broadcasting the video, you're also getting feedback from the live chatroom.
Ustream gives your business a human face and a real personality. This is extremely valuable, because people like to buy and interact with people, not impersonal companies.
Live video allows you to reach entirely new audiences and develop a much greater level of engagement. A deeper level of engagement almost equates to a higher conversion rate when done correctly.
It's also an excellent way to get feedback from your audience.
7. Forum Marketing - Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature.
You can put a link back to your website in your signature. It's critical that you use your signature to provide something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?
The biggest benefit of marketing in forums is that they are centered around a very tight group of people who are all interested in the same subject. This is essentially a community of raving fans for a particular topic, making them extremely targeted prospects.
Forums are also an excellent way to connect with other bloggers, meet other marketers, and gain insights into your market.
8. Interviews are another great way to generate traffic.
When you interview a fellow blogger, they will almost always publish a link to the interview on their blog. At the same time, you are also sending traffic to their website by posting the interview on your blog.
This can be a very effective technique for generating traffic and meeting new bloggers. Unfortunately, most people are just afraid to ask.
9. Build a List - If you're not building a líst, you're missing out on a major source of ongoing traffic. Your líst is the most valuable asset in your business.
Best of all, it can be leveraged at anytime to drive a funnel of visitors to your website.
10. Video Marketing - Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, making them one of the best places to generate lots of extra traffic.
And don't worry, your video doesn't have to be a Spielberg classic. In fact, it can just be a PowerPoint presentation with audio. Even simple videos can drive thousands of visitors to your site.
Once you've created your video, you can then submit it to the top video submission sites with a tool called TubeMogul .
And finally, My Favorite...
Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to generate extremely targeted traffíc online. By following just a few basic principles, you can get lots of traffic from the search engines every month.
10 Quick Tips For Making Your Large Graphics Load Faster
There's nothing worse then having to sit and wait while the images are loading on your webpages. We've become a society of convenience with microwaves, instant soup and lightening fast servers. We want things in the blink of an eye.
Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!
Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.
1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.
Example: width="144" height="259"
Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.
This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.
If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.
Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.
2. Size Your Image Correctly
Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.
To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.
You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.
Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.
Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.
3. Animations
Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.
Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.
4. Use the Correct Image Format
If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.
A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.
The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.
The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)
5. Slice Those Images
Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.
I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.
Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.
6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.
If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.
7. Use Thumbnails
Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.
I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.
I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.
8. Browser Cache
Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.
To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.
9. Optimize Your Images
Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.
I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.
10. Progressive Optimization
A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.
This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.
Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.
In Conclusion
As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.
But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.
Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!
Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.
1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.
Example: width="144" height="259"
Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.
This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.
If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.
Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.
2. Size Your Image Correctly
Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.
To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.
You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.
Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.
Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.
3. Animations
Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.
Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.
4. Use the Correct Image Format
If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.
A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.
The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.
The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)
5. Slice Those Images
Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.
I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.
Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.
6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.
If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.
7. Use Thumbnails
Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.
I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.
I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.
8. Browser Cache
Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.
To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.
9. Optimize Your Images
Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.
I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.
10. Progressive Optimization
A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.
This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.
Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.
In Conclusion
As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.
But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy!
Does dominating Google rankings quick and easy sound too good to be true? It really isn't. Following are a bunch of surefire SEO tips that have kept hundreds of my clients' sites on top of Google for years, with new ones every month.
There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.
Domain Names
Age: Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:
http://www.AllWhoIs.com
Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.
TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.
Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.
Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.
Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...
Keywords:
Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.
Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.
Competition:
Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...
Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.
Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.
Content:
The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...
Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.
Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.
Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.
Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)
Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)
Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:
Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.
I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.
Anyway, here are my results for both...
SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)
Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."
WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)
Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic
Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!
There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.
Domain Names
Age: Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:
http://www.AllWhoIs.com
Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.
TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.
Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.
Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.
Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...
Keywords:
Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.
Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.
Competition:
Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...
Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.
Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.
Content:
The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...
Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.
Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.
Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.
Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)
Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)
Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:
Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.
I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.
Anyway, here are my results for both...
SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)
Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."
WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)
Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic
Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!
Using Internal Linking To Get Better Search Engine Exposure
Anyone who runs a website should be aware of a few basic search engine linking tactics. Used properly you can interlink your website so that Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines will rate you higher in both page rank and search engine results for your keyword/key phrase niche terms. If you're unaware of what internal linking means, here's a basic overview.
Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed.
When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well.
Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve the visitors' website experience. So, for example, if you have an internal linking structure that is seamless, intuitive and allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for, search engines will give you more page rank, index more of your web pages and return higher search results for user queries.
Why? You have taken the time to help your website visitors have an excellent customer experience. As a result, your tactics and strategies should be geared towards giving arriving visitors not only the information that they seek, but have it presented in a way that they, and search engine bots, will love.
So how do you accomplish this? There are a few basic tactics, you can use that will improve your internal linking structure right off the bat.
Number 1 - use the rel="nofollow" HTML tag for pages that you don't want to pass rank to Google. For example, let's say you had a three-page site. Now, we all know that most people have more than three pages for an entire website; however, this will make it easier to follow.
The first page is your home page which gets 100% of the search engine ranking and love. The second page is an information or information/sales page, with the third being a checkout page. If you don't use the nofollow tag on one of the pages, both pages will be passed half of 50% each for the link from the home page. So, they'll each get 25% of the ranking and love passed through from the spiders. The search engine spiders will naturally give your home page the best page rank and index it first. Say, you want to link to the information/sales page and make sure that a lot of people find it, because the information page is what will sell your product or service. For ranking and indexing purposes, you consider the checkout page as useless, so you don't care if the search engines find it or not. In fact, you'd prefer it if they didn't index it all. What do you do?
When you link from your home page, you can do one of two things.
Link to the information page only from the home page. Link to both pages but use the no follow tag to the checkout page. In that way, if someone arrives who is already sold on your product, they can go directly to your checkout page and buy the product. However, if it is an uninformed visitor, they can clickthrough to your information/sales page or they click on the indexed Google or Yahoo link that's been picked up by the spider.
Two things happen with scenario #2. You give the customer/visitor the option. Because, the search engine is applying SEO love to one page and not two, the page rank passed will not be 25% and 25% for each page, but 0% for the checkout page and 50% for the information page which needs it. You maintain the search engine indexing and page rank for those pages that are important.
This is just one thing that needs to be considered when setting up your website. Professional SEO firms use this algorithm in order to get specific pages on your website to rank higher and return results in the search engine results pages that are much higher than other pages like your checkout pages which you don't care about.
Number 2 - Add extra links in your navigation area or footer area that link to important pages and main sections on your website. This extremely easy tactic is often overlooked by many websites, but it does return very good results for deep linking, and most SEO firms will review your footer links when they take you on as a candidate in order to utilize that other form of deep linking.
The reason for this is that so many people forget to do it, and many Web designers add really cool buttons, images and all kinds of funky image stuff that do nothing to improve your page rank or your results in a search engines. You should remember that search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.
These are only two of the tactics that are covered when you hire a professional, savvy SEO firm to optimize your web layout and linking structure.
Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed.
When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well.
Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve the visitors' website experience. So, for example, if you have an internal linking structure that is seamless, intuitive and allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for, search engines will give you more page rank, index more of your web pages and return higher search results for user queries.
Why? You have taken the time to help your website visitors have an excellent customer experience. As a result, your tactics and strategies should be geared towards giving arriving visitors not only the information that they seek, but have it presented in a way that they, and search engine bots, will love.
So how do you accomplish this? There are a few basic tactics, you can use that will improve your internal linking structure right off the bat.
Number 1 - use the rel="nofollow" HTML tag for pages that you don't want to pass rank to Google. For example, let's say you had a three-page site. Now, we all know that most people have more than three pages for an entire website; however, this will make it easier to follow.
The first page is your home page which gets 100% of the search engine ranking and love. The second page is an information or information/sales page, with the third being a checkout page. If you don't use the nofollow tag on one of the pages, both pages will be passed half of 50% each for the link from the home page. So, they'll each get 25% of the ranking and love passed through from the spiders. The search engine spiders will naturally give your home page the best page rank and index it first. Say, you want to link to the information/sales page and make sure that a lot of people find it, because the information page is what will sell your product or service. For ranking and indexing purposes, you consider the checkout page as useless, so you don't care if the search engines find it or not. In fact, you'd prefer it if they didn't index it all. What do you do?
When you link from your home page, you can do one of two things.
Link to the information page only from the home page. Link to both pages but use the no follow tag to the checkout page. In that way, if someone arrives who is already sold on your product, they can go directly to your checkout page and buy the product. However, if it is an uninformed visitor, they can clickthrough to your information/sales page or they click on the indexed Google or Yahoo link that's been picked up by the spider.
Two things happen with scenario #2. You give the customer/visitor the option. Because, the search engine is applying SEO love to one page and not two, the page rank passed will not be 25% and 25% for each page, but 0% for the checkout page and 50% for the information page which needs it. You maintain the search engine indexing and page rank for those pages that are important.
This is just one thing that needs to be considered when setting up your website. Professional SEO firms use this algorithm in order to get specific pages on your website to rank higher and return results in the search engine results pages that are much higher than other pages like your checkout pages which you don't care about.
Number 2 - Add extra links in your navigation area or footer area that link to important pages and main sections on your website. This extremely easy tactic is often overlooked by many websites, but it does return very good results for deep linking, and most SEO firms will review your footer links when they take you on as a candidate in order to utilize that other form of deep linking.
The reason for this is that so many people forget to do it, and many Web designers add really cool buttons, images and all kinds of funky image stuff that do nothing to improve your page rank or your results in a search engines. You should remember that search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.
These are only two of the tactics that are covered when you hire a professional, savvy SEO firm to optimize your web layout and linking structure.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You
If I was to ask you right now "Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?", what would you say?
What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?"
If you would answer "No" or "I don't know" to any of these questions, you would be amongst the 60% of web site owners whose web sites are missing out on traffic because they are not designed for search engine compatibility. Has your web designer optimized YOUR site for your target keywords? Have they made sure it is visible in Google and the other major search engines? More than likely, you don't know because they haven't told you. Ask them today!
But what exactly is search engine optimization? Simply explained, it is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code to make it more search engine compatible.
In my experience, web designers keep a lot of secrets. One of the biggest ones is that they have no clue about what makes a web site compatible with search engines. Another is that they like to build expensive, flashy sites and so convince their clients that an attractive web site never uses a lot of text.
So your web designer may have included target keywords and phrases in your Title tag and META tags (in the HTML code of your site). They may even have explained to you that these are very important references that search engines use when ranking web sites for search relevancy. I've met many a web designer who claimed that this was all it took to optimize a web site.
But did you know that you need to tailor your Title and META tags for each page of your site? Did you know that optimizing your site meta tags is only a tiny fraction of the job? Did you know that search engines actually need to find target keywords within the visible body text on your site pages in order to find it a relevant match for related search queries? Did you know that they also need to find those same keywords and phrases used within the text links that help people navigate your pages?
It's true. For search engines to rank your site highly for particular words or phrases that you would expect potential visitors to type in, each individual page of your site MUST be built with those words and phrases in mind.
For example, if you are a Miami florist, you should have logical search phrases such as "flowers", "Miami florists", "bouquets Miami" and even target search terms such as "Miami weddings", "Valentine's Day gifts" etc integrated in your title and meta tags, as well as in the visible text of your site. Better still, build and optimize a page for each product or service that you offer. That way, if anyone types in those phrases in a search engine, your site is more likely to appear higher in the search results.
Can you honestly say your web designer has built your site with your target search terms in mind? If not, it might be time to schedule an appointment with them.
So why wasn't your site optimized for search engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site and how it was built, you'll find a million different reasons for this. Many web developers believe it is the site marketer's job to ensure the site is found in search engines and vice versa. Most don't bother checking that your site is found in the important search engines, assuming you or your marketing department will do it. Or perhaps it wasn't discussed in your original development budget.
Not many web design firms know how or have time to optimize a site successfully, no matter what they tell you. They might feel it is outside their core business, or they might believe it is not part of the "design process". Consequently, your site can be launched for many months without the search engines having any idea it exists.
Some web development firms don't include even the most basic META tags in your site code when building it. Or those that do include META tags without close consultation with you, resulting in the wrong search terms used and poor performance. This is quite typical! Remember that search engine optimization requires both client interaction and constant monitoring to be successful.
The bottom line? If your designer can't show you substantial search engine traffic they've achieved for other clients, chances are they won't be able to optimize your site properly. Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists have sprung up to fill the need for these services. Many SEO's will work either directly with you or with your web site designer to ensure your site gets the exposure it deserves in the most popular search engines and directories. My suggestion is to pay a little more for a specialist with a good track record and reap the rewards.
Remember, search engine users generally only explore the first 10 or 20 search results. If you site isn't in the top 20, you won't be found, it's as simple as that. Always include search engine optimization into your marketing budget or your site could be as effective as a billboard at the end of a dead end street.
What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?"
If you would answer "No" or "I don't know" to any of these questions, you would be amongst the 60% of web site owners whose web sites are missing out on traffic because they are not designed for search engine compatibility. Has your web designer optimized YOUR site for your target keywords? Have they made sure it is visible in Google and the other major search engines? More than likely, you don't know because they haven't told you. Ask them today!
But what exactly is search engine optimization? Simply explained, it is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code to make it more search engine compatible.
In my experience, web designers keep a lot of secrets. One of the biggest ones is that they have no clue about what makes a web site compatible with search engines. Another is that they like to build expensive, flashy sites and so convince their clients that an attractive web site never uses a lot of text.
So your web designer may have included target keywords and phrases in your Title tag and META tags (in the HTML code of your site). They may even have explained to you that these are very important references that search engines use when ranking web sites for search relevancy. I've met many a web designer who claimed that this was all it took to optimize a web site.
But did you know that you need to tailor your Title and META tags for each page of your site? Did you know that optimizing your site meta tags is only a tiny fraction of the job? Did you know that search engines actually need to find target keywords within the visible body text on your site pages in order to find it a relevant match for related search queries? Did you know that they also need to find those same keywords and phrases used within the text links that help people navigate your pages?
It's true. For search engines to rank your site highly for particular words or phrases that you would expect potential visitors to type in, each individual page of your site MUST be built with those words and phrases in mind.
For example, if you are a Miami florist, you should have logical search phrases such as "flowers", "Miami florists", "bouquets Miami" and even target search terms such as "Miami weddings", "Valentine's Day gifts" etc integrated in your title and meta tags, as well as in the visible text of your site. Better still, build and optimize a page for each product or service that you offer. That way, if anyone types in those phrases in a search engine, your site is more likely to appear higher in the search results.
Can you honestly say your web designer has built your site with your target search terms in mind? If not, it might be time to schedule an appointment with them.
So why wasn't your site optimized for search engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site and how it was built, you'll find a million different reasons for this. Many web developers believe it is the site marketer's job to ensure the site is found in search engines and vice versa. Most don't bother checking that your site is found in the important search engines, assuming you or your marketing department will do it. Or perhaps it wasn't discussed in your original development budget.
Not many web design firms know how or have time to optimize a site successfully, no matter what they tell you. They might feel it is outside their core business, or they might believe it is not part of the "design process". Consequently, your site can be launched for many months without the search engines having any idea it exists.
Some web development firms don't include even the most basic META tags in your site code when building it. Or those that do include META tags without close consultation with you, resulting in the wrong search terms used and poor performance. This is quite typical! Remember that search engine optimization requires both client interaction and constant monitoring to be successful.
The bottom line? If your designer can't show you substantial search engine traffic they've achieved for other clients, chances are they won't be able to optimize your site properly. Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists have sprung up to fill the need for these services. Many SEO's will work either directly with you or with your web site designer to ensure your site gets the exposure it deserves in the most popular search engines and directories. My suggestion is to pay a little more for a specialist with a good track record and reap the rewards.
Remember, search engine users generally only explore the first 10 or 20 search results. If you site isn't in the top 20, you won't be found, it's as simple as that. Always include search engine optimization into your marketing budget or your site could be as effective as a billboard at the end of a dead end street.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Putting The "Ad" Into Adwords
When you're new to AdWords, it's tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules.
1) Don't Fly Blind...
In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we've haven't ever seen a profitable example that didn't track conversions.
AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Clíck-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it's delivering. We've seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.
Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.
Finally, don't forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.
2) Cut out the Middle Man...
In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it's vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:
Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don't exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you'll get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.
Ad Serving: If you're running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favouring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been receíved. We don't use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.
We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there's only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.
The Rotate option also gives you more granularity when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.
Network Options: Start your testing using Google's Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google's partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).
Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Don't run on the Content network with the same bid as Search - you're just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.
If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.
All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and clíck the Edit Settings button.
3) A Stitch in Time...
It's important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.
You can adapt this schedule to suit your clíck volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You'll learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Don't forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.
4) Study your Competition First...
Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.
This is particularly important if you're thinking of using Google's Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.
5) All for One and One for All...
Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.
Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad's headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.
Make sure core keywords follow-through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.
6) Simplicity Sells Harder...
Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.
Be honest and don't use words like "free" unless you're really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.
7) Understand what Matters...
According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.
AdWords' power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they're looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.
1) Don't Fly Blind...
In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we've haven't ever seen a profitable example that didn't track conversions.
AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Clíck-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it's delivering. We've seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.
Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.
Finally, don't forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.
2) Cut out the Middle Man...
In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it's vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:
Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don't exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you'll get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.
Ad Serving: If you're running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favouring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been receíved. We don't use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.
We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there's only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.
The Rotate option also gives you more granularity when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.
Network Options: Start your testing using Google's Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google's partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).
Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Don't run on the Content network with the same bid as Search - you're just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.
If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.
All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and clíck the Edit Settings button.
3) A Stitch in Time...
It's important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.
You can adapt this schedule to suit your clíck volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You'll learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Don't forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.
4) Study your Competition First...
Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.
This is particularly important if you're thinking of using Google's Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.
5) All for One and One for All...
Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.
Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad's headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.
Make sure core keywords follow-through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.
6) Simplicity Sells Harder...
Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.
Be honest and don't use words like "free" unless you're really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.
7) Understand what Matters...
According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.
AdWords' power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they're looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Video Search Engine Optimization
Most of us know that a site that's well configured for search engine access is a major part of getting high traffic levels. However, you might not have thought about optimizing your video as well as the rest of your site. Since multimedia content is becoming a much more popular way of distributing information, correct video search engine optimization is important.
For instance, on YouTube alone (which accounts for more than ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year. That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video search engine.
YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site.
For owners of video content, video search engine optimization is a good way to get exposure, ad income, and free traffic. Being discovered by the viewers has to happen before you can get lots of views. That means making sure that your data is rich in meta information, and that you use quality RSS or MRSS feeds that you update on a regular basis.
Make sure that your meta data is well placed and relevant to the topic. A cleaner can help you remove distracting or irrelevant meta information from the file.
Only after you produce well optimized content should you contact the search engines and submit your video. This places you in the queue of web crawlers, and means you'll be indexed more quickly and more often than if you hadn't bothered to submit. The more regularly your content is crawled, the better your chance of rating well on search results.
Index your site on other engines than Google or YouTube. They can spread your video to other search engines you may not have thought of. For instance, indexing your site on Blinkx will cause it to show up on Ask and MSN, among others.
One important part of your strategy should be a series of related videos. When a viewer sees a video online that he or she likes, there's a good likelihood that this viewer will look for others like them. While a single great video will be popular and welcomed, you'll do even better if it's part of a series.
Use an embedded video player, too. Many viewers will be more inclined to view your submission if it's part of your site or blog than if they had to go to your video hosting service to see it. However, you should avoid players that use only Flash. Don't use pop-up players, which annoy more people than they amuse, and will actually cause you to lose views.
The more views you get, the more likely you are to be picked up by other sites, linked to, and rank well on video searches. You can even customize embedded video players to display playlists related to your company, and adjust the layout, and other information.
Create traffic by placing a video search box on your site. This adds unique content and boosts ad revenue. Make sure that you create a video of the appropriate length for your audience, and that you're looking for the right response.
You can use analytics to find out how long a customer stays on your video page, which will tell you if your video is too long. You can also use analytics to tell you which of your videos get the best response. Once you know this, you'll be able to decide which content should be linked first on your home page.
Remember that no webcrawler has ever bought a product or a service. If you're a local business using video to advertise, clicks are a lot less important than calls. Include a call to action with your contact information as part of your video - thumbnails are an excellent way to do this. You can use YouTube to create thumbnails at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks. Making sure that you have both a local listing and a video listing on Google's Search Engine Results Page also increases your likelihood of getting visits.
You may also wish to make sure that your videos are high enough quality for and in the right format for television. Google TV is very affordable, and lets you create closely targeted video.
Don't use Active X controls and export all files as swf format. Use Google Video sitemaps to help with navigation, and build a separate page for each video, rather than hosting many videos on the same page. Use a simple text title and description, and optimize that page as you would any other. Then, link to it from the index page.
Descriptions and titles need to be consistent across all your sites, and file names should descriptive and make sense to the viewer. Remember that Different communities require different approaches. Prominent keywords can help on many sites. However, while keyword rich content will help videos hosted on your site be noticed by Blinkx or Truveo, it won't help on YouTube.
You'll need to get the attention of the community in general. Video responses to popular, related videos can help get others to visit your contribution. Your content will appear in close proximity to videos that are already popular. Make sure you include an active URL in the description of your video, and end the video with a mention of the link. Annotations can help you link to other YouTube videos. Be sure to allow comments!
Don't tag with irrelevant search terms, no matter how popular they might be. Remember that you need to appeal to real people, rather than just optimizing blindly. While you might turn up early in a search with good optimization, an unappealing video will cause people to pass you by. If you know what kind of content your audience prefers, you'll be able to create the right video marketing plan for your business or organization.
Video search engine optimization is an important part of any video marketing strategy. If you're planning to market your business or organization using multimedia content, creating it correctly and surrounding it with the right keywords and other information can help it be noticed. Before you submit a video, make sure it's optimized.
For instance, on YouTube alone (which accounts for more than ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year. That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video search engine.
YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site.
For owners of video content, video search engine optimization is a good way to get exposure, ad income, and free traffic. Being discovered by the viewers has to happen before you can get lots of views. That means making sure that your data is rich in meta information, and that you use quality RSS or MRSS feeds that you update on a regular basis.
Make sure that your meta data is well placed and relevant to the topic. A cleaner can help you remove distracting or irrelevant meta information from the file.
Only after you produce well optimized content should you contact the search engines and submit your video. This places you in the queue of web crawlers, and means you'll be indexed more quickly and more often than if you hadn't bothered to submit. The more regularly your content is crawled, the better your chance of rating well on search results.
Index your site on other engines than Google or YouTube. They can spread your video to other search engines you may not have thought of. For instance, indexing your site on Blinkx will cause it to show up on Ask and MSN, among others.
One important part of your strategy should be a series of related videos. When a viewer sees a video online that he or she likes, there's a good likelihood that this viewer will look for others like them. While a single great video will be popular and welcomed, you'll do even better if it's part of a series.
Use an embedded video player, too. Many viewers will be more inclined to view your submission if it's part of your site or blog than if they had to go to your video hosting service to see it. However, you should avoid players that use only Flash. Don't use pop-up players, which annoy more people than they amuse, and will actually cause you to lose views.
The more views you get, the more likely you are to be picked up by other sites, linked to, and rank well on video searches. You can even customize embedded video players to display playlists related to your company, and adjust the layout, and other information.
Create traffic by placing a video search box on your site. This adds unique content and boosts ad revenue. Make sure that you create a video of the appropriate length for your audience, and that you're looking for the right response.
You can use analytics to find out how long a customer stays on your video page, which will tell you if your video is too long. You can also use analytics to tell you which of your videos get the best response. Once you know this, you'll be able to decide which content should be linked first on your home page.
Remember that no webcrawler has ever bought a product or a service. If you're a local business using video to advertise, clicks are a lot less important than calls. Include a call to action with your contact information as part of your video - thumbnails are an excellent way to do this. You can use YouTube to create thumbnails at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks. Making sure that you have both a local listing and a video listing on Google's Search Engine Results Page also increases your likelihood of getting visits.
You may also wish to make sure that your videos are high enough quality for and in the right format for television. Google TV is very affordable, and lets you create closely targeted video.
Don't use Active X controls and export all files as swf format. Use Google Video sitemaps to help with navigation, and build a separate page for each video, rather than hosting many videos on the same page. Use a simple text title and description, and optimize that page as you would any other. Then, link to it from the index page.
Descriptions and titles need to be consistent across all your sites, and file names should descriptive and make sense to the viewer. Remember that Different communities require different approaches. Prominent keywords can help on many sites. However, while keyword rich content will help videos hosted on your site be noticed by Blinkx or Truveo, it won't help on YouTube.
You'll need to get the attention of the community in general. Video responses to popular, related videos can help get others to visit your contribution. Your content will appear in close proximity to videos that are already popular. Make sure you include an active URL in the description of your video, and end the video with a mention of the link. Annotations can help you link to other YouTube videos. Be sure to allow comments!
Don't tag with irrelevant search terms, no matter how popular they might be. Remember that you need to appeal to real people, rather than just optimizing blindly. While you might turn up early in a search with good optimization, an unappealing video will cause people to pass you by. If you know what kind of content your audience prefers, you'll be able to create the right video marketing plan for your business or organization.
Video search engine optimization is an important part of any video marketing strategy. If you're planning to market your business or organization using multimedia content, creating it correctly and surrounding it with the right keywords and other information can help it be noticed. Before you submit a video, make sure it's optimized.
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