Archive for August 21st, 2006
If you’re a non-American business with a .com web address, and your regional Yahoo ranking is important to you, then my story might interest you.
Recently my copywriting website dropped out of Yahoo’s Australian rankings. For quite a while, it had been at number 1 for my primary keywords "advertising copywriter", "copywriter", and "website copywriter". But then it suddenly disappeared. I clicked through about 10 pages of results, and it was nowhere to be seen. I then searched for my domain, and Yahoo couldn’t find it.
(699 words, estimated reading time: 2:48 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
Opt-in Emails Are Better
by: Desmond Mantor
Buzzwords and other terminology relating to the internet are
being churned out constantly. However, they rarely mean
anything new and normally refer to terms used prior to the
internet age. Opt-in emails are one example.
Email marketing is little more than traditional direct
mailing. The format has changed but the principle remains
the same: send out a lot of ads to a lot of people and
hope for some responses. The problem with this marketing
strategy is that it is very inefficient and costs a lot
of money. Worse, there are thousands of ads that go unread
making the entire process a very wasteful affair.
On the other hand, opt-in emails produce qualified leads
only because you can send them to only those people who have
granted you permission to send your marketing material to
them. No wonder, any marketing major will tell you that
these are the best leads to have. Opt-in emails are
different from the basic email marketing campaigns in the
sense that people have started abusing spam and all the ads
that pile up in it are never read and almost always land up
in the virtual trash can. But, opt-in emails are likely to
be personalized and welcomed by recipients.
There is no discounting the fact that it is a great
challenge to find people that are willing to receive your
offers. However, the good news is that there are
specialized services on the Net, offering subscribers who
are willing to receive offers from companies such as yours.
Of course, you have to choose the subscribers judiciously
in order to target potential customers. It would make no
sense to send emails promoting fireplace accessories to
people who are looking for car deal offers. So, it is
important to specify your market when you select one of
these opt-in subscriber services. Also, make sure they have
separate lists of people looking for different kinds of
offers. You will certainly find one if you do some research
before selecting a service.
Having qualified leads is essential if you are to get the
most out of your advertising dollar. Wasteful mass
campaigns are a thing of the past. Internet marketing is
future and opt-in emails are a part of that future.
Although specialized opt-in email services do indeed cost
money, it is cash well spent if it produces a stream of
people that are interested in hearing what you have to
offer. If you are tired of poor results from email
marketing efforts, maybe it is time to refine the
approach and utilize opt-in emails to boost your sales.
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About The Author
Desmond Mantor is the Director of Marketing for Have
Traffic
a company specializing in providing pre-qualified traffic
for commercial web sites, proven to convert to sales
at higher rates in comparison to other major pay per click
sources. For more details please visit
http://www.havetraffic.com
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Permanent link to this post (486 words, estimated 1:57 reading time)
August 21st, 2006
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is Critical To The Success Of Your Website
by: Sharifah Hardie
Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to the success of your website, Drive Visitors To Your Website And Increase Your Market Share.
SEO is the key to unlocking your website’s full potential. Google handles over 200 million internet search requests each day, and people who search for information clearly express what they want. Imagine capturing a relevant stream of such web traffic. It’s therefore important to optimize your web pages to improve search engine rankings using the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site.
The search engine optimization process begins before you start building your website, when you decide on the domain name to register. The process then continues on as long as your website remains online.
Please note that optimizing your web pages to get high rankings takes time. Your rankings may start out low and slowly improve. Link popularity, i.e. the quantity and quality of external links to your web pages, greatly influences your rankings, and it takes time for your website to become popular in its niche.
Every time you improve your site, you need to allow time for the full effect to show in search engine results. Don’t tweak your web pages too frequently. The time and effort is better spent on adding high-quality contents to your site and building inbound links.
Search Engines have computers and programs called “Spiders” that collect information about your web pages in an attempt to “figure out” what your pages are about. These spiders gather information from your pages and use these in factoring which sites get ranked higher than others. Search Engines analyze over 100 On-Page Factors when analyzing your web pages.
Permanent link to this post (324 words, estimated 1:18 reading time)
August 21st, 2006
It’s true. Just think about it for a minute - the World Wide Web as we know it has really only been around for around 10 years or so. So everyone who already has a website and is getting business through it, or improving their business in some way by having one, is truly at the forefront of the web.
You are one of the early-adopters of this technology and although global Internet take-up is still rapidly increasing (around 800 million Internet-users worldwide the last time I counted) businesses that truly embrace the medium are few are far between.
(500 words, estimated reading time: 2:00 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
Building an Internet business based on a specific niche is not only good sound business it’s smart.
What is a niche?
Boiled down, a niche is a specific area of interest people have. An example of a niche would be remote control cars.
People go crazy for them. They have complete web sites with:
1. Articles
2. Email newsletters
3. Forums
4. Part suppliers
5. Companies who sell popular remote control cars
(480 words, estimated reading time: 1:55 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
First of all you need to get a blog. If you don’t have one yet, you can get one for free by going to www.blogger.com
If you want to see a blog in action you can check out my blog at http://marketing-design.blogspot.com
After you sign up for free, you can choose from a variety of templates and color schemes and start posting immediately. Blogging is essentially an online diary or a kind of forum where you publish your thoughts and allow readers to comment back if they want. Blogs tend to get indexed much faster by the search engines then regular sites especially if you update them a lot (which you should).
(371 words, estimated reading time: 1:29 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
The robots.txt file is an exclusion standard required by all web crawlers/robots to tell them what files and directories that you want them to stay OUT of on your site. Not all crawlers/bots follow the exclusion standard and will continue crawling your site anyway. I like to call them “Bad Bots” or trespassers. We block them by IP exclusion which is another story entirely.
This is a very simple overview of robots.txt basics for webmasters. For a complete and thorough lesson, visit http://www.robotstxt.org/
(1082 words, estimated reading time: 4:20 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
What To Look For When Shopping For a SEO Specialist
by: Joe Balestrino
When, shopping for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company/specialist you need to be aware of a few things.
If someone offers you fast results they may be pulling your leg. If you aren’t listed on search engines the average time to be index takes around 4 weeks. Someone offering submissions in less then that is coning you. Websites that are already listed and are just being updated will have a faster result.
A guarantee isn’t always reinsurance. Just because a site states they can get you in the #1 spot doesn’t mean they can deliver. Or, they may have you listed under an obscure keyword or phrase. Most legitimate SEO’s will tell you no one can guarantee a top stop on all keywords and phrases. Search Engine optimization is not an exact science. Trail and error along with constant tweaking will help bring your site closer to your goal.
Most SEO’s should give you some information on where your site stands currently. You links, keywords, where you rank on major search engines etc.. Or, do one yourself. My article “Google’s Helping hand” show you free tools that can help you evaluate where you are on search engines. Don’t go into any SEO work blindly. Know where you stand before and after.
Price is never an indication of how good a service is. More isn’t always better.
Shop around try to get the most for your money, but be realistic. If it seems too good to be true then it may just be. Be prepared to shell out some cash. SEO is not cheap. You should think of SEO as advertising. It should be contestant as should all of your advertising efforts.
Ask questions! Do not be afraid to ask what will be done to increase your ranking. Most SEO’s will have no problem telling you what they will do. They may not want to reveal their whole SEO operation. But, they will give you some insight to what they will do. Talk to more then one SEO company. Compare what each has to say. Do some research on your own. Find out if these companies have been reported to the Better Business Bureau. If the company or persons have had any articles or reviews written about them. Ask around. Try to have some idea of the company or persons creditability.
A few additional things to keep in mind are:
Is SEO there main business or is it a sideline to other businesses. SEO is a full time job. Especially, keeping up with the constant changes. Do they have a specialist? Do they outsource? How much do they really know?
What are there view points on link farms and doorway pages? Will they do anything to get you links and traffic? Even though search engines frown on those practices.
Can they explain to you clearly how their plan of action? Are they looking to take small steps with you? Or, are they trying to sell you the biggest SEO package possible?
Follow this outline when you are searching for someone to optimize your site. In the end it will be worth it.
Joe Balestrino’s site is www.mr-seo.com he offers affordable SEO, submissions and other articles on SEO and marketing. His other site www.jnb-design.com offers affordable web design and free lifetime hosting.
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About The Author
Joe Balestrino’s site is www.mr-seo.com he offers affordable SEO, submissions and other articles on SEO and marketing. His other site www.jnb-design.com offers affordable web design and free lifetime hosting.
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Permanent link to this post (596 words, estimated 2:23 reading time)
August 21st, 2006
Congratulations, you just made a sale!
Congratulations, you just made a sale!
Congratulations, you just made a sale!
Wondering how those Super Affiliates make so many sales overnight selling someone else’s products?
Well, you shouldn’t be anymore, because here’s how they actually do it…
…they have their own opt-in list…
Yes, a Super Affiliate like Allan Gardyne has more than 15,000 people in his opt-in list, subscribing to his newsletter. More than 14,000 people subscribe to Anne Ahira’s newsletter. Jim Daniels sends his gazette regularly to approximately 15,000 people.
(262 words, estimated reading time: 1:03 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
Have you ever watched ABC’s hit TV show Lost? My favorite episode was titled "Walkabout". In it, we learn that the mysterious outdoorsman Locke was actually paralyzed from the waist down before getting on the doomed 815 flight which crashed and, somehow, gave him the use of his legs back.
Locke was actually planning to go on a Walkabout, which is an outdoor adventure. But the leader, seeing Locke’s limitation, forbade him to go. Angrily Locke shouted "Don’t tell me what I can’t do!" We then flash forward to the plane crash, and see Locke on the ground, slowly moving his legs. Then stand up. And walk.
(675 words, estimated reading time: 2:42 ) read the full post...
August 21st, 2006
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