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Three hundred million. That’s how many people live in the United States alone, and at least half of them – if not more – have some kind of access to the Internet. Getting five people to agree on something is difficult. Getting 150 million people to agree on something is, to put it mildly, impossible. 

The point is: if you’re going to spend any time in social media marketing, with blogs, forums and other online communities, it’s not a question of if you’ll run into any controversy. It’s merely a question of when, and how bad it will be.

By the nature of community alone, a topic or blog post will surface that bitterly divides people on which side is in the right. Some people will only add more fuel to the fire, while others will try futilely to put out the flames.

If you want to remain a part of the social media community, you have to learn to weather the good times and the bad. Here are a few tips for handling controversy gracefully.

1) Don’t panic.

Douglas Adams wasn’t lying with that piece of advice. The upside of controversy is that it will get a lot of people talking, and they’ll all be talking about you. You’ll find the mantra “There’s no such thing as bad press” to be surprisingly true in this case.

People who would have otherwise never heard of you or your site will be showing up to see what the big deal is, which means you’ve just exponentially expanded your audience.

However, that’s not to say there aren’t downsides. If you don’t handle a controversy with professionalism and grace, online social media will eat you alive. While you’ll gain some respect if you handle yourself well, if you botch it too badly, the bad word will spread faster than wildfire in a forest that hasn’t seen rain in 20 years.

2) Don’t respond immediately.

It’s not a difficult scenario to imagine: you’ve made a blog post about something, and you knew when you made it that some people wouldn’t agree with what you have to say. What you didn’t expect was how viciously they would disagree. Not only are they attacking your argument, but they’re attacking you and your business.

You think what they’re saying is wrong, or you know how to disprove it, so you should jump on immediately and do so, right?

Well, probably not. The technology on the Internet makes it extremely easy to post responses in the heat of the moment, which can result in you saying something that you’ll regret later.

As much as it may pain you to do so, wait until you’ve cooled off and had a chance to get the feel of the other side’s point before you make an attempt to post. This lets you see what the other people are saying and consider it logically, not emotionally.

3) Attack the argument, not the person.

Argumentum ad hominem means “argument against the man,” and unfortunately it shows up in these situations more than it should. If somebody makes a comment you disagree with and you say something like, “Well, if you believe that, then you’re an idiot,” you’re attacking them personally, not what they’re saying.

That’s the quickest way to not only anger people, but drive the controversial discussion off-topic. Plus, you’ll come across as petty and inept at defending your own statements.

If you disagree with something somebody said, keep your comments restricted to just attacking what they said. For example: “You said X. I disagree with X because of Y and Z.” By not attacking them, you’ll gain a little more respect in how you’re handling the controversy.

4) Keep your responses simple and professional.

That’s not to say keep them so devoid of emotion that they read like corporate blather. People really hate corporate blather, and they’ll hate it even more if they’re looking for a straight answer in a controversy. But neither should you drive a point into the ground. Find the arguments to which you want to respond, quote exactly what that person said, and nicely point out what is right and what is incorrect.

When you’re pointing out something that’s incorrect, make sure that you’re only fixing facts, not opinions. For example, say somebody paraphrased something you put in your blog post, and paraphrased it wrongly. Quote their paraphrase and say why they’ve misunderstood you. Back it up with the exact quote from your original post, along with clarification of what you meant. Consider an apology if the original wording was unclear.

Remember: everything you say online, be it in a blog post or forum comment, will reflect on you and your business. Keeping your responses professional and to-the-point will let people know that even in the most controversial storm, you know better than to resort to emotional and petty attacks.

If you want to read a good article on dealing with social media controversy, check out this article at Search Engine Guide: http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/hide-and-speak-6.php (Recovering from a Social Media Disaster)

Controversy is just part of the nature of the social media community. And when a controversial storm hits, it can feel like an unstoppable force is swarming over you, and you’re just fighting to keep your head above water.

But as long as you don’t panic and keep your responses professional without trying to spin people, you’ll still be able to hold your head high once the storm subsides. And you may find yourself with a new league of loyal customers and readers once all is said and done.

Author:  Jessica Cox and Michelle Pierce are graduates of the University of Oklahoma’s College of Journalism with a background in Internet marketing and writing for the Web. They currently provide PR services at Xeal Precision Marketing. Sign up to get crucial Internet marketing tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar.htm.

Leading internet marketers say that you should not put all your eggs into one basket. Anybody knows that. Right? But how can we spread out our “eggs” and give each one an advantage over its competition? Find out which programs are working for their affiliates and then find out how to promote them. Our team will do just that, we will treat you as a team member and give you the guidance you need to make it in internet marketing by sharing what we’ve found works the best and gives us the highest income from our efforts. Are you a stay at home mother or father? Maybe you are looking for a side income from your computer. I even know of realtors and famous television stars that are finding tha making a lucrative income on line is not only possible, but fun as well. If you are like any of these folks, you want to find a program that will make the most money in the shortest time while allowing you to attend to life’s responsibilities. Right? Sound good?

If you have been slogging through the multitude of internet marketing opportunities such as 1up and 2up programs then you are in for refreshing news! You are not alone anymore. However, if you are not yet on a marketing team, you are essentially alone among the big boys! If you are new, you are going to find out just how overwhelming it really is to first of all, find a product or service worthy of your time and one that actually produces income like it says it does.

I started off with a goal in mind. My goal was to find at least one internet marketing opportunity that would yeild the most money for the least amount of my time. This was not an easy task. Firstly, I found myself swallowed up by the many many products to choose from. I knew it was a gamble so to speak with any of these products and their promotional methods. I honestly did not know where to begin. So what did I do? I went fishing! Not really, but I sent out responses to many of the offers believing that one might turn out to work for me. I did this knowing that not any one might be the one. I was willing to use some of my money to “invest” in a search for wealth-making opportunities.

I found that what was required of me to market these products and or services was marketing knowhow. I had none. I felt blinded by all the little things that I did not know how to do to get MY products and services seen by millions of targeted leads. I was dismayed and felt like I needed to give up. Fortunately for me, I was “delivered” practically at that moment from being alone and found out how important a mentor and team really is. It’s essential to your success. Finding a mentor, an established and respected internet marketer, was for me the key to success. Instead of fumbling around wondering what to do next, I simply ask a person who already found out the hard way and is now willing to teach me and others the right way to market online. I was almost at the point of quitting online marketing due to the difficulty I found. But it was after finding a mentor and learning what it was that I needed to do, that I saw that this way of making a living, a good living, was possible!

You too can have all this knowledge at your fingertips and in a matter of a few days with a reputable online affiliate program, you can be making a six figure income within the year. This is exciting stuff! You will be off and running with your very own web page that generates a lucrative income for you and your family. Plus! You will be a member of a team of marketers who’s goal is to have everyone on the team making at least six figures within six months. You will be able to attend private training calls each week with a mentor and learn what you really have to do to get your website(s) out in front of people who want your products and services. I say websites with an “s” because you will know how to apply what we teach you to every other campaign you use! These skills ar not difficult to learn, but you must learn them. Talking to real people, getting real answers rapidly is the key. Joining a great team accomplishes this.

You really can make a great lucrative income online. No more commuting, no more alarm clocks, no more bosses. This is what I wish for you. But you are the one who can make it happen. Going it alone is just too risky. Get on a team that cares whether it’s my team or another. After joining a team, within just one week, my article was number one on Google. I didn’t know how to accomplish that before joing a team! But it took a few specific things I had to do to get it done. My mentor taught me how. Now it’s your turn!

Internet marketing is an ever-changing animal and a team approach makes your chances of success well within your grasp! Join us now and let us prove it to you that you can be a six figure earner within the year using an honest and lucrative program. Eric Latocki

Author:  Find out the secrets you need to know to succeed online with a successful Internet marketing team! Eric Latocki http://www.sixfiguregroup.org

Pay per click advertising can be one of the best ways to drive traffic to your sites. Since the traffic is targeted there is also a good chance that it may convert into sales since the people are looking for what you are offering. The keywords that you use in your adwords account can have a big impact on the success of your adwords campaigns.

You need to make sure that you are using only the most targeted keywords in order to maximize your conversion rates. The google adwords system rewards accounts that are focused on creating high quality relevant ads so you need to focus on that. Create small ad groups that are focused on specific keywords. Add the keyword in the title if you can as this will help to improve the click through rates on your ads.

You can also check the quality score of a keyword in your adwords account by selecting it from the dropdown menu in the keywords section of your account. The landing page of your ads is also important. Make sure that it has enough content, it is okay to use a squeeze page as long you have described the product or service you are offering adequately on the page. Add some relevant keywords onto your landing pages as naturally as possible as this will help to improve the quality score of your ads.

Remember that if your account has a good quality score with Google then you will be charged less for clicks while ranking higher than the competition. Click through rate is important and you want it to be as high as possible. Having super targeted ad groups is one of the best ways to boost your click through rates.

Tracking the conversion rates of the keywords is very important because if you find that certain keywords are converting well then you will want to bid higher on those since they are making you money. Conversely you will find other keywords for which you may be paying a lot but it does not convert well at all so you will want to either reduce your bids or delete these keywords altogether. Google adwords offers a conversion tracking feature and all you need to do is add the code to certain pages of your site.

If you are an affiliate then you may want to consider asking your product merchant to install this code if possible. Many merchants will comply if you approach them the right way. Remember that the keyword on your ads is bolded in the search results so this helps to set your ad apart and attract clicks so make sure that your keyword is in the ad. Using simple ad headlines is often the best way to start, sometimes just using the keyword alone works best.

Using a simple headline such as ‘Looking for #keyword#’ can work very well since it is giving the visitor exactly what they want so they are very likely to click on it. The body of your ads should be benefits driven rather than product feature driven so make sure you are describing how the product you have can help the visitor. If you are an affiliate then you will need to create a landing page before you send people to the original sales page.

Consider a squeeze page because you will then be able to market to these same people in the future. A squeeze page is a simple single page that has the primary purpose of getting the visitor to fill out an opt in form to receive more information.

Most of your visitors will not buy the first time they visit your site so it is important to have a way to get back in touch with them several times in the future. An auto responder email newsletter series is a perfect way to do this so make sure you are also building a list while you are advertising your products and services on Google adwords.

Always watch your budget when it comes to advertising with adwords and do not get carried away and exceed it because adwords can get very expensive very quickly. Run test campaigns of around 100 clicks to determine whether or not you are profitable and make sure you are learning from each failed campaign by analyzing what could have gone wrong and how you can improve for the next campaign.

Author:  Jitender is a webmaster and operates several websites. Learn about the top work at home online business opportunities and be sure to visit our site at http://www.homebusinessmoney.org

Once you’re online business website is live, generating targeted traffic is your next hurdle. But to maximize your online success you need to go beyond traffic generation. You need to focus on web site conversion. Many online marketers spend lots of time and money on traffic generation. And they fail to pay attention to website conversions.

Here are 7 website conversion secrets to help you get more customers and make more money. Period. Lets start…

Conversion Secret #1: Pay attention to the buying experience. Put your self in your buyer’s shoes. How would you rate your site? The most important rule of thumb is to make everything drop-dead easy. No hoops allowed! Minimize the number of clicks in your ordering process. If they have to register… make it a one-step process. I recently read that up to 40% of ecommerce shopping carts are ABANDONED without an order because the order process was confusing.

When your customers get confused, they get frustrated or angry and then they leave. Not sure how you’re doing? Be smart. TEST. That’s the only way. Or contact your customers and ask them to rate their buying experience at your site. Just find out and you’ll know! Very simple.

Conversion Secret #2: Optimize your site structure. Sounds easy enough. And it is! But you’d be shocked to know how many marketers DON’T. Make it well organized and stupid simple to navigate. Prioritize your themes and sub-themes and structure accordingly. You have less than 6 to 8 seconds to capture your visitor’s attention and get them interested. Most people don’t sit there and analyze. They respond to unconscious feelings and the famous ‘gut’ feeling.

Conversion Secret #3: What is the goal of your site? Your conversion goal? What is the purpose of the page they’re on? I hope you have thought about this. If not… do it now! Do you have 12 options for them to click on? Ever consider they might get confused because there ARE so many options? You can have many options for them. And if you do then it’s critically important to have a very clearly defined navigation structure.

Conversion Secret #4: Make sure your site or page loads fast! The faster, the better. You know how impatient we’ve all become. Your site needs to be fully loaded in less than 6 to 8 seconds! Fully visible. Research shows again and again that up to half of your visitors will LEAVE if your site is more than 6 to 8 seconds to load.

Conversion Secret #5: Do you have an effective and clear call to action? Here’s something that has been known for many decades. Courtesy of direct mail pioneers who came way before the internet. But it’s still true! People need to be told what to do next.

Absolutely still true. Don’t be afraid to ‘politely’ inform them of what to do next, or just what to do! Tell them! Don’t expect the website visitor to know what to do next. You can alleviate fears of the unknown by telling them, in some fashion, what their next action will do. Click to order your product… click here to register for your free download, etc. People need to be reassured and you’ll do that by telling them what result will happen from their next action.

Conversion Secret #6: Do you have a strong message? This is different from call to action. I’m talking about a clear, strong, and consistent message throughout your page. If you’re talking about a particular product, theme, service… whatever it is, stay on topic and focus on it.

Conversion Secret #7: Test, test, and test again. Increasing your conversions takes time and is an ongoing process. There are lots of programs available to do this. Find out how much time people are spending on your pages. What do they click on? Find out what’s strong and improve on it. See if you can expand on it. Find out what’s weak and see if you CAN improve on it.

Your profits will soar if you do only half of what I’ve shown you here today. But why would do that? Do ALL of them. And there’s even more to be learned. Failing to work on your conversions is like running on half empty, or running on misfiring cylinders. So don’t do it!

Author:  A former college dropout, Dan “The Man” Lok transformed himself from a grocery bagger in a local supermarket to an internet multi-millionaire. Discover how you can maximize your website profits in minimum time. For a limited time, you can test-drive Dan’s Insiders Club for 30-days Risk-Free and get $1,165 dollars worth of bonus gifts. Rush cover to: http://www.websiteconversionexpert.com/testdrive.html

Bidding on your own company or brand name in a pay per click campaign is an issue that gets raised from time to time with my clients. It’s an important issue because a good percentage of traffic to many websites is generated by company name or brand based phrases, and often this traffic converts very well. However, many businesses are reluctant to pay for visitors that are already looking for their website. One client described it as feeling like they are paying twice for the same visitor.

More often than not visitors using the company name in a search are responding to an offline promotion, a word of mouth recommendation or are trying to find a site that they did not bookmark the first time around. Whatever the source, these are highly qualified visitors that have a higher chance of converting to a sale than visitors using other search phrases and every effort should be made to ensure that they can easily find your website.

Should your business bid on its own company or brand names? If your business experiences any of the following scenarios then bidding on your company or brand name may be a worthwhile strategy;

1. Your company name or brand is a generic and popular phrase.

If your business has a generic name or brand that is similar to a popular search phrase then it may be very difficult to secure the top spot for a company name search in the natural listings. If this is the case it may be that visitors looking for your site end up clicking through to a competitor’s site instead. In this scenario I would recommend bidding for a top 3 placement in the paid search listings so your site appears above the main natural search results. This would significantly increase the chance of visitors finding your site rather than your competitors.

This could be an expensive strategy depending on the popularity of the search term. However, not only will you be securing a top position for your company or brand, you will also be securing a top position for a highly targeted search phrase. So this strategy should result in a healthy ROI.

2. Your company name is not a registered trademark and your competitors are bidding on it.

A common paid search strategy is to bid on competitor names and brands in the hope of picking up some of the visitor traffic that was destined for their sites. This is clearly an attempt to cash in on a competitor’s brand equity or offline promotional spend, but it is a perfectly legal strategy if the company name or brand is not a registered trademark.

Even if you have the No 1 position in the natural listings in Google for your company name or brand it is still possible for a competitor to secure a spot in the paid listings that would site just above your site listing. The danger here is that many people don’t distinguish between paid and non-paid listings and may click on the first link they see, especially if the company or brand name is used in the competitor’s ad listing text.

In this scenario, securing the top spot in the paid listings above your competitors should be straightforward and relatively inexpensive. This is because the main search engines reward better performing ads with higher positioning and your ad listing will almost certainly have a higher click through rate than your competitors listings.

3. Recently launched websites.

A new website may not get listed in the natural results for its company or brand name for several weeks after launch, this is especially true in Google. If this is the case, and you are spending money on offline promotions with the objective of driving visitors to your new website, it would be a good idea to include your company and brand name in a PPC campaign until the search engines index your new domain.

In many ways bidding on your own company and brand names could be considered a defensive PPC tactic. However, it’s important to remember that these are your visitors and your bookings and this may be the only way to ensure that they don’t both end up with your competitors.

Author:  Mark Scriven is founder of Turismotec Ltd, a search marketing agency that specialises in the travel, tourism and leisure sectors. Turismotec publish a travel marketing newsletter called etravel success.

If you are a webmaster you will know that writing articles for publication in ezines is an excellent way to get free publicity for your website. One thing that holds many would be writers back is that they don’t think they will be able to find enough to write even on a subject they know well. Webmasters who have never written an article before tend to feel their minds go blank at the suggestion of writing for publication. One of the most common reasons for not writing articles is that people do not think they will be able to write enough about a topic. This worry is usually overcome during the writing process but, even if you run out of words too soon, there are a few useful tricks you can use to increase your word count.

Most article directories will not accept an article consisting of fewer than 500 words; the most suitable length for an article is between 500 and 700 words. Let’s go for 500 words for our first attempt. That might sound a lot but, if you look at the structure of most articles you will see that they are broken down into three sections: introductory paragraph, main content and closing paragraph. In turn, the main content will be broken down into 3-5 paragraphs.

If you plan your article to have three paragraphs of main content, you only need to find 100 words to write in each paragraph and that is a far easier goal to think about than finding 500 words. When you write the article, you obviously won’t have exactly 100 words in each paragraph but this rule of thumb gives you something to aim for. Decide in advance on the sub-topic of each of the main content paragraphs, you can give them subheadings if appropriate, otherwise just use the sub-topics to plan your structure.

To get a feel for structure, let’s look at an idea for an article. Our subject can be planting spring bulbs and our plan will look something like this:

Introduction - general information eg about types of bulbs available for spring flowering, type, varieties available, colors available, best time to plant, benefits of using bulbs in preference to other forms of planting.

1. Paragraph 1 - choosing the right bulbs for particular situations eg shaded ground, containers, mixed planting, indoor displays etc.
2. Paragraph 2 - planting techniques e.g. choosing growing medium for containers, choosing containers, depth to plant different species, color schemes
3. Paragraph 3 - general care e.g. watering, when to cut down, propagation, naturalizing

Closing - brief summary of topics covered or something along the lines of “if you follow this care guidance, your bulbs will provide a colorful display year after year”.

In this plan our closing paragraph is very brief but there should be no problem in writing well over 100 words for the first paragraph. In fact, if you are a bulb expert, you could write several articles based on each of the sub-topics.

If you feel you need to write an article on a particular subject but really run out of things to say, there are a couple of simple ways to bring your word count up to the level required by the article directories. Make it a rule, however, that you never use artificial padding to inflate your word count. The trick is to add words that enhance the value of your article, not just puff it up. These are legitimate ways of boosting your word count:

1. Add a sub-title to the article and use sub headings (if appropriate) for each paragraph.
2. If you use acronyms or initials, place the full term in brackets after the abbreviation. eg if you are talking about PPC, add “(this stands for Pay Per Click advertising)” after the abbreviation to add seven extra words.
3. Use quotations or statistics. Some articles can be uplifted by the use of a famous quotation. Inserting the quotation and author name adds several words but you can expand this by adding a brief biographical note about the author eg “the famous Russian metaphysical poet”. If the article is not suited to the insertion of quotations, you might be able to add an interesting statistic. The information together with details of its source will add more words.

If you follow the steps set out above, you should find it comparatively easy to write an article of sufficient length for Ezine publication.

Author:  Elaine Currie is the owner of the Free Work At Home Directory containing ideas for the best ways to make money online and author of Ezine Article Writing - 10 Steps To Success.

The Relentless Art and Sweet Science of Keyword Selection
Optimizing a website means deciding what keyword phrases (KPs) you want to compete on and then weaving those keyword phrases into the copy and metatags of your website’s critical pages. A search engine, like Google, will compare the keyword phrase of the searcher with the content of gazillions of web pages, find the pages that have the most matches, further evaluate each matched page by looking at inbound links, determine which page is the best match and then rank accordingly in the search results. Success in this process depends upon you researching and selecting the best keywords possible to compete on!

Two points need to be emphasized here: 1) you decide what is important—these decisions are strategic and critical, and 2) you realize that they are not set in stone—there is much trial and error involved. As your business evolves, as the buying behavior of your customers evolves, and as the phenomenon of search evolves, your KPs must evolve too.

The wonderful world of search has become incredibly competitive, and that has vast implications for your KP selection. Virtually any competitive keyword phrase will return literally millions of competing pages. As we will see, if you are not in the first 20, you are out of the running. It’s pretty scary.

We spend a lot of time researching KPs to find the best opportunities, which basically means we develop a much longer list and then reality check that list by seeing how competitive each phrase is. Then we recommend the KPs that look like they offer the client the best chance to successfully compete.

In practical terms, this means we recommend transactional phrases (which demonstrate a better intent to purchase) that may be much further down the initial list, because the phrases at the top of the list (the ones that have the biggest monthly search numbers) usually are too vague and have too many competing pages to offer much traction. In short, we dig a lot deeper now. As more SEO experts compete for keyword phrases and terms, the research process will necessarily get even more complex.

At the same time, we encourage our clients to never be satisfied with their KP list. Work it, revise it, reconsider it—at every available opportunity. Since we can only effectively optimize on a finite list of KPs, we need to continually refocus by refining the target terms’ optimization to increase visibility. Understand that none of this is possible if you are not focused on the performance of each KP. But once the search performance of each KP is available to you, you have actionable data—thus, the Total Available Search Market™ report.

Optimization or PPC? You May Only Be Buying Timeshares on Google
Google recently has made optimization a requirement for landing pages. Landing pages are where all those little PPC ads point. Relevant content to the prospect’s search term needs to reside on the landing page, or suddenly the advertiser needs to pony up a much higher bid to stay there. It underscores what we’ve been saying all along: relevant content really matters.

Pay-per-click engines have very sophisticated ways of pulling money out of your company’s pocket. The first assumption is that highest bids will get you to the top of the page…the most valuable real estate on the Web. What many people don’t notice is that you don’t own that top space. For popular search terms, there are many bidders willing to pay top dollar, but there’s only a limited amount of top space. So Google has created “timeshares” for these penthouse positions. It cycles through dozens of ads, with clusters of “top bidders.” (To check if this affects your ads, just hit “refresh” and see if your ad is still there.) We have seen up to five clusters in contention, meaning that our ads are only reaching 20% of the Total Available Search Market for this particular engine.

That’s another reason to invest the time and effort in getting high rankings in the search engine results pages by way of natural, “organic” site optimization. By creating a site optimization strategy using 25 important keyword phrases, we positioned one client’s site immediately in the Top 20 for all these terms, with 15 ranking in the Top 10 and three No.1 rankings. Net result was a 300% increase in visibility—and traffic. Increasing visibility, and optimizing for more transactional, more product-specific search terms, increases sales substantially…about 2x what you might expect. If your customer uses the Web to look for a solution, but she can’t find you, it really doesn’t matter how good your product is—you aren’t going to make a sale.

TASM and Search Competitiveness
RefreshWeb is a business that helps its clients win: Win in search rankings. Win by attracting good leads. Win by filling the pipeline. Win by using search terms to identify the buyers. What is the definition of winning, when it comes to organic search?

Unlike a horse race, search is a race that never stops. It is a race where the judges can and do regularly change the rules in mid-stride. The horses in the race are not the websites of our clients and their primary competitors. Instead, the horses are the keyword phrases on which they make a strategic decision to compete. In short, search is like dozens of horse races being run concurrently, without a defined finish line. What is a winner in that context?

This is the heart of the issue in evaluating the search competitiveness of a company’s website. It is very much keyword-by-keyword combat and must be evaluated as such—because the real game is in the adjustments you make upon evaluating real-time data. The popularity of search phrases ebbs and flows, with the sum total of searches on relevant terms composing the current Total Available Search Market™…a metric with meaning. The data stream is constant and the adjustments are constant, as are those of all competitors.

SEO and SEM are becoming more important and critical to meeting customers—on their terms. What’s driving this? Two things: First and foremost, clients want it. Clients realize that the Web is the first stop for information and referrals about purchases, particularly for new products and particularly in the B2B space. And second, search engine referrals are gold, whether they are from organic search or pay-per-click—they indicate prospects who are already motivated, who are looking for a solution and are now actively considering a purchase. Search marketing puts your product or service right in front of these new prospective customers at exactly the right moment.

Author:  Specializing in marketing technology-based companies since 1987, and active in Internet marketing since 1992, John Rasco’s skills as a marketer, team leader and strategist are key to successful client engagements. Founder of Brand X Austin and RefreshWeb, a national B2B web marketing agency, John has an entrepreneurial gene, a creative bent and a passion for challenging projects.

What constitutes a good website design? Does it showcase your design prowess? Does it prove what a brilliant graphic designer you are? Does your web design fetch you designing awards? Or does your website design exist to establish a platform for you and your visitors to interact with each other unhindered by usability glitches? I think the last point is the most important factor that establishes the basic difference between a successful and an unsuccessful website.

Although the perception of good website design changes from person to person, there are some established conventions that you can follow and these conventions can make sure that your website reaches out to all possible people. When you are designing your website, especially these days, you have to be constantly conscious of the fact that there are numerous browsers and numerous devices that people may use to access your website. No longer do people browse the Internet just through their PCs and laptops; there are many handheld devices that can directly connect to the Internet and enable people to browse your website; people can even browse your website using their mobile phones. And gone are the days when people used just the Internet Explorer as their primary Internet browser.

Your website design also depends on what you are planning to showcase through your website: will it be just text or images or videos or a mixture of all these? You have to design your website accordingly. If it is merely text that you plan to publish then try to make it as less graphical as possible as people coming to your website will be interested in your text and not your images and videos. Similarly a website showcasing your Flash animation expertise will expect lots of Flash work so you needn’t worry about making your website textually accessible.

So when you are designing your website you have to take all these parameters into consideration. But does it mean that you’re always accommodating browsers and devises and do not focus on your own business, whatever that is? No, I’m not suggesting that. Just take care of the following website design guidelines and you will make sure that 95% people (well, there will always be those odd 5% who can never browse the web easily no matter what they try) surfing the Internet can access your website:

1) Create a lighter design. If possible don’t use too many graphics and JavaScripts that affect a major function of your website. For instance if there is some crucial information on your website and people need to access that information before doing business with you then don’t make that information accessible only through a JavaScript on an image file or a Flash animation. All your important text should be available only in text and even if you have to resort to using images and other stuff than make sure the textual alternative is always available.

2) Don’t use colors that cause strain to the eyes. If you want people to come to your website again and again and consume your content or do business with you then you must make their stay over your website as pleasant as possible. No matter how awesome your design looks if the color combinations are strain-full, after a while they will tire of your website and stop coming. Always take care that your background behind the text is far lighter than the text, and vice versa.

3) Create a well defined navigation. If you have multiple pages on your website then there should be a prominently defined navigation system that is easily accessible to everybody. As mentioned above don’t let your navigation depend on images, JavaScripts, or Flash animation. If possible create just a text-based navigation bar. With CSS designing you can create great looking navigation bars.

4) Design your website using CSS because then you can make your content and your navigation bar appear in a linear fashion. Since all the layout-related placements take place through CSS definitions no matter how your text appears texturally, graphically it will appear as a pleasant layout. The CSS designing techniques also enable you to dabble with intricate layouts without making your website inaccessible. CSS designing will always help you arrange your main content before the navigation link despite making it visually appear beneath the navigation bar or to the right of it.

Follow these basic web design principles and you will have a good website design to boast of. Remember that your website design is created for the sake of your visitors and not to cater to your designing whims and fancies.

Author:  Gary Mattoc is employed by Peterborough web design Company Doublespark Limited. Contact Gary for all your Peterborough graphic design requirements.

The world’s most popular search engine just keeps chugging along - the little train that could (and did) make billions of dollars and dominate the Internet landscape.

Like a giant tree with a root system extending deep into the earth, Google seeks to expand and diversify far beyond mere online search.

In their quest, the little elves at Google never seem to sleep and toil endlessly to bring us new gadgets and gizmos intended to make our lives better, both online and offline.

These four latest free offerings from Google’s Labs http://Labs.Google.com - will help you do everything from organize your thoughts to find the local pizza restaurant’s phone number through your cell phone.

Google Code Search http://www.google.com/codesearch

This one should have the geeks salivating like Pavlov’s dog sniffing out a rump roast!

This new search tool at Google allows you to search for public source code, the lines and lines of code that make your nifty software programs actually function.

Instead of writing all the code themselves, programmers can find and grab huge chunks of code free for the taking.

This makes a great staring point not only for programmers who want a leg up on finishing projects, but also neat for would-be software entrepreneurs who want to surf for ideas.

Google Voice Local Search - http://labs.google.com/goog411/  

Ok, I’ll admit to some skepticism when I saw that Google would help me find the number for the local barbershop just by talking into my phone.

But Google actually surprised me when I dialed 1-800-GOOG-411.

The phone asked me to say the city and state I wanted to search, and then asked me if I wanted to search by business name or business category.

Once I found the business I wanted, Google went ahead and dialed the number for me.

I found this service no worse than the automated search from the phone company, and Google offers this service FREE.

Well worth a call if you find yourself paying some hefty 411 fees to the phone company or your wireless provider.

Google Reader - http://reader.google.com/

The jury is still debating whether my dear sweet mother will ever subscribe to an RSS feed (the syndication feeds from blogs, news services, and more), so I’m not sure how universal RSS will ever get.

However, Google does offer a free RSS reader online that enables you to easily subscribe to blogs, news feeds, and any other RSS feeds you like.

The readers let you organize your feeds, update, and view them all in one place.

Not as powerful as some readers you pay for, but very functional and hey, you can’t beat free!

Google Notebook - http://www.google.com/notebook/

Google Notebook is the most recent graduate of the Google Labs.

This handy program allows you to organize your notes and clippings as you travel the web.

Instead of just bookmarking a site in your favorites and trying to remember why you liked it, with Google Notebook, you can highlight what you want and click the “clip” button.

You can then organize your notes however you want and then search through your note text at any time.

You can even share your notes with others.

Google Notebook is available through your web browser after you download and install special extensions to help you clip items you find on the Web.

Author:  Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the creator of http://www.TheNetRe porter.com - a hard-hitting, no-holds-barred website that will teach you step-by-step and click-by-click how to really cash-in online. Discover what really works RIGHT NOW… plus the new twists on tried and true Internet Marketing techniques that create a profitable “real” business you can be proud of http://www.TheNetRe porter.com

“Top-down” marketing was dying a slow, unattractive death, even before the Web took over the world. The advertising dollars, creativity, number of repetitions needed for retention, and everything else needed to launch, maintain, and build a brand were increasing every year, along with the odds against success.

“Top-down” marketing was dying a slow, unattractive death, even before the Web took over the world. The advertising dollars, creativity, number of repetitions needed for retention, and everything else needed to launch, maintain, and build a brand were increasing every year, along with the odds against success.

Enter the Web, where everybody could find everything and talk about it to everybody else for no marginal cost. The idea of “bottom-up,” word of mouth marketing, generally not much more than a gleam in some marketing professors’ eyes, became a reality. In business-to-business, it has become more than that-it has become THE decision-making environment. For a major purchase, 98% of the people involved in making that decision will have accessed Google before the decision is made (Enquiro B2B Survey, 2007).

For most B2B purchases, particularly first-time purchases and technology products, the Web is the only source for information. Studies show that, in the B2B market, over 75 percent of purchasers searching for a new solution begin their search on the Web. Since 92 percent of all U.S. search traffic occurs on Google, Yahoo and MSN, we really need to gain an understanding of performance on these three search engines. (comScore data, 6/2007) The issue is how to measure search, to provide our clients with an objective measure of their performance on the major search engines.

Rankings, Visibility and Readership: How Many People Are You Reaching?

When someone uses a search engine to find a solution, typically he opens up a search engine, usually Google (over 77 % of B2B searches), inputs a search phrase of two to five words, and gets a whole bunch of search results back-often millions of listings assembled ten at a time on separate pages. The searcher then clicks on listings-or, as is increasingly the case (especially with young men), refines the search and then clicks, refines and clicks-until he finds his topic. To the searcher, the efficiency of a search engine is probably measured by how few listings he needs to explore to find what he is looking for.

There has been considerable research on the “readership” of each page of search results. In the B2B arena, we believe 100% of searchers see the first three listings, up to 90% review listings 4 through 10, and about 50% go on to the second page. After that, readership declines rapidly-a small fraction of searchers reach the third page.

So how do we measure this process? It is important to know that the number of incidences of search phrases is carefully measured. RefreshWeb has developed the Total Available Search Market™ metric, or TASM™, to evaluate our clients’ potential search phrases to find the best candidates. We make a list of our client’s search phrases, measure the number of times that phrase was used in the course of a month, measure the client’s position on a search engine result page for that phrase, and do the math to measure out how many people will see the client’s listing when they input a particular search phrase.

The math is easy-what is not immediately intuitive is the reality that creating a useful metric means not trying to do too much. What makes for good marketing intelligence is “actionability”-a metric that is too reductive decreases the ability of our clients to act on the data we are giving them. We need to keep our eyes trained on the performance of the important keyword phrases in order to have a sense that we are attracting the “most, best targeted” traffic to the website. That kind of focus-keyword by keyword-is critical to developing an effective natural search strategy. It is even more important when adjusting and tweaking the website.

The Relentless Art and Sweet Science of Keyword Selection

Optimizing a website means deciding what keyword phrases (KPs) you want to compete on and then weaving those keyword phrases into the copy and meta tags of your website’s critical pages. A search engine, like Google, will compare the keyword phrase of the searcher with the content of gazillions of web pages, find the pages that have the most matches, further evaluate each matched page by looking at inbound links, determine which page is the best match and then rank accordingly in the search results. Success in this process depends upon you researching and selecting the best keywords possible to compete on!

Two points need to be emphasized here: 1) you decide what is important-these decisions are strategic and critical, and 2) you realize that they are not set in stone-there is much trial and error involved. As your business evolves, as the buying behavior of your customers evolves, and as the phenomenon of search evolves, your KPs must evolve too.

The wonderful world of search has become incredibly competitive, and that has vast implications for your KP selection. Virtually any competitive keyword phrase will return literally millions of competing pages. As we will see, if you are not in the first 20, you are out of the running. It’s pretty scary.

We spend a lot of time researching KPs to find the best opportunities, which basically means we develop a much longer list and then reality check that list by seeing how competitive each phrase is. Then we recommend the KPs that look like they offer the client the best chance to successfully compete.

In practical terms, this means we recommend transactional phrases (which demonstrate a better intent to purchase) that may be much further down the initial list, because the phrases at the top of the list (the ones that have the biggest monthly search numbers) usually are too vague and have too many competing pages to offer much traction. In short, we dig a lot deeper now. As more SEO experts compete for keyword phrases and terms, the research process will necessarily get even more complex.

At the same time, we encourage our clients to never be satisfied with their KP list. Work it, revise it, reconsider it-at every available opportunity. Since we can only effectively optimize on a finite list of KPs, we need to continually refocus by refining the target terms’ optimization to increase visibility. Understand that none of this is possible if you are not focused on the performance of each KP. But once the search performance of each KP is available to you, you have actionable data-thus, the Total Available Search Market™ report.

Optimization or PPC? You May Only Be Buying Timeshares on Google

Google recently has made optimization a requirement for landing pages. Landing pages are where all those little PPC ads point. Relevant content to the prospect’s search term needs to reside on the landing page, or suddenly the advertiser needs to pony up a much higher bid to stay there. It underscores what we’ve been saying all along: relevant content really matters.

Pay-per-click engines have very sophisticated ways of pulling money out of your company’s pocket. The first assumption is that highest bids will get you to the top of the page…the most valuable real estate on the Web. What many people don’t notice is that you don’t own that top space. For popular search terms, there are many bidders willing to pay top dollar, but there’s only a limited amount of top space. So Google has created “timeshares” for these penthouse positions. It cycles through dozens of ads, with clusters of “top bidders.” (To check if this affects your ads, just hit “refresh” and see if your ad is still there.) We have seen up to five clusters in contention, meaning that our ads are only reaching 20% of the Total Available Search Market for this particular engine.

That’s another reason to invest the time and effort in getting high rankings in the search engine results pages by way of natural, “organic” site optimization. By creating a site optimization strategy using 25 important keyword phrases, we positioned one client’s site immediately in the Top 20 for all these terms, with 15 ranking in the Top 10 and three No.1 rankings. Net result was a 300% increase in visibility. Increasing visibility, and optimizing for more transactional, more product-specific search terms, increases sales substantially…about 2x what you might expect. If your customer uses the Web to look for a solution, but she can’t find you, it really doesn’t matter how good your product is-you aren’t going to make a sale.

TASM and Search Competitiveness

RefreshWeb is a business that helps its clients win: Win in search rankings. Win by attracting good leads. Win by filling the pipeline. Win by using search terms to identify the buyers. What is the definition of winning, when it comes to organic search?

Unlike a horse race, search is a race that never stops. It is a race where the judges can and do regularly change the rules in mid-stride. The horses in the race are not the websites of our clients and their primary competitors. Instead, the horses are the keyword phrases on which they make a strategic decision to compete. In short, search is like dozens of horse races being run concurrently, without a defined finish line. What is a winner in that context?

This is the heart of the issue in evaluating the search competitiveness of a company’s website. It is very much keyword-by-keyword combat and must be evaluated as such-because the real game is in the adjustments you make upon evaluating real-time data. The popularity of search phrases ebbs and flows, with the sum total of searches on relevant terms composing the current Total Available Search Market™…a metric with meaning. The data stream is constant and the adjustments are constant, as are those of all competitors.

SEO and SEM are becoming more important and critical to meeting customers on their terms. What’s driving this? Two things: First and foremost, clients want it. Clients realize that the Web is the first stop for information and referrals about purchases, particularly for new products and particularly in the B2B space. And second, search engine referrals are gold, whether they are from organic search or pay-per-click-they indicate prospects who are already motivated, who are looking for a solution and are now actively considering a purchase. Search marketing puts your product or service right in front of these new prospective customers at exactly the right moment.

Author:  Specializing in technology-based companies since 1987, and active in Internet marketing since 1992, Rasco’s skills as a marketer, team leader and strategist are key to successful client engagements. Founder of Brand X Austin and RefreshWeb, John has an entrepreneurial gene, a creative bent and a passion for challenging projects.