Article Categories

• Advertising
• Blogs & Podcasts
• Business
• Ecommerce
• Google
• Linking Strategies
• Marketing
• RSS
• SE Optimization
• SE Positioning
• SE Submission
• SE Tactics
• Security
• Technology
• Video Marketing
• Web 2.0
• Web Design
• Webmasters
• Website Promotion
• Website Traffic
• Writing

SiteProNews Blogs

• Darren Dunner
• Jerry Bader
• Kalena Jordan
• Matt Jackson
• Mel Strocen
• Titus Hoskins

10 Simple Ways to Generate Buzz & Word-of-Mouth Part 1

By Andy MacDonald in Featured

Advertising today not only includes the paid placement of marketing messages but also some free methods of getting your message out. Buzz and word-of-mouth marketing fit into this category — though you can also spend money to create buzz or great word of mouth. . In this 4 part article over the next few days, I explain what you need to know about these tactics and show you examples of how they work in the real world so you can put them to work for your own business. Just ensure that when you plan and implement your marketing strategy, you avoid these common marketing mistakes.

Getting the Terminology Straight

Just in case you’re still thinking that word-of-mouth marketing isn’t a legitimate, controllable, manageable approach to promoting your product or service, think again. An entire professional association is devoted to word-of-mouth marketing, called the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, or WOMMA — a hilariously memorable acronym.

More important, though, is the fact that WOMMA consists of corporate members only (not individuals), which means that big companies are just as interested in word-of-mouth marketing as small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. For example, just look at a few of the companies that are members of WOMMA — the A&E TV network, Coca-Cola, Dell computers, General Motors, Yahoo!, and Zondervan religious publishing.

In the marketing world, Acronym’s and Jargon are thrown around all over the place, yet there are some subtle yet important differences between recent marketing terms, which I share with you here:

• Word of mouth: The act of consumers providing information to other consumers.
• Word-of-mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services and making it easier for that conversation to take place.
• Buzz marketing: Using high-profile entertainment or news to get people to talk about your brand.
• Viral marketing: Creating entertaining or informative messages that are designed to be passed along in an exponential fashion, often electronically or by e-mail.

Seeing the Power of Word of Mouth

Many advertising, publicity, and marketing experts believe that word-of-mouth marketing is the most powerful type of exposure that you can get for your product, service, business, or store. After all, who are you most likely to believe? A paid advertisement, featuring an actor who earns his fee by reciting a script written by a salaried copywriter working for a hired ad agency? Or the unsolicited suggestion by one of your friends that “you should see this movie; you’ll love it!” or “buy that car; it’s really reliable,” or “try this restaurant, or gift shop, or dry cleaner, or face cream, or sneaker, or computer, or cell phone”?

Obviously, you’re more likely to listen to your friend. After all, she hasn’t been paid to recommend that product or business. She gains nothing if you do or don’t try it. She’s simply telling you what she loves or appreciates — and that’s a powerful endorsement for any business. Now all you have to do is get those powerful endorsements!

In tomorrow’s post, I offer up a few examples of how word of mouth has worked effectively, for positive business results — and I show you how to prevent the opposite: negative buzz. For celebrities, it may be true that “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but the same isn’t true of businesses!

In the next post, we look at ‘Examining word-of-mouth marketing success stories’ Do you have a particularly good method of creating buzz marketing, or word-of-mouth publicity which works well? Or even buzz marketing which doesn’t work so well. Then let me know by leaving a comment, and i may well include it in one of the follow-up articles to this series.

Author:  Andy MacDonald, CEO of Swift Media UK, a website design & search marketing company. For daily tips on Blogging, Marketing, SEO & Making Money Online, Checkout our SEO & Marketing Tips for Webmasters blog or Subscribe by RSS.

Survival in the SERPs - Surveying, Scouting & Defense

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

There is something to using distinct visual analogies to illustrate parallels between search engines (the jungle), traffic (information foragers), competition (predators) and survival in the algorithmic food chain.

Just like a jungle, survival in the SERPs can be tricky. The uncertainty of search engine algorithms, the survival based impulses that by default comprise 97% of the web pages at large (like playing capture the flag) or a boobie-trap where one step on the wrong twig and you could be consumed, penalized, suppressed, catapulted or removed from the top 10 based on your SEO survival skills, your resourcefulness or your experience in the jungle.

They say getting there is half the battle, in the search engine result pages, the same holds true. The three critical areas of an optimization campaign are; Research & Identification, Scouting and Reconnaissance & Acquisition and Defense.

1. Research & Identification - surveying the terrain and tailoring the site or pages to represent your best interests in the SERPS. Things like mastering your environment (your industry or niche) and adapting to the requirements allows you to flourish as a result of nurturing the appropriate elements. In this instance, fresh content, relevant information and a compelling writing style that incites action are one of the key ingredients to survival and authority.
2. Scouting and Reconnaissance – Finding which content has the greatest impact. The primary objective of content is to be fruitful, multiple (it’s exposure that is) and act as a guide back to the base for those foraging information in the jungle (clicking search results or following a link back to your site). While some may think of this as link bait, in reality it is branding and saturation of your niche with carefully crafted intricately woven pieces of information that reinforce a particular theme of thought. The more specialized the content, the higher the elevation on can achieve in social, peer and practical circles.
3. Acquisition and Defense – You can use a wide variety of methods to acquire a high ranking search engine position, a few that are worth noting such as (a) a massive content management strategy (b) a high utilization of deep links from authority sites developed strategically over time (c) a combination of internal link architecture and aging domain and pivotal use of web 2.0 properties to build traffic and visibility for your content. Regardless of which strategy or combination of strategies you use, maintaining a healthy shelf life in the SERPs is the key. Which means that once you make it to the top, you have to keep feeding your pages a healthy amount of link juice to keep them floating in the top 20 and top 10 respective positions as relevant conclusions for those seeking information on your subject.

The Importance of SEO Defense

During the first phase a site is most vulnerable, and often times without the proper assessment, you may give up right before achieving keyword nirvana and placing the cherry on top of your keyword quest.

With so many potential factors that can influence a favorable outcome in search engines, the more pages, i.e. opportunities you have surrounding a topic, the higher the probability that your target audience will act on it.

As part of a winning content management strategy, administering a diverse range of topical information does more than just blanket a market with link-bait. For example, when you create a post the idea is (1) it should be written to serve a need (2) it should be appealing enough to create an initial buzz as well as survive in the SERPs over time.

As long as you cover your bases, and eventually invoke link insurance (build links to your links to augment positioning) you are creating a dynamic form of equity that can provide sustenance to your business model (and essentially survive the challenges of the SERPs).

Author:  Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Strategies For Quickly Building an Audience with Social Media

By Gary Smith in Featured

The Web 2.0 social media revolution is in full steam. Are people finding your website?

As an entrepreneur, how do you make your business website stand out amongst 435 million other websites and more than 1 million blogs competing for your audience’s attention?

It’s not as hard as you might think.

To begin, let’s look at the demographics of Web 2.0 social networking sites, Myspace.com, Facebook and YouTube.com. This will give you an idea on how to position your message in the Web 2.0 World.

The Web 2.0 Social Networking Revolution

Web 2.0 is a real revolution on the Internet. And these aren’t just college kids…

• 62% of MySpace visitors are older than 25 (40% are 35+), and 83% are making over $30,000 a year. Nineteen percent (19%) are making $100,000 and up…
• On Facebook.com 46% are over 25 and 34% are 35+, but they’ve got deep pockets. Eighty-eight percent (88%) make more than $30,000 and twenty-three percent (23%) make $100,000 or more.

In the years ahead these numbers will get ridiculous…

• Social media giant Facebook is currently ADDING a million 25+ (non-student) adults per week to their rosters. That’s 52 million new users a year.
• YouTube.com gets over 50 million unique visitors per month. That equals over half a billion a year.
• Facebook and MySpace have the equal daily traffic of Google. Experts predict within the next year they will DOUBLE the daily traffic of Google search.

So your prospects are there. The traffic is there. The spending power is there. So NOW is the time you want to establish your presence on the social networking websites.

Web 2.0 Strategy: Why You Should Be a Maven, Not a Marketer

As a website owner, how should you position your message in the Web 2.0 world?

The increasingly savvy buying public will quickly shun marketers. Internet readers want information from the Internet. They don’t want advertising, marketing, or a “pitch”.

According to Schefren in his Attention Age Doctrine, the solution is to become a social media “Maven”.

A Maven is a trusted authority, like a friend, on the social media websites. As you gain their trust, your audience will return to you over and over again wanting to invest in your advice.

Five Steps to Becoming a Social Media Maven

Social Media Maven Step 1: Get in the Game

Begin blogging immediately. Create a video explaining how to solve a problem and put it on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook with links back to your main website. Just those two things alone will establish more Web 2.0 presence than 90% of your competition.

Social Media Maven Step 2: Share your passion

Build your Web 2.0 website around your passions. Thirty-two year old Gary Vaynerchuk transformed his wine knowledge to his video blog, http://Tv.Winelibrary.com. It now has thousands of subscribers and does $50 million dollars a year in wine sales.

Social Media Maven Step 3: Be Controversial

Your audience will remember you more when you challenge the status quo. Controversy sells. Think like the tabloids and the local news channels here. For example, Web 2.0 Business Coach Rich Schefren challenges traditional marketing wisdom in each release of his Attention Age Doctrine special reports at www.attentionage.net/doctrine

Social Media Maven Step 4: Create World Class Content

You will drive repeat traffic to your website by offering top notch “how to” information. Gary’s wine tastings are highly educational on the benefits of wine, how to cook with wine, and how to choose a wine for your special occasion. Rich’s reports teach Web 2.0 marketing principles.

Remember, as soon as your audience feels that you are “pitching” them, you’ve lost them. So provide content not advertising.

Social Media Maven Step 5: Engage in the Conversation

Web 2.0 is a dialogue not a monologue. Internet businesses profit more when they observe and listen to their communities first before they broadcast their messages. Savvy mavens such as Gary and Rich encourage their audience to ask questions. The answers to these questions then become part of their user-generated content.

How Marketing in a Web 2.0 Social Media Environment Is Exciting.

Visualize it like a big radio or television station or movie screen where you’re the star. You’re building a fan base so you need to entertain, inform, and deliver consistently for your audience.

You have more publishing power at your fingertips right now than at any time in history.

So use it. Share your passions. Reveal your trials and tribulations. Tell your story. And, watch how quickly your audience builds.

Author: Master Copywriter, Gary Smith (www.rightbraincopy.com) has taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to write copy that persuades, motivates and inspires prospects to buy. He strongly suggests using Web 2.0 Internet Marketing Strategies revealed in Richard Schefren’s Attention Age Doctrine. Get it now for FREE at: http://www.attentionage.com/doctrine & discover never-before-revealed Web 2.0 tools and techniques to win in the Attention Age.

SEO’s Unite! our future depends on it!

By Jennifer Osborne in Featured

The feds seem pretty hesitant to say th “R” word.

But between the sub prime crisis, the credit crunch and plummeting stock markets; you and I both know that it’s not a question of “if” a recession going to hit the US but “when?”

Recession is something that the search industry rarely talk about . . . most of us are currently experiencing a period of tremendous boom.

Our biggest constraint to growth is not finding new clients, it’s finding and training new SEO’s. Where optimizing a site might have cost $350 in the 90’s, now we see SEO’s charge $350 per hour, some even more.

SEO’s won’t be impacted by the recession

Whhaaatttt?

If our clients are affected by the recession then we will be too. Client decisions will be made using different criteria and this will impact us. But it won’t stop there, the industry as we know it is on the verge of a major shift.

Here’s how it’s going to play out…

The Good

A recession is going to drive increased demand for SEO.

It’s counter intuitive but it’s true. When a recession hits companies they respond by reducing costs. The first budgets to be hit are always Marketing and IT (remember the early 00’s?).

When Marketing budgets are decreased, executives will make difficult budgetary decisions based on metrics. All of those Clicks, Conversions and Measurable ROI that companies are currently experiencing with Search, is going to way heavy on their decisions. Much heavier than traditional marketing metrics of Impressions and Branding.

When faced with difficult choices, advertisers will shift their budgets to the mediums that they can measure.

When IT budgets are decreased, executives will trim IT budgets. Often this means an increase in outsourcing. The in-house SEO’s role will change from being the guy to “do” the work; to being the guy to “manage” the work (or the relationship with the outside vendors).

For the SEO shop, it means an HUGE increase in demand.

The Bad

A recession is going to drive increased competition which in turn will create a skilled labor shortage.

Traditional advertising shops are going to have to replace lost profits. Some will get into Search because the want to take control of the adversing dollars back. If they become the “search experts” they can minimize the growth and steer advertising dollars back to their comfort zone.

Others will have true vision. They will see Search for it’s full potential and embrace it. These forward thinking companies will help to grow the search industry.

For some it’s a natural fit. For others (lured into the lucrative search market merely as another way to grow) not so much… ergo, Walmart.

Regardless of motivation or sincerity, the result will be the same. An increased demand for experienced SEO Professionals.

Except,

there are no major barriers to entry into SEO.

Anyone can call themselves an SEO and there is no governing body (association) to dispute this. We have no formal accreditation process or certificates.

And this leaves our industry exposed…

The Ugly

Combine an increase in demand + a shortage in supply = a whole lot of bad SEO

What to do?

There are things that we can do as individual companies and there are things that we should do as an industry.

As an individual company we can…

1) Take a look at our reporting.

If metrics are going to be a Key Success Factor in the near future then improving upon your reporting now is crucial. I’m not just talking about putting together a slick power point presentation. I’m talking about becoming an evangelist for reporting.

Insist that your clients use analytics. Insist on defining what a conversion is and then figuring out how to measure it.

As a Professional SEO Firm you MUST be in a position to differentiate yourself from the UGLY SEO.

2) Review our talent acquisition and retention strategies.

Growing talent in-house will be critical. Do you have a apprenticeship program? Note: hiring a bunch of green SEO’s is not an apprenticeship program.

What about training? Spending time training others takes time away from actually doing the work. Can your work flows absorb the impact of mentoring on your Senior employees?

Growing in-house can be a huge strain on resources. It’s not a tactical decision, it’s a strategic investment.

As a cohesive industry we should……

wait a minute, we’re not a cohesive industry. but we could be…

SEO’s have what it takes to be a cohesive, powerful industry. We support the new guy by mentoring. We help each other out. We brainstorm together when the algorithms appear amiss.

The search industry has the spirit of cohesiveness. We simply lack organization. We are many singular voices.

But this is going to change. Big Business has their toe in the door.

When they come all the way in, they are going to make rampant changes. They’ll organize us. We’ll get our accreditation, but it will it be designed in Big Business’s favor and will probably be designed to keep the little guy out.

The search industry must unite and organize itself because if we don’t, someone is going to come along and do it for us.

Author:  Jennifer Osborne writer and marketer for Search Engine People.

Writing eBooks -11 Point Checklist for Writing Your Own Money Making eBooks

By Lee Cusano in Featured

Have you been wanting to create your own information products but find it hard getting started? A successful e-book creates powerful income if you do it right. I started selling my first e-book for only $10 but I quickly raised it up to $29.95 because I heard that most people under-price their products.

Today that same first product I created sells successfully at $97. Of course it has evolved into quite a different product since then. I have made a lot of money with all my e-books in the last 4 years. They pay the rent and all my other bills faithfully. Here are some pointers to help you get started making some decent money online writing your own e-books:

1. Write About Something You Know About - Do you have a special hobby or a business that others would like to know about? If not, maybe a relative or your neighbor does. Study what other people are writing about online.
2. e-Books That Show People How To Make Money Are Popular. Before you create your product, make sure there is a market for it. I got lucky on my first book. I didn’t look for a market. I just went on faith from the advice of another publisher. My first e-book has done well since it shows people how to make money.
3. Tips Books Are The Easiest Products To Create - an example would be “50 training tips for dog lovers, “99 profitable businesses to start for less than $500″, “21 days to a new you” etc. (I better shut up. I like that last title.)
4. Write Your Sales Letter First - this helps shape your product to be what you want it to be and what you want it to accomplish. It is like building a blueprint first before building the go-cart. List all the benefits and features you want your e-book to deliver.
5. Get An e-Book Compiler Like Adobe PDF, - as soon as I got my software I got excited about the money I could make with it.
6. Use Digital Pictures To Enhance The Value - if you have a how-to type of book about a trade or a hobby, using your digital camera can greatly enhance your e-books’ perceived value and the price. Plus it helps illustrate what your are teaching with the sharp color photos a digital camera can deliver.
7. Give Your e-Book A Good Title - Just as a powerful headline can increase your sales letters PULL, the right title for your book is just as important also for sales. Make that a Red-Hot title!
8. Don’t Over-Sell Your Book - don’t over-promise or over-hype things in your sales letter just to sell your e-book or you may get too many people asking for refunds. It is better to over-deliver instead. Making it way better than they thought it would be will make them amazed.
9. Find Related Back End Products For Your e-Book - find profitable “related” info-products or services that you can add in your book for more profits. Your readers will love the added information and you will love the extra sales.
10. Enhance Your Product - offer an audio or video to the deal. Just as digital pictures add value to an ebook, so does adding an audio version of it or one or more videos to the package.
11. Lace Your Products - in time you should have several e-books you are selling online. By adding information about all your other books in the back of each one of them gives you free advertising and extra orders.

So there you go. If you want to start writing your own e-books and selling them online, it isn’t that hard at all. Remember, tip books are the easiest way to start writing and creating your info-products. You can always format it without the tips once it is structured.

Author:  This article was written by Lee Cusano. Lee has been in the publishing business since 1995 and selling online since 2004. If you would like to get started making money online check out Lee’s free report titled “The #1 Secret That Always Increases Your Sales Profits Every Time”. Just click here to get it: http://silverdollarpublishingonline.com/mds/

Ten Simple Tips for Successful Blogging

By Andy MacDonald in Featured

Most successful bloggers can offer some tips for successful blogging. Some people develop methods based on experience. Others simply offer what they’ve been told—like post often, link often, and be yourself. What follows are my ten tips for achieving a popular and successful blog within your industry, whatever it may be.

Be Real

Knowing yourself and your audience are extremely important aspects of successful blogging. Too many bloggers start out trying to blog about everything that interests them and, in doing so, quickly burn out, largely because there is simply too much to blog about when you blog about everything. Identify who you are as a blogger, what you’ll be blogging about, and who your audience will be; these are key to a successful blog. Be Passionate

Passion breeds passion. If you aren’t enjoying what you’re blogging about, it’s difficult to be passionate, so blog about things you truly enjoy. Find a voice that you enjoy writing in and stick with it. The passion that comes from writing a blog and connecting with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of readers is contagious.

What are you passionate about, and does it help you with blogging? let us know.

Write Often

Writing often isn’t just good for the blog, it’s an absolute requirement for success. Anything less than once a day (during weekdays) is abandoning the potential of your blog. Updating your blog is often rooted in two major facets of blogging: search engine “juice” and the fact that readers love new and fresh content. Search engines love fresh content and will revisit your site more often the more it’s updated. The result is that your blog will get searched regularly and will carry more weight with the search engines once they trust your ever-changing content. Link Lots

Links are called the “currency of the blogosphere.” Most bloggers link for one of two reasons: either they are interested in the subject matter or they respect the blogger to whom they are linking. Links carry an inherent value, so providing links shows your readers and users what interests you—and the higher the quality of bloggers to whom you link, the more respect readers and other bloggers will have for you and your blog. Combine that with the ability for bloggers to find out who links to them via services such as Technorati and PubSub, and you can see how a link can be a great way to show who you know and to let people know that you exist. Many of the top bloggers I know have confessed that the way they most often find new blogs is after those blogs link to them.

Leave Comments on Other Blogs

Creating a community of interest is key to blogging successfully at the business or personal level. For most businesses, the community will be a mixture of existing bloggers, news sources, and influential people in the industry, combined with employees, partners, suppliers, and customers. Your community of interest is the community in which you are interested as well as the community that is interested in you. By commenting on blogs in your community of interest, you are letting existing bloggers, and their readers, know that your blog might be of interest to them. One of the most common ways that people find new blogs is through links in comments—get involved, and you’ll reap the traffic rewards and build relationships with other bloggers and their readers.

Try it out today. Leave a comment for this post, and you will almost certainly receive some traffic and interest as a result.

Have Fun

Blogging is meant to be fun. Yes, it’s serious business that will radically change the way your business is presented online while also changing the way your customers view and relate to you, but it’s also about having fun. Try new things and link to fun and interesting sites.

Do you actively enjoy and have fun whilst working and posting on your blog? how about promoting your blog? what do you enjoy about being a ‘blogger’?

Push the Envelope

One of the challenges with blogging is that it’s relatively new. Try something unusual, and if you do the “wrong” thing, it will get you some attention (bad or good). Any new communications tool that remains stagnant ultimately dies, so don’t be afraid to make changes and ask questions. Entirely new types of cutting-edge communication, such as podcasting and video blogging, were created when someone asked, “Why does blogging have to be just text?” Ask your own “why” questions and see if you can come up with exciting ways to use blogs.

Ping

Pinging is something your blog software does to tell several services that you’ve posted something new. This quick note, or ping, is used to produce lists of the most recently updated blogs to let Technorati and PubSub know to come by and see what you’ve posted and generally to make sure the blogosphere stays connected. If you ping only one service, make it Ping-O-Matic. This neat, and free, little tool by the creators of WordPress allows you to ping Ping-O-Matic, which then pings all of the most important services for you, instead of you having to do it. This cuts down on your effort, but it also means you don’t need to worry about whether you’re pinging the right places. Ping-O-Matic takes care of it for you.

Use Feeds

Whether you choose to use full-text feeds or provide some of the text, make sure you are providing feeds. I’m a big fan of full-text feeds, because they create less of a boundary for your customers to read your ideas. Feeds make it easy for people to read your content on their own schedules—while travelling on an airplane, via audio as they’re driving home, or generally however and whenever they want to hear what you have to say. Feeds are all about lowering the barriers to getting at quality information, so do whatever you can to make sure you aren’t putting up any artificial barriers.

Create Meaningful Titles

Titles are absolutely essential to blogging successfully: good titles mean search engines find you and send you more traffic; attractive and useful titles entice readers to read your stuff, and this translates into more links. Every blog post title should give readers a reason to want to read the entire post. If you own a fashion company, for example, “Exquisite shoes” is probably a bad title, while “Ferragamo designs exquisite shoes!” is far more descriptive.

So what type of blogger do you want to be? A successful industry leader, who takes part in the blogosphere, links out to other blogs and has fun whilst blogging. Or a blogger who does none of the above, receives little traffic, and lacks direction. I’m still relatively new to blogging so I’ll let you decide. Leave us a comment telling us your thoughts, ideas and what you can take out of this post to make you’re blog more successful. Maybe we can all learn a little from the comments you leave.

Author:  Andy MacDonald, CEO of Swift Media UK, a website design & search marketing company. For daily tips on Blogging, Marketing, SEO & Making Money Online, Checkout our SEO & Marketing Tips for Webmasters blog or Subscribe by RSS.

Article Marketing Advice: Increasing the Readability of Your Articles

By Hunter Waterhouse in Featured

When it comes to writing articles to promote your online business, it’s important to consider more than just your marketing goals: it’s essential that you also focus on writing articles that people will want to read. In other words, you don’t just want to use words; and you don’t want to market and sell your business directly. Instead, you want to make an effort to be engaging and influential.

The first tip that will help you to increase the readability of your articles is to write with the reader’s concerns in mind. If you are unsure of exactly how to do that, you may want to look into article ghostwriters who understand article marketing and who only focus on writing articles for Internet audiences. When you work with article ghostwriters, you can focus more on your business and know that someone else is working hard on your behalf to write articles that will be read.

Getting The Best Results From Your Article Marketing Campaigns

Still, if you want to keep article writing within your company, rather than outsourcing it, here are some tips for getting more out of your article marketing campaigns:

1. Hook your readers from the start. Article writing is a lot more effective for marketing your business when people will actually read the articles. The best thing that you can do is to catch their interest right away. Your article title will determine if people will open your article, and the first paragraph will ensure that people keep reading the article.

2. Avoid the temptation to overwhelm your readers with a lot of information. Article writing is not about telling the reader everything that there is to know; it’s about sticking with a central focus and giving your reader an introduction or overview of the information they want and need to solve their problems. In an article that probably won’t be much more than one thousand words, you will never be able to tell the reader everything they need to know to solve a problem, but you can help put your reader on solid footing for moving forward towards a workable solution.

3. Break up information into digestible chunks. Writing articles is about expressing some key points. When it comes to writing articles for the internet, what you are going to find is that many readers skim rather than read your articles. Using numbered lists (like this one) will help you to present your information clearly, and let readers find what they are looking for quickly. Similarly, if you use bullet lists or break up your text with subheadings that are in a larger font and bolded, you can be sure that after reading your article, the article’s key points will be easily recalled.

4. When it comes to article writing, particularly when you are working to establish yourself as an expert, it’s important to show that you know what you’re talking about. A great way of doing that - and to break up the text of your article - is to include quotes from more established experts. If you are writing articles and are more established, you too should quote other sources, possible letting the readers know why you disagree with another writer.

5. Focus on spelling and grammar. Just as someone who is hiring article ghostwriters should take the time to find ghost writing services that are well versed in your point of view, it’s also important to be sure that you’re writing in the native language of your target audience. American English is different from that spoken and written in England and India. Paying attention to your spelling and grammar shows that you care about what you are saying and that you are a professional.

A good example of the difference between the usage rules in British English and American English is the story of Paul Marshall from Dallas, Texas. When Paul was running his mortgage business, he had hired some Indian writers to develop content for his website. When he received the copy from his ghostwriters, the copy used the word “mortgage scheme” in the text eleven times. Paul was pissed, as you might well imagine. In British English, “scheme” does not carry any negative connotation. Yet, as you may well realize, “scheme” in American English is one of the most negative words that can be applied to any business model. It denotes “dishonesty” and “fraud” in American English. His Indian writers could not understand his anger with their choice of words, but you can understand his anger.

Professionalism In The Article Writing Process

Professionalism, unfortunately, is frequently overlooked when it comes to article writing. Great writing flows, not just for the writer whose aim is to get the words and message out, but also for the readers who are consuming the information.

Because of this, one key element of an effective article is not the writing itself: it is the readability of that article. Take the time to look at the articles that grab your attention and jot a few notes about each of them. Specifically, focus on the following:

• How did the writer grab your attention (or, if you weren’t interested in the first paragraph, what turned you off?
• What sort of spacing did the writer use in the article?
• What did you come away with after reading the article? In other words, what were the key points of the article?

Writing articles is neither purely science nor purely art – at its best; it is a good combination of the two. A great article focuses on a key issue, isn’t stuffed with keywords (you do want search engines to find the article, but too many keywords in an article takes away from readability), and is as easy to skim, as it is to read.

When all is said and done, an article that gets read in its entirety will carry the reader to the Author’s Bio at the end of the article. Ideally, the reader will read the entire article and feel a desire to visit the author’s website to learn more about the writer of the article. It is article marketing at its best, when the reader likes the article enough to click on the link in the Author’s Bio and visit the author’s website to learn more about what the author is offering.

Author:  Hunter Waterhouse is a writer and editor who has been employed by The Phantom Writers (http://www.thephantomwriters.com) for many years. Put his name in quotes and run it through your favorite search engine, to see just how well his articles have been received by the Internet Marketing community. Then, you will know that Hunter knows what he is talking about when it comes to article marketing. To learn more about how The Phantom Writers can help you with article ghost writing, please visit: http://www.thephantomwriters.com/services/ghost-writing.html

Getting The Most From Your Search Engine Optimization Efforts for Your Small Business

By Misty Rae in Featured

Trying to achieve higher organic rankings, but not sure where to start? Here we’ll have a look at a statistically tested formula for the best rankings, and stress the importance of developing a plan, sticking with it, and having just a little bit of patience to see the results. The importance of following a defined strategy cannot be overemphasized — it’s so easy, yet such a waste of time, to get distracted by every new post by Matt Cuts, every new development at Blog-a-licious, or any one of the hundreds of SEO forum and blog postings daily. This is a huge hindrance to getting the real work done. And it is work — but once you’ve got the rhythm down, the rankings increase will be sure to follow.

Let’s start with the all important formula, the 40:40:20 ratio. Through statistical analysis of thousands of sites, these numbers appear to be fairly accurate across the major search portals: 40% of rankings are a result of ‘on-page’ factors, 40% a result of off-page factors (backlinks and same site links), and 20% a result of the page URL (the exact percentages vary slightly between engines). The beauty of this is data is the resultant simplicity of the approach to achieve better search results for your important keywords.

First, on-page factors: Get your keywords in all the right places, with the right density, for each important page on your site. So what are the right places and right density? Get the keyword in the title tag, the description tag and the keywords tag. DO NOT STUFF these tags, be elegant and think about your reader. Experience has shown minor variations to be insignificant in terms of rankings, and more often than not, it seems folks go overboard with their keywords.

Let’s look at the latest data for the ’sweet spots’ for on-page ranking factors. A 10 to 20% density keyword density for the tile, 10% for both the meta keywords description is optimal. The keyword at or toward the beginning of each of these is optimal, but not necessary. What’s this mean? If we use the term ‘essential oils’ again, an optimal title tag might be ‘Pure Essential Oils and Accessories for Natural Health Professionals’. The keyword list would be ten to twenty words, comma separated, with the most important words at the beginning, and ALL words should appear in the body text of the page. The description can be (but doesn’t have to) a well written, attention grabbing sentence — it will likely be displayed in the organic search results, so you’ll want it to be both SEO and customer friendly. Again, 20 or so words, keyword near or at the beginning. Keyword can appear twice, but no more than that. Body text: 1000 words or so (+/- a couple hundred), with a 2% keyword density, and the keyword (or words) appearing near the beginning, in the middle, and near the end of the page code (not just the output text). There are tons of density analyzers on the web — pick one, focus on the body text number and ignore the rest.

Briefly, other notable on-page factors are image alt tags, H1-H6 tags, bold and italic text, and the number of outgoing (inter and intra site) links. Here’s the scoop: Alt tags matter. Get your keywords in them, but don’t overdo it. Don’t use H tags, as according to the data, they’ll bring your rankings down. Use bold and italics if it suits the design and readability of your site; they may be a positive factor, but not a huge one, and don’t stuff your keywords in them. The higher the number of links on a page, the better. One hundred links seems optimal, but don’t sweat it. Always keep in mind that usability and aesthetics are crucial too. Having javascript on the page appears to be a positive ranking factor. Finally, page size (all the text, minus the images) is optimal at 50-60k. This number is shown adjacent to the page in search results. A note on on-page code in general, a balance is important — the search engines don’t care what your page looks like from a design standpoint, they only see the code. But your customers do. And while data is not available, it is more than likely the major search portals are noticing how long a visitor stays on the page, recording whether they return to the search results to find another page. Strive to make your site clean, useful and engaging — this will pay off in more ways than one.

Off page factors — these include links from within your site and ‘backlinks’ from other websites. You MUST get backlinks to rank well, and it’s probably the most challenging of all search engine optimization to do. You’ll need to continuously acquire backlinks, or your rankings will stagnate, or even slowly drop. Optimally, you’ll get a few links a day, with a steady increase in the total number. The two most often used routes are link exchange (asking for links from other sites, and putting their links on your site in exchange) or article distribution. There’s lots of information on the web about exchanging links, read some, develop a plan and stick to it. Once you’ve got a system in place, you’ll likely be able to hire someone to help you. Article distribution is another matter. Articles should really be quality, readable, helpful information for prospective customers. You’ll get to post links within the author resource box, which serves both as an enticement for readers to visit your site, a means to give credibility to your internet business, plus search engines will also see these links and use them in their ranking algorithm. An effective linking program will utilize both these link sources. Remember, it’s not the total number of links, but a consistently increasing number that has the greatest long-term results.

Some caveats about links — links from within your own site should be text links with the keyword in the link. So the Aroma therapy site would use ‘essential oils’ in all the links to their essential oils page. Off-site links should also use keywords in text links, but not always the same words. Mix it up. Here, for example, some of backlink text examples would be ‘pure essential oils’, ‘organic essential oils’, ‘aroma therapy essential oil’, and ‘essential oils’. Further, about 30% of your links should just include the webpage address, like ‘www.johnnysessentialoils.com’ or ‘www.bestbathproducts.com/essentialoils.php This helps your backlinks appear naturally created, rather than machine made search engine spider spam. A final note on backlinks, all pages that link to yours are not weighted equally. The older and more relevant the page, the more weight your link will garner.

With that we’ll describe the last 20%: the URL. Web pages with the keywords in the address, be it the homepage or any other page on the site, rank better. If the If you’re just starting a site, getting your primary keywords in the url is useful. If not, and it makes sense to do so, use keywords in the filename like www.homepage.com/essentialoilspage1.html. Again, it appears better if the file does not have only the keywords in it, like the title and meta tags. Use a 301 redirect if changing the names of ‘old’ pages. Hyphens are still questionable — short filenames and shallow directory structures appear best.

A few final notes — each search engine has different algorithms and different update frequencies. According to the data, ALL follow the 40:40:20 formula closely enough for you to ignore the differences. A site or page that begins to rank highly on one engine may take months before it ranks highly on another. Patience and persistence are crucial. The age of a page is a factor; wasting your time on minor tweaks, rather than writing a quality article, will lead you nowhere. ‘Close enough’ is close enough with the on-page factors and urls. Once these are done, try adding quality pages to your site regularly, and get backlinks regularly — if this is happening, free your mind to work on your site, or business plan, or product product photos, or whatever you think best. Traffic is only part of the equation for a successful internet business. Visitors plus a well-designed site, excellent products, competitive pricing and superior customer service is the real formula for success.

Author:  The author is a jack of all trades and master of none, including search optimization for natural health websites, including The Ananda Apothecary at www.anandaapothecary.com a source for aroma therapy and essential oil information, and www.wellnessisnatural.com, the homepage for Boulder naturopath Tarah Michelle Cech.

Recession Marketing Part 2: Beating the Recession

By Jonathan Cox in Featured

Last time, we talked about the four major categories of marketing and the importance of balancing your marketing effort. So where do you begin? If you had the time and resources to only pursue one avenue of marketing, make it internet marketing; it’s one of the least expensive and most effective ways to get your name out there and it has the potential to reach the full spectrum of your client demographic.

There are four crucial investments you need to make to ensure a long-lasting return on your internet marketing. These include a professionally designed website, press releases, articles, and social media marketing.

Think of your website just like you would a brick-and-mortar location. What are some of the most important considerations when opening a store?

1. You want a good location that’s easy for your customers to find. 
2. The storefront should have good curb appeal; it should capture the attention of prospective customers and be pleasing to the eye.
3. The interior of the store should be easy to navigate, and customers should be able to find what they want quickly and easily
4. Maximize your layout by positioning items so that customers can find other products or services on the way to their original objectives.
5. You should have a quick and painless means of capturing customer information so that you can follow up with them in the future. (Ever given your name and phone number to a sales rep while checking out?)

The same timeless principles above apply just as readily to your website.
Location: Your domain name should be short and to the point. The longer and more difficult it is to spell or remember, the less likely it is that the customer will ever make it there.

“Curb appeal”: Your front page is your image. It should convey the order and professionalism you want your company to convey to your customers.

Layout/Navigation: Your website must be easy to navigate. Customers who can’t find what they want generally leave a website after SIX SECONDS, never to return.

Optimization: Buddy up your products. If you have a product that sells very well and a product that’s suffered in the past, place them close together in your site navigation. Coupling a popular product with a lesser-known product will dramatically boost your traffic and sales for less popular lines.

Lead capturing: Placing your company’s phone number in a highly visible location on your front page and placing a tasteful contact form in a prominent location will increase the amount of leads you get by as much as 300% in many cases. Better still, offer coupons, a free quote, a free newsletter packed with useful tips, or a chance to win a product or service to entice visitors to complete contact information.

Now that you’ve finished your website, you need to get the word out to customers. Of course, you’ll want to do this in the most powerful, long lasting way possible for the least amount of money.

Well written, internet optimized press releases and articles are an incredibly powerful means of getting publicity, generating buzz, and attaining highly qualified leads for your business. Unlike running an article or a press release in a print publication, press releases and articles on the internet stay on the web permanently, getting you traffic and qualified leads for months or even years to come.

An experienced PR firm will get your press releases into venues such as Google News, Yahoo News, MSN News, and Reuters, and your articles into high traffic information sites such as about.com, ehow.com, and work.com. If the pieces are properly optimized, they’ll include a link back to your website and tastefully include keywords related to your business to boost search engine results.

Lastly, we have social media marketing. Think of it as business networking online. By utilizing pre-existing networks such as Face Book, MySpace, LinkedIn, and business forums, and even creating your own business blog, you can forge partnerships, acquire affiliates, and generate word of mouth with thousands of prospects and business owners. Better still, you can repurpose all of those excellent articles and press releases as blog content.

Author:  Jonathan Cox is a marketing analyst and consultant for Xeal Precision Marketing. He has ten years experience in the marketing, design, and IT industries. www.xeal.com

Long Tail Keywords Convert Better

By Robert Cerff in Featured

You’ve built a state-of-the-art website expecting it to be your little nest egg.  But the thought that runs through your mind now is how you are going to get people to see it. The first thought that comes to mind is to gain top rakings with major search engines and anyone else for that matter.  This leads you to the next question, which is “What keywords are you going to target?”

This can be a tricky obstacle at the best of times.  You expend countless hours into researching the keywords and phrases with the highest level of popularity.  Now, with the hard work done, sleepless nights and agonising wait over, you finally see your website rank for these keywords and phrases.  While this does start to generate quite a bit of traffic you notice that it hasn’t made that much impact on the bottom line.  Why aren’t they buying, signing up or downloading your product or service?

Even after doing all your homework, identifying what were “money maker” keywords you simply aren’t making any.  Could it be that you aren’t bringing in the best-qualified visitors?

As a web design, hosting and marketing company, we at PropData based in South Africa, undertake the promotion and maintenance of all of our clients’ websites.  The better the website performs, the happier our clients are and in tern, the happier our clients the more likely they are to refer us to other interested or needing parties.

Recently we made changes to one of our largest clients’ websites and it was decided that rather than try and hit generic search terms that we would prefer to target longer tail keywords.  The reasoning here was that while searching for real estate online, the average search would include both location and dwelling type (apartment, house, etc).  The results were astounding!  When comparing the statistics against a previous record month (a month in the past 6 months that had recorded the highest number of visits) we noticed a few very interesting points:

1. Traffic had increased considerably, while number of pages per visitor decreased.
2. Enquiries on listed property had increased.
3. Mailing list subscriptions had doubled!

It would seem that while going broad and targeting generic search terms we had missed the most important factor; that the average searcher is looking for something specific.

While in this particular case there was a noticeable increase in visitors, the number of page views didn’t grow in accordance.  While many might be concerned that we had lost traffic, and targeted traffic at that, the increase in mailing subscriptions as well as enquiries would suggest something better.  We no longer simply had the random visitor having a look about but that the average visitor was now someone who was actually looking for a specific listing.  They were going straight to the listings that met their needs.  But most important - this visitor was now converting.

The client was very happy to see such positive results.  With a constantly growing mailing list of prospective clients, their latest listings are being viewed by an ever growing audience.  This in turn can only result in further business.  While in real estate it is difficult to make a sale through a website, we consider a direct enquiry on a listing a success. 

The same principle and model applies to all websites.  If you sell mobile phones from a single manufacturer then don’t try and target “mobile phones” as a key phrase.  Rather if you are selling Nokia phones target “Nokia mobile phones” or better yet even target each listing by model too.  At the end of the day, someone searching for “mobile phones” is simply going to look through your website, possibly enquire on a few listings but will have very little commitment.  However someone who is searching for a “Nokia communicator 9300i mobile phone” is in a much better position to make an impulse purchase when they find your website.  At this point they are specifically seeking that which you have to offer.

I would like to add that while your meta description tag won’t aid you in rankings this can be crucial when it comes to making that conversion.  A well thought up and informative description tag can often in itself convert a good search engine ranking into a click through.  Once again it comes down to being precise rather than just having a standard generic site description.

While many webmasters and website owners congratulate themselves on gaining a high ranking or high volumes of traffic, it is always important to remember the purpose of the website.  For most of us a website is a means to make sales or gain further interest in our services.  Either way this translates into us wanting more business.  If your traffic isn’t converting then it is really the same as owning a shop in the busiest mall with nobody ever stepping through your door.

Author:  Robert Cerff is a search engine analyst and marketing consultant for Prop Data Internet Solutions. He has ten years experience in e-commerce, online marketing and web development. www.propdata.co.za