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Blogs are now a dime a dozen, and bloggers need to make their blog posts stand out. Developing a blog following is not as easy as it once was. Learn how to write blog posts that attract readers and retain their attention. Follow these guidelines to cultivate readers…

1. Draw Attention

Use titles to attract the reader’s attention to the blog post. The title should mimic newspaper headlines and generate interest in the blog post. The title can be controversial, but not to the extent of being misleading. Use action words in the title. Bloggers will often come up with a handful of potential titles for blog posts, and then settle on the title that is best suited to a particular blog post.

2. Deliver

Having a catchy title, but following it with content that fails to deliver, will not endear you to your readers. The blog content must deliver what is promised in the blog title, or readers will unsubscribe and stop reading. When deciding on a blog title, do not stray too far from the content, as the two are intricately related — the title will attract the reader’s attention, but the content must then live up to expectations… or the blogger’s reputation will suffer.

3. Accurate

Nothing stains a blogger’s reputation like inaccurate information, so be sure that your blog posts contain accurate information. Intentionally posting inaccurate or false information will significantly damage a blogger’s reputation. But if an error unintentionally or inadvertently occurs in a blog post, be sure to quickly post a retraction or correction, along with an explanation and an apology in order to salvage your good reputation.

4. Relevant & Timely

Blog posts should always be relevant and timely. Hearing about something long after it has occurred will not captivate readers. Blog about information that is occurring in the here and now. If you are going to write something that is no longer timely, be sure to add some sort of twist, or include new or updated information to make it relevant.

5. On Topic

All blogs should have a general theme that connects all the posts on the blog. Readers will expect posts that are related, so stay true to the blog’s theme and topic.

6. Use Keywords

Use keywords liberally in blog posts. Search engines will attempt to categorize the content of a blog post and discern its general topic. By including related keywords or keyword phrases, search engines will have an easier time classifying the blog’s contents. Additionally, a blog that uses keywords will have a better chance of ranking well for those keywords or keyword phrases in organic search listings.

7. Evaluate Web Logs

Review web logs to determine what blog posts have been popular with readers. Then figure out how to provide similar or related content that might also be of interest to those readers.

8. Original

Blog posts should always contain original and unique content. If you are simply re-posting information from others, include editorial content or a different spin to the information. Readers do not want to constantly rehash the same information — they are interested in reading new material.

9. Chunky Content

Break content into smaller, readable chunks. Most website visitors will just scan paragraphs for information, and very few will take the time to read all the words contained in a post. Use bulleted lists, or break web copy into paragraphs with bolded sub-topics that appear before the paragraphs.

Writing blog posts is not just about spewing forth content. The best blogs are well thought out, and contain provocative and interesting unique content. Follow the above steps to produce a relevant blog worth reading.

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing software.

Tags: blog posts, blogs

This is the first in a series of articles intended to convey my personal impressions of managing PPC through Google Adwords, Yahoo Panama and MSN Adcenter. Each engine has its pluses and minuses and I thought I would write a short blurb describing my experiences using the interface for each of these. The first engine I will be looking at is the lesser utilized of the three, MSN Adcenter. Interface One of the things I like about working within Adcenter is the clean look. Although from time to time I wonder if the uncluttered interface is more a product of its relative youth, there’s no denying it’s easier on the eyes than either of its competitors. In part, this appears to be due to the lack of clutter that plagues both Panama and AdWords. Perhaps Microsoft hasn’t had time to fill every gap on each page as seems to be the case with the others. Part of the reason however, is the use of bullet links. More often than not, clicking on these causes the additional information to appear in place, without having to navigate to another page. This is a refreshing change, as most of my time using these seems to be spent hitting my back button and waiting for complete pages to load. The layout of subsections is based on 4 tabs; Campaigns, Accounts & Billing, Research and Reports. Clicking on these takes you to exactly what you would expect, no more no less. Everything is laid out in a logical format and it’s pretty quick and easy to find what you’re looking for. After struggling to navigate through Panama in particular, I find this refreshingly simple. Campaign Setup Setting up is a 5 step process.

1. First off, you lay out your basic campaign structure by naming the campaign and initial ad group. One of the nifty features at this stage is a checkbox allowing you to copy an existing ad group. I have found this can be a useful time saving feature. Network targeting, campaign scheduling, language and regional targeting can all be set up on this same page. Also, conversion tracking can either be set up here or later in the campaign interface with a single click.
2. The next step is writing ad copy. The biggest advantage I have found in this stage is that the interface allows you to paste the entire ad description in one line rather than having to fuss with the character limitations for 2 lines of ad text, such as in both Google and Yahoo.
3. Now you can add your keywords. This is a very straightforward process, You have the option to add your own pre-made list of keywords and/or using a keyword tool that scans a site, or the ad destination URLs. This tool can generate a list of synonyms based on a suggested term, including the number of searches conducted in the previous month.
4. The last main step is to determine pricing settings. This includes setting a budget (see annoyances and oddities section), bidding and setting bidding options, such as incremental bidding. Here also you can set bids specifically targeting for location, day, time, age, or gender.
5. The final step is simply a review of all the information entered to this point and the option to change settings. I find this a bit annoying, as opting to change anything takes you back to that stage and after making your adjustment you have to cycle back through the entire process to the review page once again.

Keywords The only tool this interface has at the moment is the keyword research tool. This can be accessed under the research tab or when editing keyword settings. I have found this far less awkward and time consuming to use than either of the other 2 engines. One thing to note about adjusting keyword settings is how robust the options are generally. When adjusting existing keywords it is simple to add negative keywords to individual keywords, as well as adjust the match types and specific destination URLs by keyword. Another interesting feature is the trend charts, viewable by keyword. With this handy feature you can view individual keyword trends by age and gender, geographical location, social class and affluence. One major difference with keywords between MSN and the others is the level of editorial control exerted. Recently I was managing a campaign with a particular ad group that had quite a few different ads. Some keywords were reported by MSN as being declined for certain ads, but approved for others. This is certainly a departure from my experiences with either AdWords or Panama, where if a keyword is declined for any reason, that’s that. Reports The reporting feature is also quite robust. One can run single use reports or create saved templates for performance, accounting or targeting. It allows for quite a number of specific report types from account overview down to specific ad or keyword performance. A report can be set to display information from hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Additionally, filters can be set to customize reports to only display information you wish to view. Automated report scheduling is also an option if you wish to receive emails periodically, without having to fetch them personally. The format for these reports are limited. Currently downloading one gets you a zipped csv file. Hopefully they’ll expand that to allow options for other file formats. Annoyances and Oddities These are some of the gripes I have with Adcenter.

• For some reason, they’ve incorporated the option to select campaign settings for either daily budgeting or monthly. While this isn’t really a bad thing, if you select daily budgeting, it requires you to set a monthly budget as well. In my experience, doing this seems to have little effect on the amount spent on a given day. For example, I had set a daily budget of $10.00 while selecting a monthly cap of $310.00 to reflect 31 days in a month. Day by day this particular campaign was spending regularly up to and in excess of $20.00 daily. No amount of fiddling seemed to change that behavior, so consequently the monthly budget was used up in half the time.
• Normally, when optimizing ads and keywords, I like to pause poorly performing ads. Pausing them, rather than deleting them, allows me to retain the statistics for later viewing. This is handy because sometimes I do not wish to drop an ad or a keyword entirely, but just want to turn it off for a time, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, there is no option to pause either an ad or a specific keyword. There is no way short of deletion to stop displaying a specific ad and the only way to “pause” a keyword without deleting it, is to drop the max CPC to the absolute minimum.
• There is a limitation on viewing data at campaign, ad group or even ad or keyword level. One can only view yesterday, this month, last month, this year, last year or entire time. I find it very strange that unlike anywhere else in this interface, you cannot specify a custom date range. To get around this, you have to go to reports and create and run a report specifying what start and end date you wish to view data for. This can be time consuming and is an obvious flaw that will hopefully be worked out soon.
• The timeout is quite short. Many times while working in Adcenter, I’ve tabbed back after only several minutes, only to find the system has logged me out and I have to re-login and navigate back to what I’d been working on.

Summary Overall, I’d have to say that MSN Adcenter is quite easy to use. Although MSN gets the least amount of traffic of the 3 engines, this isn’t entirely disadvantageous. One result of this disparity is that spend for a given campaign is generally significantly less than in either Adwords or Panama. Given that, when a conversion is achieved the difference in ROI is notable. This engine is certainly worth advertising on and with some improvements will be a fine choice.

Tim Rule is a PPC Specialist at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Tim’s articles and those of the StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com/, Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198

Tags: Marketing, ppc

What is Digg?

Digg ( http://www.digg.com ) is a news-oriented, or “social news” website, where the majority of its content is submitted by its users. Digg’s users also rate the site’s content, determining what’s important enough to go on the front page, and what should be removed. After signing up for a free account, Digg’s users can submit, review, vote on, and comment on news stories and other content they find on the Internet.

The idea is that instead of searching the web for useful content, people can just make one stop at Digg and see the latest current events, feature stories, videos, podcasts, and other content ‘ selected and rated by users instead of by an editor.

Digg is an important tool in building your online presence.

If a link to your content is submitted to Digg and receives a lot of positive votes and comments, your website can receive hundreds or even thousands of visitors within a short period of time. There is a great deal of the traffic that will probably quickly read the article or post and leave but, there’s a good chance that the more targeted visitors will browse your site and sign up for your newsletter and/or RSS feed which will also help you to receive incoming links, trackbacks, and social bookmarks.

You may receive comments, earn extra income, have your rss feeds picked up, and many other possibilities may come from having your content submitted. How does Digg work? In order to make your comment live, Digg requires you to enter your name and email address, and then use a password and confirmation link they email you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: digg, social authority building, social networking

Is your website a unicycle, a vehicle that requires much training and skill before it can be used? While there are so many “beautiful” websites online, some simply don’t make sense. Have you ever found yourself on a website that seems quite impossible to use? Even worse, landed on a website after doing a search only to wonder why you are there at all?

Site usability is possibly one of the more important factors of a top performing website. While so many will argue that the site is nothing without a genuine web presence, I will argue that some websites rely purely on offline marketing. At the end of the day, if your website is impossible to use, nobody will be able to (or even want to) use it. Points to ponder when designing your website:

1. Navigation
2. Login/Signup
3. Onsite search
4. Flash and other multimedia
5. Bookmarks/Favourites

1. Navigation

This may seem like an obvious point but as most visitors are more likely to find your homepage, are they able to navigate to the section of the website that best relates to their needs? Simple text navigation will also make it easier for the search engines to index the individual pages of your website (where have you heard the design the website for a human visitor before?).

2. Login and Signup’s

Does your website require that visitor’s to login; do you want new visitors to signup for your newsletter (or other services)? If so, is it possible to do so from the homepage? While you may not want to place a login on the homepage, a link to a login page will suffice. Again the key is to keep it simple and clear as to what you expect of the visitor.

3. Onsite Search

This is crucial for any website that offers a large quantity of information or products. Can you imagine trying to find an item among 2,000 by going through a product list 10 items at a time? I didn’t think so. Offer you visitors what they are looking for by adding a simple search to your website. This should help speed things along. Many websites have a quick search option towards the top right-hand corner of the homepage (sometimes this spans the entire website in all the headers). Keep it simple, visible and obvious. Make sure that the average visitor knows that this is a search function.

4. Flash and other Multimedia

Okay so Flash is a pet hate of mine. But the same could be said of all multimedia that simply clutters a website. Remember that while multimedia and other interactive agents can at times seem really cool or even a good idea, some visitors don’t have advanced updated browsers. That said, sometimes the best way of doing something is through the use of these tools. Make sure that these are placed on well marked pages with an explanation of what they are about. This way, if the visitor is unable to view the contents the at least know what it is about and why they can’t view it. Otherwise they will simply think that the website doesn’t work and leave. After all, what use is a website that is broken?

5. Bookmarks and Favourites

If you want returning visitors (who doesn’t?) then it is usually a very good idea to offer a “bookmark this page” or “add to favourites” button. I’m pretty sure we are all in agreement that traffic is valuable so there is no excuse for letting it get away. The “favicon” is a useful way of separating your website from the others. Once made a favourite this icon will be found next to your websites name. This is an ideal spot to promote your logo and brand.

6. Contact

Even after making the site as foolproof as possible there will still be occasions where even will all that planning something will come along that you hadn’t factored. When this occurs make it as easy as possible for the visitor to contact you. Be it by making your contact details (phone, email and fax) available on each page, or by placing a quick contact us form that is accessible from each page. Again, you’ve worked hard to drive the traffic to your website; don’t let it simply get away.

Remember simple is best, leave no room for mistaken functions. Signups, Logins and searches should be clearly marked so as not to confuse the visitor. Make it as easy as possible for your visitors to find what they are looking for. With a well structured website you will notice that the conversion from visitor to customer will increase. At worst the few questions on where to find something or how to use the website will decrease. Your website is after all supposed to make your life easier as well as save you time.

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

Tags: Business, webmaster

The reason Google is the most successful search engine in the world is because they provide the best search results; pages ranked by tangible value. That tangible value is a combination of content and links, with links being the more important factor (they assume any pages linking in will only link to good content or risk their own ranking.)

Here are a few tips that will help you take full advantage of Google’s love of linking…

1.) Link Deep and with Relevance

So why is deeper better and what’s this about relevance? Google figured out that a link to a homepage is only good if that homepage has the information the visitor needs. If a person clicks a link for “amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe” and ends up on the home page, which has nothing of the sort, Google discounts it as a wasted link. On the other hand, if the link leads to the page containing info on the “Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe,” even five levels deep, the link has huge value to the visitor and to Google.

Want some proof? You already have it if you’ve ever used Google’s AdWords pay per click service. They will not even accept PAID links to pages that are not the most relevant for their visitors, regardless of what you are willing to pay per click. Now that’s saying something!

2.) Use Absolute Links Internally

It sounds complicated but it’s not. Absolute links are those with a fixed full URL. There’s another kind, called “relative” links that skip the first part of the domain and remain “relative” to the file structure. Let’s take a look at the difference…

Here’s the absolute link to the Google Ads page from Google’s homepage: “http://www.google.com/intl/en/ads/”

Here’s what it might look like as a relative link: “./intl/en/ads/”

Long story short; absolute links help your SEO efforts and relative links don’t.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: google rankings, seo

If you’ve been involved in the design of your company’s web site, you probably already know how difficult it can be to convey the type of website design you want.

Website design is a matter of personal taste. What one person finds attractive and professional, you may not and vice versa. Oftentimes, what you want is a matter of “I’ll know it when I see it,” but unless your graphic designer is a mind reader, that’s not enough information to assure you’ll get what you visualized in your own head.

Below is a list of questions to help you solidify in your own mind and communicate to your website designer the look and feel you believe would best represent your company.

Website Design Questions

• Do you prefer website designs that contain many different colors

(<http://www.reductionengineering.com/> as an example) or designs that use

fewer colors (<http://www.reissbuilt.com/>, for instance)?

• Do you prefer bright colors (as on http://www.hmroyal.com/>) or muted

colors (as on <http://www.reissbuilt.com/>)?

• Do you prefer website designs that have white backgrounds behind

the text (like <http://www.isternplastics.com/>) or colored backgrounds

behind the text (such as <http://www.purgeusa.com>)?

• Do you prefer sites with black type for the main text (such as

<http://www.reliable-resins.com/>) or those with colored type for the main

text (like http://www.naturalgas-electric.com/)?

• Do you prefer website designs with a horizontal layout (such as

<http://www.rotomachines.com/>) or a vertical layout (like

http://www.elmonteplastics.com/)?

• Regarding navigation, which button locations do you prefer - horizontal across the top, down the left (as on <http://www.dbi-global.com/>) or the right side

(http://www.elkayplastics.com), in blocks (as on <http://www.be-ca.com/>),

or a combination of some horizontal and some vertical (as on

<http://www.jomarcorp.com/>)?

• Do you want a straightforward, rendering of the logo,

or would prefer something with more color gradation or artistic treatment

(<http://www.utility-savings.net/> as an example)?

• Does your company have a motto or tagline that should be incorporated into the design?

• If yes, do you prefer the site tagline in a straightforward, headline-style format or do you prefer a more stylized format (as on

<http://www.evidencebags.com/> or <http://www.tecpapersdigital.com/>)?

• Some sites have faded terms related to their businesses embedded in

images (<http://www.unitedpolychem.com/> and <http://www.pilotfishseo.com/>,

as two examples) -Do you like this technique?

• Do you prefer sites with actual product images (as on

<http://www.elmonteplastics.com/>), or those with stock photographs that

evoke specific responses, such as a sense of dependability or

professionalism (<http://www.hmroyal.com/>, for example)?

• Do you prefer website designs with straightforward, realistic photographs of

products or those that contain artistically altered images of products

(<http://www.airpowerusainc.com/>, <http://www.rotomachines.com/> and

<http://www.evidencebags.com> are examples)?

• Do you prefer to have your product images on the left side (as with

<http://www.firestonepolymers.com/>), along the top (as with

http://www.polysort.com/ntm/index2.html) or down the right side (as with

<http://www.airpowerusainc.com>)?

• Are there any logos for industry quality, certification programs or

association memberships that should be part of the site’s design? (See

<http://www.hmroyal.com> for example)

Of the sites you viewed above, please provide feedback on the following questions:

• Which sites from the list of examples do you like best? And why?

• Which do you dislike the most? Why?

• As you review the sites, which company logo placements do you feel are the most appropriate for your company?

• Which color schemes do you prefer, as you look at these sites? And why?

• Which color schemes do you absolutely hate? Why?

• Are there any other web sites that you have seen that you like or feel demonstrate the style of design you prefer?

Answering each of these questions will go a long way in helping your graphic designer to create a website design that satisfies your graphic sensibilities.

Angela Charles is president of Pilot Fish, a website design and SEO firm based in Akron, Ohio.

Tags: website design

Today marks a special event on the web.

According to the Google Blog, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has today accepted KML 2.2 file format as an official OGC Standard. KML began life in Google Earth as a way to save custom map features and developed into a sophisticated format that is used by a large number of widely used mapping platforms.

Google handed KML 2.2 over to the OGC in a bid to provide a higher level of accessibility to geographic-based web content. Bravo Google!

Unless you go the paid route with PPC advertising,
keywords or rather top keyword rankings will be the
most important factor in the success of your website
on the net. Not exactly breaking news but many webmasters
still don’t understand this simple fact.

Keywords rule the Internet.

Getting top rankings for profitable keywords will
make you king. Currently, there are countless kings
on the web ruling over massive listings of keywords
in some pretty obscure yet profitable niches. Since
there are millions upon millions of keyword phrases
out there - with more being born each day - anyone
with just a basic understanding of how keywords work
will be entitled to a crown.

How lucrative a kingdom you create will depend upon
your own work ethic and your knowledge of keyword
SEO techniques.

Basic Keyword Knowledge - Keys to the Kingdom

Keywords are the exact words someone types into a
search engine to find what they’re looking for on
the web. Obviously, there are millions, if not billions,
of possible keywords anyone can use. The trick for
the entrepreneurial webmaster is to find the profitable
keywords.

First, these webmasters need to check to see the
number of visitors any given keywords receives in
a month. A keyword getting four or five clicks a
month is not worth considering unless it’s something
like “buying beachfront property in Malibu,” where
one click or prospect could lead to a sale and a
handsome commission.

Here’s an excellent site where you can some helpful
keyword research tools - including how to find the
number of searches made each month for a particular
keyword:

http://tools.seobook.com

Next you have to check to see how competitive your
keyword is. One simple way is to type your keyword
into Google and see how many pages are returned with
your keyword. It is usually in the millions. A more
precise way is to see how many of those pages have
your keyword in the title.

In Google, if you want to find competing sites that
have your keywords in the title, just use the allintitle
command.

Just type into Google search:

allintitle:yourkeywords

Professional marketers will use keyword research
software that will make performing all these steps
much more easier - I personally use Brad Callen’s
Keyword Elite. Because most of my marketing is done
with organic SEO traffic, doing extensive keyword
research is essential for getting it right, plus it
saves me a lot of time.

Mainly Keyword Elite shows me what keywords I have
a chance of reaching with any one of my sites.
High-demand lucrative keywords are usually out of
my reach, unless I want to do months and months of
SEO work, and even then it will take deep pockets
to compete with large companies who can afford to
spend anything to get that top ranking.

Google may have cracked down on paid link buying
but anyone with enough resources can still buy
their way into any top spot for any keyword.
There are exceptions - I have been trying for
years to get top billing for “Google marketing”
- but all I could manage was second place.
Wonder why?

Finally, you have to consider how profitable the
keyword is? This can be the real breaking point
for most novice webmasters. You must be able to
turn your top keyword ranking into a profit. In
other words you must be able to convert your
keyword traffic into a sale. Get your visitor
to buy from your site or from an affiliate link
on your site.

This will usually require some serious testing
on your part. You must test to see if your
landing page or sales letter is converting.
I find one of the best tools for testing your
webpages is Google Analytics. It will give you
vital information on your site that you can use
to increase your conversions or tell what is
working and what is not working.

Like any professional marketer, I find and use
‘long tail keywords’ to make most of my income.
Long tail refers to keywords phrases that are well
long (three or more words), yet very profitable.
For example, someone searching for a particular
make or model of a product usually has their mind
made up and is seriously considering buying that
product. Someone searching for “2008 v-6 four-door
Honda Accord” is a more targeted visitor than someone
searching for “cars.”

The great beauty of Long Tail Marketing: there
is little competition for these keywords and
you can usually get a top ranking in Google
in a couple of days - make that hours if you’re
using blogging techniques.

Keyword Page Fundamentals - Jewels in the Crown

If you’re targeting certain keywords, it helps
if you create webpages that are search engine
friendly. Again, very simple stuff, but you would
be surprised how many webmasters don’t follow
these basic site elements when constructing
their sites.

Keywords 123 - Here are some things you should do:

1. Title Tag

The Title Tag is located at the top of your
HTML page and it tells all the search engines
what your page is about. When you open your
page in a browser these are the words at the
very top of the screen. Despite its simplicity,
the title tag is crucial to ‘on-page optimization’;
it should include your main keywords and it should
be 63 characters or less if you want your
title to appear in full on Google.

Many SEO experts create webpages in a three-prong
approach. They place the title (with the keywords)
in:

- The title tag - on the webpage itself - and
in the URL for that page.

Sometimes they will just pick the main keywords
from the title and place them in the anchor url
instead. For example: www. yourwebsite.com/keywords.html

2. Meta Description Tag

The Meta Tag contains the description for your
webpage. Your description will show up in all the
search engines so you must be careful to write
precisely and objectively. It should be about
140 characters or around 20 words. Make
sure to include your keywords but don’t spam
- don’t repeat your keywords more than twice,
using variations is helpful.

Keep in mind, successful webmasters make their
descriptions stand out from the pack and entice
the surfer to click their link. Remember this
is your first contact with your potential
prospect so make a good first impression.

3. Anchor Tag or URL

The anchor tag is used to form links within
websites or from site to site. Your tag should
have your title or the main keywords from your
page title to be the most effective.

Anchor text is also important to know, these
are the underlined, clickable text or words
in a link. anchor text

If you want to check Google for all webpages
containing your keywords in the anchor tags,
just type into Google Search:

allinanchor:yourkeywords

Of course, the best way to get high rankings
for your keywords is to build relevant quality
one-way links to the page that contains your
targeted keywords. Get enough of these quality
links with your keywords in the anchor text
and you will get top rankings. Again, provided
it is not an extremely competitive keyword.

Keyword Shortcuts - The Court Jesters

On the web, like in real life, there are always
shortcuts. No, I am not talking about any sneaky
“black hat” SEO tricks… the shortcuts here are
very legit and have to do with blogs.

Another way to crack the “keyword puzzle” is
simply to use a blog. I prefer the free blogging
software from WordPress since you can host these
blogs on your own site.

Blogs are perfect for keyword marketing. Only
with blogs, keywords are called “tags” but it
amounts to the same thing. With WordPress each
category will be considered a tag or keyword.
You can create a targeted page within your blog
for your chosen keyword or keywords within minutes.
Then you bookmark this page/tag/keyword in your
favorite bookmark sites like Digg, del.icio.us,
Furl, Propeller, Reddit, Slashdot, Stumbeupon…
don’t forget to ping/click your newly created
link to let all the search engines find your
keyworded page. WordPress will also automatically
ping your posts for you.

Blogging is a simple shortcut that can put you
on the fast track for earning on the web. The
great beauty of using blogs - you don’t need
to know anything about HTML or site design for
that matter, all of it is done for you. You can
pick out your template, edit your site heading,
side panels and your footer within a couple of
minutes… and you can have your blog/site up
and running in no time.

Simply tie in your blog with all these social
bookmark sites. Google likes these social media
sites; get a front page listing on Digg and your
keywords rankings will go to the top of Google’s
pages. I did manage to get on the front page of
Digg a little while back and my keywords instantly
rose to the top spot on Google. “Internet Facts”
but that’s another story for another time.

Online marketing can be as simple or as
complicated as you want to make it. I like
the complicated stuff myself, building numerous
sites, building links, building connections,
building patterns… but coming from an artist
background I am allowed to be more than a little
eccentric.

However, most people like to take the simple
route, so here’s a recent video I watched by
Nancy Andrews that explains how all this online
marketing stuff works… I hope you will notice
one important point that’s mentioned a couple
of times in the video… all this is so simple
yet there are still very few people doing it.
How true.

Always remember there are still a lot of crowns
out there going to waste. Why don’t you grab one?
Trust me, Kingdoms are so much fun to run.

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Tags: , get top keyword rankings, keyword marketing, seo

The best decision you can make as an online business owner is to decide to get out of your own way and begin to delegate those tasks which really don’t require your time and attention. A simple way to do that is by hiring a virtual assistant.

A virtual assistant is a business owner who specializes in handling the administrative details of your business from the comfort of her home office. Now that virtual assistance has been around for awhile, you’ll find virtual assistants who specialize in different types of administrative services: real estate, Internet marketing, and event management, to name a few. You may actually discover that you could use several virtual assistants in your business, each with a different specialization.

I can hear you now. You’re thinking, “There’s no way anyone can do this as well as I can.”

Are you guilty of “I’ll-do-it-myself-itis? If so, you’ve got much in common with most other online business owners in the world. We never think that anyone else will give something the time, attention, and dedication that we will. And, you’re right, to some degree. No one cares as much about your business as you do. However, if you don’t choose to delegate those things that prevent you from engaging in business development, marketing, and sales activities, you won’t be in business very long.

Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for awhile, the thought of bringing on a support team member can be daunting, and you wonder, “How can I bring in someone else when it’s just going to increase my expenses?”

You need to make the shift to seeing this cost as an investment in your business, rather than as an expense, and let go of the need to be in control.

To help you evaluate what you might delegate to an assistant, take out a piece of paper and on the left side write, “What I Love to Do” and on the right side write. “What I Don’t Like to Do”.

Then, think about all of the functions you manage and roles you perform in your business, like planning and setting strategy, marketing, providing the service or product in which you specialize, dealing with financial issues, speaking, writing, networking, customer service, order fulfillment, etc. Most of my clients have three or four items on the “What I Love to Do” side — speaking, coaching/consulting, training, and writing. The remainder of the other functions and roles fall on the other side. The items on the right hand side, the “What I Don’t Like to Do” list, will serve as a great indicator of the types of things you need to be delegating in your business.

Based on my past experience as a virtual assistant and online business manager for a number of clients, here are 5 tasks should delegate to your Virtual Assistant right away to help you begin to generate additional income in your business:

1. Ezine. An email newsletter will help you get prospective clients into your marketing funnel. Your VA can format the plain text and HTML versions of your email newsletter. All you need to do is write your primary and filler articles each week and forward those to your VA to format and send the finished product out to your newsletter list.

2. Media. Have your VA research an industry-specific media list . This value of this list is in developing relationships with these media contacts so that you’re the expert they immediately think of when they’re doing a story on your area of expertise.

3. Article Marketing. Write once and have that article work for you again and again. Have your VA submit articles you’ve written to online article databases to increase the number of links back to your website and to send more visitors to your website.

4. Strategic Alliances. Once of the quickest ways to grow your business is by creating strategic alliance or joint venture relationships. Have your VA research potential strategic alliance or joint venture partners who provide a service to a similar audience or whose client base could benefit from your product or service.

5. Product Development. Got recorded interviews sitting around gathering dust on your hard drive? How about information you’ve created for presentations that you’ve never done anything with? Have your VA coordinate the transcript and audio editing of any recorded files you might have and help you polish those into saleable products. Your VA can also help your format printed material into an ebook, ecourse, special report, etc. and before you know you, you’ll become an information marketer!

What operational aspects of your business could you delegate to someone else? If you had extra time, how could you increase the revenues of your business? Give these questions strong consideration–and use your Virtual Assistant to help you make more profit with less of your time today!

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

Tags: ezines, seo, Webmasters

Should your SEO strategy (1) tackle the most competitive vertical keywords (2) pluck the low hanging fruit of the long-tail or (3) employ a combination of both? after deciding which strategy suits your sites ultimate objective, the mental model of the target client and amount of time and content required to accomplish the goal, what are the pros and cons of each tactic?

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Competitive Keywords

Pros: Stable traffic which eventually stems into the long-tail (semantically related phrases). Cons: The process could take up to a year to achieve saturation due to competition and search engine trust.

Also, the results you struggle to maintain are in constant flux (due to high demand), so a defensive strategy is required to maintain your position from scrolling out of the top 10 results.

Isn’t Targeting More Competitive Keywords More Difficult?

Before you get discouraged and give up before even getting started, yes the process for bagging a competitive phrase is challenging. But then again, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it and top 10 search engine placement would not be a crowning achievement, but rather a rotating free for all of inconsistency. For this reason, getting into the top 10 search results is more stringent than less competitive positions for ranking. The bar is raised, but so are the rewards, which is why relevance should not be an afterthought, but rather a central theme that consolidates your pages.

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Tags: keywords, long tail keywords, search engine optimization