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Can You Make a Great Impression in Seven Seconds? – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Gayle Hawks in Featured

In some circles of Internet Marketing, there is a pervasive thought that says you have less than 10 seconds to make a good impression with the homepage of any website. If someone views the homepage of a site and doesn’t like it within the first 10 seconds, they leave and move on to another site. Some people say you have even less time! With many marketing professionals, they say it is around 7 seconds. 7 seconds?!

There are many people who use what is referred to as ‘The Rule of 7′ in many facets of their lives and business. The number 7 comes up an incredible amount of times in everyday life. What’s so special about the number seven? We have the Seven Wonders of the World, the seven seas, the seven deadly sins, the seven levels of hell, the seven primary colors, and the seven days of the week? What about the 7 tips for a better (insert your favorite topic here). Why are there only seven numbers in everyone’s phone number?

There is no real concrete reason why the number seven so heavily influences our lives. In 1956, psychologist George Miller, after extensive study, wrote a paper entitled, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information”. In his study, he equated seven to the maximum number of information segments that humans can process at any given time. While his view on the subject is somewhat contested in various circles, it does raise some interesting questions and ideas.

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist who took some of George Miller’s ideas and ran with them in the realm of social psychology. In his book, “Tipping Point”, he says, “as human beings we can only handle so much information at once. Once we pass a certain boundary, we become overwhelmed.” He then goes on to recount some of Miller’s research and comes up with that boundary being near six or seven points maximum.

What we do know is that seven is an important number. So, if we use the ‘seven second impression’ time limit as our benchmark in the design and presentation of your website’s homepage and navigation, then how do we make the best use of those seven precious seconds? Since we’re discussing the enigmatic number seven, let’s create seven guidelines to use:

1. Simplicity

Simple, yet attractive works well. Unique and creative doesn’t have to mean complicated and overwhelming. Many times too much action and information on a homepage becomes overwhelming, causing people to click away quickly. Many website designs feature seven main operation/navigation buttons (coincidence? Nah!).

2. Purpose

What is the purpose of the site? Make it immediately clear. “Great taste – Less Filling” is the idea here. Lean and mean. In the spirit of simplicity, get right to the point with the site’s message. Where do you want to take a site visitor? Make it abundantly clear.

3. Consistency in Layout

Make sure that your site’s layout remains consistent from page to page. People get frustrated when they have to search how to go from page 3 back to the home page. Ensure that your navigation process is simple and consistent throughout the entire site. Make sure that everything you incorporate into the site revolves around being user-friendly and interactive.

4. Know What the Competition is Doing

Research your competitor’s sites, find out what they are doing right, and do it better on your company’s site!

5. Professional in Content

While you may be considered the most knowledgeable person about your company’s products and services, you’re ability to write perfect prose may be questionable. It’s always a good idea to hire a writer to create your site’s content. Or, if you want to generate the message yourself, consider hiring a proofreader and/or editor to review the text for the site. It’s in poor taste to have an excellently designed website that is full of run-on sentences, misspellings, and improper punctuation. Create a completely professional package by making sure your content is written correctly.

6. Test the Site Yourself

Put yourself in the position of a potential customer/site visitor. Use the site from their point of view. If the site is set up to process orders, then go through the entire order process. Make sure it is error free, not confusing, and transitions smoothly throughout the whole process.

7. Ask Others to Evaluate for You

Ask other people to use the site and review it for you. Asking for outside help can sometimes bring to light issues that you may have never noticed on your own. Try to use a broad cross section of people to review the site. In doing this you will get a good snapshot of the effectiveness of the site.

These seven guidelines are not all inclusive. There are other things that rank highly in importance too for ensuring you get the most “bang for your buck” in the precious seven to ten second opportunity you have with a visitor to your company’s website. However, these are seven extremely critical components that should always be considered.

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Color Card Administrator is the parent company of PrintBusinessCards.com and several other innovative Real Estate Business Cards website, we’re eager to share with you what it is we do. Give us a call today at 858-522-9335 or email at Author@CardAdmin.com for Online Business Cards. We look forward to discussing your comments, suggestions, or hearing any ideas for future article topics you may be interested in regarding business cards design or business
card management.

5 Tips on Making the Most of Your Contact Forms – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Angela Charles in Featured

Over the last several months, I’ve had to make a few trips to doctor’s offices and medical facilities for myself and my kids. As a result of those adventures I have a new pet peeve: Organizations that ask WAY too much information for their files.

Filling out a patient form in a doctor’s office is like applying for a mortgage these days. Home phone number, work number, cell number, full contact info for your closest relatives, social security number, job title, on and on and on. Equally offensive is having to fill out multiple forms with this same information or to have to answer these questions after already having filled out the forms.

As a marketer, I understand the need to collect data. But, in my mind, if you’re going to ask someone for a certain piece of information, you’d better have a legitimate reason to need it.

After leaving several messages at my home phone number, a doctor’s office complained that I was difficult to reach. I responded that I work during the day and that if they needed to reach me, they could have used either the work number or the cell number in their file. That’s when they said: “Well, some people don’t like us to use those numbers.”

Which gets me to tips for website contact forms.

Tip #1: If you’re not going to use the information you’ve requested, then don’t ask for it!!

Your website contact form is a great tool for generating qualified sales leads. With a few pointed questions, you can determine pretty easily which leads are serious and which ones are just wasting your time.

However, it’s important that your contact form ask just enough to be able to properly steer the lead to the right department or salesperson; going much beyond that threatens to annoy the prospect at the least and, at worst, can cause people to abandon the form, and your website, entirely.

Tip #2: Don’t ask questions on your contact form that your prospect can’t answer.

Contact forms generally are going to be filled out by people who have no prior experience with your company, products or services. Because of that, your prospects may not know exactly how to describe what they want in the terms that your company would use.

For example, if you sell machinery called the Pro-Master I, Pro-Master II and Pro-Master III, it might make sense to have a question on your form that says: “I would like additional information on:” with check boxes for each of the three pieces of machinery. More than likely, prospects will check off all three because they don’t know enough about any of them to make a determination of which machine is best suited for them. And, in the process, you’ve likely annoyed them by asking them to know enough about your machinery to make that determination.

A better way to word this would be: “Please send me information about your Pro-Master machinery line.”

Tip #3: Don’t assume that all people who fill out your contact form read your whole website.

Many Internet users are skimmers, not deep readers, so chances are that the folks who fill out your contact forms have only looked at your site long enough to compel them into filling out your form. They’re not interested in reading all 300 pages of your website, they want to talk to someone to get their questions answered. That’s a good thing!

Tip #4: Give prospects information in the way they requested.

Folks who fill out contact forms generally do this to avoid phone calls. They want to be able to evaluate your company’s information on their own, before initiating a direct conversation. But, sometimes, the reason they fill out the form is because they don’t want to have to navigate your phone system to get to the right person. On your form, ask whether they would like to be contacted by phone or by e-mail, and then follow up in that manner. It will put your prospect at ease and make them feel that you understand them.

This doesn’t preclude you from doing a follow up phone call once you’ve e-mailed out the requested information.

Tip #5: Treat a contact form like a phone call.

I’ve always been amazed at retail establishments that will have a client standing in front of them wait while they answer a phone call. Shouldn’t the person who walked in your door two minutes ago get first priority over a ringing phone?

Similarly, it’s best not to make your contact form prospects wait several days for information they’ve requested. Contact forms should be treated as you would an incoming phone call. Process them in the order they arrive as efficiently as possible. You want to be sure that the prospect receives the information they requested before they forget that they ever sent the request.

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Angie Charles is President of Pilot Fish, a search engine optimization (SEO) firm and website design company located in Akron, OH. Pilot Fish specializes in helping business-to-business clients get found online. For more information or help with your b-to-b website, visit Pilot Fish
at http://www.pilotfishseo.com.

How Webinar Marketing Can Help Your SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Nick Stamoulis in Featured

Offering a webinar is a great way to build your brand, introduce yourself to prospective clients and establish yourself or your company as an industry authority. Whether you want to offer a free or paid webinar is up to you, but the true value of a webinar begins long before the actual session starts and can carry you along well after it is done. You can leverage your webinar for your SEO and turn a one-time event into a long-term marketing effort with extended life and use.

Here are 3 ways you can use webinar marketing to help your SEO before the webinar takes place:

1. Create a Unique Landing Page

Chances are you schedule your webinars well in advance. Start the sign-up process early by designing and launching a landing page for your webinar. This unique landing page can rank in the search engines for keyword “webinar,” so make sure your take the time to properly optimize it. This includes developing Meta tags and a Meta description, creating a unique URL structure, optimizing the content and so forth. You want people to find this landing page! Once you have an actual page built, it can be indexed and rank in the search engines. This makes it easier for people to find and sign up than if you just added a snippet of content to the bottom of another page on your website.

Get More Clients & Sell More Products with Effective Search Engine Optimization

By Lucy Beer in Featured

It’s true that there can be many confusing intricacies to the science of Search Engine Optimization, but what’s also true is that most people get tripped up on the basics, before they even get to the complex stuff! In working with many entrepreneurial and small business clients, I’ve come to see a few common trends in the way that people look at SEO and why they are often not getting the results they want.

Improvement typically begins with some fundamental shifts in the way you think about the process.

1) Forget Sex, Specificity Sells!
Lack of clarity about your business offerings and target market will lead to lack of clarity in your search marketing efforts and you will either attract clients that aren’t a good fit, or you will have trouble converting your web traffic. Your search engine strategy should be based on a clear picture of who your ideal client is and exactly what you can do for them. Then make sure that you are effectively communicating that on your website.

2) Are you in alignment?
Don’t try and target every keyword on every page – create specific pages or groups of pages for specific keyword groups. That typically means you’ll create specific pages for each service/product you provide. Make sure your pages are in alignment: the main elements – title, url, content,headings etc – should all reflect the target keyword for that page.

3) The Way You Search May Not Be The Way Your Prospect Searches
There may be specific ‘insider’ terms related to your business which you know about and take for granted because you’re an expert. But a prospect may not yet know those words – how else may they be looking for your service? Doing your keyword research may reveal alternate and more popular ways that people think and search for your service/product, so be prepared to adapt your language where necessary. Listen to the words your current clients and leads use when talking about your business or service, and incorporate them into your keyword research.

4) Quality Not Quantity – Conversions Are The Real Point
It’s not just about the amount of traffic that you get, but how qualified it is. There’s no point getting bucket loads of traffic if they don’t end up buying or taking the next step. You’ll build a more viable business based on very targeted traffic rather than trying to only get huge numbers. So make sure you’re targeting ‘long tail’ phrases that may have a smaller search volume but deliver very specific traffic.

5) Don’t just think about how well your website performs, but how are your individual pages performing?
Your homepage is not always the most relevant or effective place that visitors can enter your site. By looking at your Google Analytics reports you will be able to see if visitors are landing at the most appropriate page for their search. If not, you may need to re-optimize some pages. Do your most popular pages have a clear call to action or next step?

6) On-Site Optimization Is Only Half The Battle!
To really perform well in the search engines (especially if you have a lot of competition), you must get your content out there and build quality links back to it. There’s always something else you can be doing to find a new audience for your information such as networking with bloggers in your field and getting your content exposure on other websites.

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Lucy Beer of WebTrainingWheels.com is an online marketing professional of more than 9 years. She has been using and loving WordPress since 2004 and provides WordPress training services. She also consults with small businesses on their online marketing strategy, helping them develop and execute a plan that increases their business and engages their target audience.

Why You Should Never Hire A Copywriter – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Ken Hoffman in Featured

When most online business owners think of boosting their sales, they immediately think of getting a copywriter. They understand that words sell. So if they want to increase conversion rates, getting better copy is a great way to do that.

Here’s the rub though. While the copy is probably the single most important aspect to improve sales, it’s completely irrelevant if the strategy is wrong. Or if the design/usability of your website is not right.

Copy sells. But copy doesn’t sell in a vacuum. Strategy trumps copy every time.

Increasing sales is a factor of targeted traffic, to an effectively designed site, with great copy to compel prospects to act. Underlying all this is strategy: Positioning, unique selling proposition, direct response marketing, and creating an irresistible offer.

While most copywriters have some understanding of these topics, they are usually blinded because they focus singularly on the copy. The same way that a doctor focuses on drugs and surgery and a carpenter focuses on using a hammer and nails. It’s simply what they do.

Most copywriters do what you tell them. And that’s actually bad. They write what you ask for. The problem is what you think you need is often not what you actually need to get results.

This is a constant source of frustration for both business owners and copywriters. The business owner blames the copywriter. The copywriter blames the business owner.

The truth? They are both to blame. And at the same time neither to blame.

Let me explain.

The business owner has a myopic vision of his/her business. The copywriter has a bias toward copy. The copywriter shouldn’t let the business owner dictate what needs to be done. The business owner shouldn’t be looking to the copywriter to save the day.

They can’t. Only strategy meshed with copy will save the day.

The right strategy combined with great copy, read by the right group of targeted prospects will create a winner.

Many copywriters today add the word consultant to their byline. The only way to find out if they really are strategically focused, is by the way they talk and the questions they ask. Do they seem to be primarily focused on the words, prospect, and product? Or do they ask strategic questions on the bigger picture.

The answer is to look for a marketer, not a copywriter. A direct marketer to be specific: Not an ad agency, media rep, or traditional marketing consultant, and not just a copywriter.

If you aren’t getting the results you want, and you’ve tried improving the copy chances are it’s a strategic issue, not the copy. So you need a marketer to figure that out, not a copywriter.

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Ken Hoffman is a strategic business advisor and direct response copywriter. He is the author of “Scientific Advertising For The New Economy.” Signup for Ken’s FREE newsletter, Sales Copy: Before & After. You can also download his free report “Website Conversion Strategies” Get it now from http://www.goodmarketingforbadtimes.com/ezine.html

Why Providing Content Should Be Your FIRST Priority – Not Starting Conversations!

By Eric Gruber in Featured

As I look on my Facebook news feed I see:

* A business and life coach mentioned: Today’s challenge is to see if I can replace the heating element on the dryer…I’ll let you know if I succeed or fail… lol… send prayers…lol

* Quotes by Tony Robbins from someone who is not Tony Robbins

* A realtor asked: What are your top 5 favorite things about summer? Mine are 1) Farmer’s market, 2) Baseball 3) Weekend cookouts 4) A sliced summer tomato with a dollop of Hellman’s mayo 5) Sunlight till 9 pm!

* A famous internet marketer who was on the show “Secret Millionaire” mentioned: Wishing you a great morning. I’m off to the gym for a workout. What are you doing on this blessed morning?

As I look on my LinkedIn news feed I see…

* From a newsletter guru: It’s “Good Works” Saturday! Meeting friends for breakfast and then we’ll complete repairs on our current home project.

* From a relationship expert for women – Sands of time only run out for those who live in the limits of an hour-glass. Become a limitless prism of light & the sands flow infinitely!

* From a master life coach: Quiet day (@ Roya’s Garlic Garden)

Now, these may be conversation starters. They may be following the advice of many social media experts that tell you to quote people and ask conversation starting questions like: “What is your favorite dessert?” These types of conversations may generate more comments – and get you more friends. But are they really helping your business?

Why Focusing on Conversations Will Not Bring You New Business...

How is posting a comment like: “What are your top 5 favorite things about summer” going to help a realtor get more leads? You may get 100 people commenting on their favorite things, but it doesn’t build credibility, sales and business relationships. It doesn’t show me why I should go to you for my real estate needs if I am looking to buy or sell a house in that realtor’s area. It doesn’t differentiate you from your competition.

Yes – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook are “social” marketing tools. But that doesn’t mean that you stray away from providing content that adds value to people’s lives and businesses.

Here’s How the Top 5% Are Making Money Using Content and Social Media

Don Crowther just put out a video revealing that the top 5% who are making the most money on social media build relationships by initially delivering a steady stream of highly-relevant, highly-informative, high-value content. Then they engage in conversations by answering questions and responding to feedback.

The top 5% do not initiate conversations. That creates a deviation from your targeted audiences’ business needs – and it doesn’t give you the business relationship you need to get more clients and sales.

The top 5% are…

* Offering tips that no one else is providing – and then inviting prospects to get their free special reports like the one found at http://www.getlinkedinhelp.com, free ebooks, free video or in my case, free article writing templates at http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com

* Teasing prospects with shocking statements or thought provoking questions and then sending prospects to an article placement on a top website or to their blog for more information. At the end of the blog post, they encourage conversation based on the information they had provided. And they add a call-to-action to learn more, whether it means grab their free information or invest in one of their products or services.

* Wowing prospects with the information they provide and encouraging prospects to discuss what they had learned. That’s why many internet marketers are now encouraging prospects to comment on their squeeze pages (using Facebook) and on their pages where they offer valuable information.

By Focusing on Providing Quality Content in Your Area of Expertise Followers Will See You As:

* An expert
* Someone to respect
* Someone to listen to
* Someone to do business with

Now, what kind of conversations are you going to engage in? Social conversations like, “What are you doing today?” or social business conversations based on your content that positions you as a thought leader.

Your answer will depend on if you get more “friends” or more clients and customers.

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Article Marketing Expert Eric Gruber helps small business owners, experts and internet marketers become “trusted leaders in their industries” with thought leadership articles and content that should be submitted to top websites, ezines, blogs as well as social media circles. Now, you can learn how to create thought leadership content fast (in 30 minutes or less in many cases) with his instant article writing templates. Get 3 for free now at: http://www.TryMyFreeArticleTemplates.com

Mediation, Mediation: What are the Questions?

By The Mediator.ca in Featured

The most common question that we hear in our practice during consultations with new clients is: why should we go with a mediator to help resolve our disputes rather than a lawyer? Our answer is simple, and surprises many of our clients – engaging services of a mediator may be seen as either an alternative or a complement to seeking services of a lawyer.

Mediator: An Alternative to Retaining a Lawyer

Engaging services of a mediator is a valid alternative for clients pursuing dispute resolution. Mediators are intensively trained, and possess specialized facilitation and negotiation skills that are honed for the purposes of consensus building and agreement management. A mediator is a neutral party who seeks to understand the interests of all disputing parties and who assists discussion between and among disputing parties in accordance with his or her central objective – to resolve a dispute to the satisfaction of all disputing parties. A mediator does not represent any of the disputing parties nor does he or she privilege one of the parties’ positions within the dispute. A mediator is impartial and aims to find an optimal resolution to a conflict in consideration of all parties’ interests.

Mediator: A Complement to Retaining a Lawyer

Some clients want to pursue mediation with a trained mediator, but prefer to do so with a legal representative at their side. Whether lawyers are or are not in the picture, a mediator will play precisely the same role – he or she is still an impartial party with the central objective of finding an optimal resolution to a dispute in consideration of all parties and their interests. Again, the mediator does not represent either client as the lawyers of disputing parties represent their own clients in the mediation session.

To Lawyer Up or Not, that is a Question

Since mediators and lawyers play radically different roles in a mediation session, whether a client wants to go with a mediator alone or a mediator and a lawyer is a matter of clients’ personal preference. Many clients prefer to work with a trained mediator alone because he or she is impartial, proficient in the art of facilitation and negotiation for consensus building and agreement management, and specially trained in skills of mediation and conciliatory dispute resolution. Because mediators are neutral parties within a dispute, disputing parties share the cost of mediation, making this form of dispute resolution less costly and, therefore, more appealing for many clients.

Despite the presence and services of a trained mediator, some clients prefer to hire a lawyer to represent them within the mediation, mainly to help them articulate their interests. Mediators are familiar with and skilled at working with disputing parties and their legal counsel, but regardless of whether or not lawyers participate in the mediation, a mediator remains impartial. In this scenario, parties in a dispute will share costs of mediation while being individually responsible for the fees of their legal counsel.

Mediation versus Court – Now That is the Question

Though prospective clients frequently frame questions, during our initial consultations, as a choice between hiring a mediator or retaining a lawyer, as discussed at the start of this article, clients can fare well in mediation with or without a lawyer. So, the mediator versus lawyer question is not the most important question for clients to assess when evaluating mediation as a dispute resolution option. The most important question is whether clients wish to pursue mediation or litigation.

Litigation is most commonly associated with the court system. It is no surprise that the court system is hinged on the perspective that there is a right and a wrong party, a good and a bad. Mediation, on the other hand, looks to find points of agreement so that parties are as satisfied with outcomes of the mediation. Due to this agreement management approach, mediation is more and more being presented as a viable and even preferable alternative to litigation when it comes to dispute resolution. In fact, the Government of Canada has been actively encouraging parties who are pursuing civil disputes to participate in mediation through the mandatory mediation program; this is because mediation:

a. Takes less time to arrive at resolution since parties do not have to wait for court dates;

b. Is less costly than litigation; this is due to the fact that costs are shared among disputing parties and mediations tend to take less time from start to finish;

c. Is a more positive and much less adversarial approach, that resolves disputes to the greater satisfaction of all parties with less damage to relationships of disputing parties.

Given these benefits of mediation over litigation, it is no surprise that the government is moving forward with a family mandatory mediation program in which parties involved in family disputes (namely marriage dissolution) to pursue mandatory mediation. One might imagine that time and cost savings as well as relationship preservation are critical for these types of disputes.

Summary

Disputing parties aim to find a way in which to maximize their satisfaction with the outcomes of a dispute as expeditiously as possible, particularly when the stakes are high. Potential clients are often under the impression that when in a dispute their central choice is whether to hire a mediator or a lawyer. In this article, it is suggested that while there are definite benefits to pursuing the services of a mediator alone, there is nothing inherently incompatible between retaining the services of a lawyer and of a mediator. In fact, the choice is often a matter of clients’ comfort level.

Further, it might be said that the real choice and the important question is whether to mediate or litigate. Unlike the question of whether to hire a mediator or lawyer or both, the question of whether to mediate or litigate can have real implications for the outcome of a dispute and can be far-reaching. While litigation is typically an adversarial, lengthy and costly process, mediation is typically less damaging to relationships (it is conciliatory and focused on agreement management), it takes far less time (parties do not have to wait for court dates, lawyers schedules, examination, discovery etc.) and it is less costly. It is for these reasons that the government is increasingly supportive of mandatory mediation programs in which parties are encouraged to pursue mediation as a bone fide alternative dispute resolution model to litigation.

It is the question of whether to mediate or litigate – not whether to pursue the services of a mediator or a lawyer – that has the greatest implications for the tone and outcome of the dispute resolution process; it is this question that clients should spend considerable time contemplating.

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TheMediator.ca is a full service mediation firm that specializes in business mediation and workplace mediation. Our experience, professionalism and personable, customized service make us a leading choice for all of your mediation solutions.

The 10 Basic Rules of Social Media Marketing

By Allison Kahn in Featured

Social Media Marketing is the act of using social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) in order to promote a business.

Many companies will want to start their own social media marketing campaign and create a Facebook page or Twitter account. The problem with is they don’t have a clue on how to run a successful social media marketing campaign. Here, I have listed 10 of the most basic rules when it comes to social media marketing. Follow these rules in order to have successful accounts with Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The 10 [basic] Rules of Social Media Marketing

1. Update! I shouldn’t even have to list this as a rule, but many forget how important it is. You should try and update daily because when consumers visit your page and it has not been updated in over a month, they will assume it is inactive and decide not to follow your business. Also, they could easily go with your competitor because their page is so active they feel that business will give them better service. You do not want that to happen, so update your social media accounts regularly!

2. No pitching! You are not Billy Mays. Therefore, you do not need to yell at consumers telling them to buy your product or use your business. Social media is meant to connect, not pitch. If your consumers feel they have a connection with your company through your Facebook page or Twitter feed, they are more likely to use you over another business that does not make an earnest effort to connect.

SEO Strategy – How to Simplify the Whole SEO Process

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

If you’re a full-time online marketer and webmaster, you may get the feeling (in my case a stubborn opinion) that because SEO has become such a big industry, it has to be “complicated up” rather than “dumbed down” for the receiving audience. In other words, it is in the best interest of SEO firms and services to make SEO seem like a much more complex process than it actually is in practice.

This applies doubly true for when it comes to ranking high in Google. Many SEO firms go into all kinds of “linking structures”, “site metrics”, “keyword correlations”, “onpage factors”… in explaining how to achieve those top Google spots for lucrative keywords. Granted, the Google Algorithm has over 200 ranking signals or factors which they use to rank pages. And, this mathematical formula is constantly being redefined or altered by major changes, such as the recent Panda Update, which left many webmasters reeling. But…

While Google’s ranking algorithm and system might be the most complex creature on the planet, ranking high in Google is a very simple process. So simple anyone can do it and achieve first page listings in Google. It’s not rocket science and it’s not complex by any stretch of the imagination. However, it does take some work on the part of the webmaster to actively promote his or her site. In other words, if you just create a perfect site and place it on the web and do nothing else – chances are extremely high you won’t get those top rankings in Google, at least not for the highly competitive lucrative keyword phrases.

This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) enters the picture and takes over. You must get certain factors/signals right if you want your site to truly compete in major search engine keyword battles. But most of these things or factors are not difficult or hard to understand, you just need to have them in place if you want top listings in the search engines.

New TLDs, boom or bust?

By Mike Poller in Featured

Starting next year, ICANN is willing to take $185,000 plus $25,000 annual maintenance fee to sell you your very own top-level domain (TLD) to replace the “.com” domain you are now using.

Sure, Ford may be able to purchase the “.truck” domain and then have their very own www.ford.truck URL. But then what?

Google, Bing and Yahoo still convert keyword searches into potential domain targets. They tell searchers where to look for relevant information. And I don’t see that changing just because Ford or GM buy the “.truck” domain. Buying a new top-level domain will not guarantee you a stampede of visitors.

Of course, Microsoft makes the Internet Explorer browser while Google makes the Chrome browser and has a deal with Firefox for built-in web search. So the top three browsers are under the control of the top two search engines. I just don’t see Google and Microsoft suddenly making their search advertising business irrelevant by making these new top-level domains the default go to sites.

Search will remain a viable business. And for search to remain viable, the new TLDs must not come to dominate by default. The search engines control it, and the search engines will not let it happen.

So where’s the boom in new TLDs? Well imagine if you were a large national association, take the American Bar Association, for example. The ABA claims to be the largest association in the world. If I was ABA president, I would be writing that check for $185,000 right now, and I would want to own the TLD “.lawyer” for my association.

Why? Easy, I would give every member a free email address forward like “firstname.lastname@ABA.lawyer” for life. This will greatly reduce the association communications cost because you now have every member’s email address. Then I would offer to sell domains to member law firms so you could have “firstname.lastname@firmname.lawyer” as an email address. This generates income for the association and makes sustaining membership more valuable. The “.lawyer” domain on one’s email address is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Of course, having the email address of almost every lawyer soon becomes a viable advertising vehicle. The association will be able to sell ads in weekly/monthly email newsletters.

My guess is, come January 2012, you’ll see the American Medical Association, the Auto Dealer’s Association even the AARP or the ASPCA lining up to buy their own top-level domains. I don’t expect Ford to purchase the “.truck” domain, but I’m pretty certain they’ll purchase “.ford” and every Ford dealer will get a new URL. In addition to their “.com” address, not instead of.

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Mike Poller runs a Miami, Florida advertising agency involved in Online, social media, radio, TV, print and outdoor.

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