Whether you’re promoting a business opportunity or selling tools and services from a sales page, you cannot hope to be profitable unless people visit your website.

However, you must attract not just anyone, but visitors who are interested in the product, service or opportunity you are marketing. The better the match, the more targeted your visitors and the higher quality they are as prospects for your business.

Why keyword research is important to your business success

Your best strategy will be based upon driving targeted visitors to your website. Keyword research is partly about exploring your niche ‘target’ market and partly about forcing the search engines to find your pages and rank them highly.

Getting on the first page of the search results is important to your business, since this is where the majority of people will find you. 70% of web searchers never look past the first page and the ‘hottest’ area on page one is upper left side where the top five sites are listed.

So how does keyword research help you target your visitors? Well, first, it can help you identify what words or phrases people are typing into their search engine, especially those most predisposed to your offer – in other words, highly targeted prospects equals high quality traffic.

What do people who are seriously interested in starting a home business on the Internet, for example, actually search on? What exact terms or questions are they searching on? This tells you where they are in the decision making process – are they ready to buy or apply or are they still browsing?

Second, how often (to a degree) your page uses certain words and phrases will determine how a search engine values it. All major search engines use ‘algorithms’ to decide how highly to rate any page they analyze. Such algorithms are essentially little programs, called spiders, which scan the text on your page and then index it based upon what the words and phrases tell them the page is about.

A properly constructed webpage should focus on one particular keyword or phrase you are targeting. Placing your main keywords at specific locations across your page means the search engines will ’see’ them. These are the page title, description, meta tags and body, even the alternative text ‘tags’ for your images and videos. This is partly what search engine optimization (SEO) is all about doing.

How to identify your best keywords

The first step in your keyword research process is to find keywords that best match your most targeted visitors’ searches. Get into the minds of your prospects. What are their hopes, fears, desires, dreams?

Can you recall what your search was when you were exploring starting a home business? What are you main issues, needs, concerns?

As Perry Marshall says: “What’s the conversation that’s going on in their head?” The more you can step into your prospects shoes, the more targeted and specific you can make your keywords.

You are not looking for one golden shot here. You should identify a range of keywords and key phrases, come at it from all angles, test them out and see what converts best for your particular business.

First go after one niche you can relate to personally. For example, moms looking to work from home around the kids or people who want to own a franchise business. Either may have an entrepreneurial spirit. People’s initial search may clue you in on where they are coming from.

The second stage is to identify keywords that are profitable. It’s important not to go after the obvious or most popular keywords, like home business or Internet marketing. These are far too broad and it will be either too expensive or take too much time to rank high for these in either the natural or the paid search results.

The focus of your keyword research must be on identifying longer more specific search phrases, we call “long tail keywords”, that give you a good chance of appearing in the top 5 results on the first page of Google, Yahoo or MSN.

How to use free tools to identify long tail keywords

There are many different ways of undertaking effective keyword research. Many actually make use of free or low cost tools. I’d advise starting with the free ones.

The simplest method is just to brainstorm. Write down every phrase or term you can think of that could possibly relate to your business opportunity, product or service.

Another way is to use Google itself. Type in a broad phrase like home business and you’ll see it returns millions of pages relating to that keyword.

But watch what happens as you are typing. Google will create a short list of popular searches that start with that broad keyword, so you can then type in these, and get more suggestions again. You’ll also find related keywords at the bottom of the results page for any search you do.

You can also use the free keyword research tool at Wordtracker.com to drill down in much the same way.

Although these “long tail” keywords will generate lower volume, they are usually far less competitive. For example, look first at home business, then you might drill down to “home business opportunities in Denver” or “best home businesses in UK”.

A good rule of thumb is to identify a keyword that comes up with around 5000 searches for its specific exact match search (i.e. when you add quotations round it). E.g. “how to start a home business”.

Once you have a list of potential keyword phrases you believe are a good match for your business, you can move on to more detailed research based on actual search volumes and potential CPC (cost-per-click).

Use Google’s own free keyword tool, which can be found under Tools in your AdWords account. SEOchat.com, QuantCast.com and Spyfu.com also have some free tools you can use to spy on your competition.

It’s certainly getting more competitive out there on the Internet. Check out Google Trends (Google.com/trends) or NicheBot (nichebotclassic.com) to review the competition. Be on the look out for new terms coming up that match your business then test those out using the free keyword research tools again.

Keyword research is the solid foundation for your marketing and therefore your business, so using some ingenuity and persistence to find gaps in the current competition in your niche can really pay off.

Ranking high for your keywords

Once you have your list of potential long tail keyword phrases, you should check out the competition in terms of what websites and other content is already out there. This will allow you to create unique content around your keywords that stands out in the market place.

Put each keyword into your favourite search engine and review what comes up. If one of your keywords generates search results for a lot of authority sites or sites with a high page rank, you may find it hard to get your domain website ranked high.

However, you might have good success with a blog page, an article or a video tagged with that keyword phrase, since the search engines love web 2.0 properties like these. But if there are lots of videos out there already, just make sure you create a different web 2.0 property, e.g. a Squidoo lens or hub page, or podcast maybe.

If you develop content that is both unique in type and keyword-rich for your chosen niche, you are putting yourself ahead of the game. Both the search engines and your human visitors will love your stuff and hopefully pass it on and jump start the social viral marketing process.

Testing how well your keywords convert

At the end of the day, all the keyword research in the world will only give you an indication of likely success. The real proof of how effective your keyword research has been is in the testing.

It’s important to track your keywords against conversions rather than click through rates. This is the only true test for whether you’ve hit a profitable niche for your business.

In summary:

• The ability to conduct effective keyword research is a fundamental skill that any serious Internet marketer or business owner must acquire.
• Create content based on those long tail phrases that is of value to your niche and your visitors, checking that there isn’t already a tonne of stuff out there on that topic or issue. The aim is to rank your content on the first page of the major search engines.
• Without a profitable keyword list, you will pay dearly for each click in the paid search advertising and there is little chance that you will ever be able to generate targeted, focused leads from free organic traffic.
• Effective keyword research should therefore be the cornerstone of your marketing and your business.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Research Keywords for your Internet Marketing Niche

It really made me think hard about the headlines I’d been using in my ads, email and even on twitter. This guy was talking about using curiosity as a driving force in your marketing.

Let’s name it curiosity marketing.

Before I give you the three words, let me explain a bit more about curiosity marketing, how people decide to buy things and how your headline and buyer keywords can tap into each step along the buyer’s decision making process.

Killer Headlines

For curiosity marketing to work really well, your headline is the one of the entry points into your sales funnel. Your sales funnel should mirror buyer decision-making processes, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

The headline needs to hit a number of buttons. It doesn’t always have to hit them all, so don’t make your headline needlessly complex. It needs to grab attention first and foremost.

If you were marketing on dog training, you might use a headline like “7 Free Tricks to Stop your Dog Barking”.

What makes this an effective ‘killer’ headline?

• Intrigue. The headline is kind of intriguing since you don’t say what those tricks are so people get curious and want to find out what those tricks are.
• Incentive. The information is “free”, which could remove one obstacle to someone taking a look. If you hook people up with a great deal, they like you and trust you more.
• A Solution. It offers a solution through use of the question “how” and the answer “tricks”.
• Tangible. The number ‘7′ adds something tangible and definite about what you’re offering.
• Targeted. The headline is focused on one specific problem, undesirable dog barking, so people searching specifically for help with this one problem, will be highly targeted prospects.

If you were into dog training or were a dog owner searching for a solution to why your dog won’t stop barking, you’d probably click on this, right?

Thus the point of your title is what? To take your visitor to the next step, which is to click your ad, open your email, visit your blog post, read your article.

What you do after they get to your page or blog or whatever comes next in your sales funnel, is partly on how you satisfy the original curiosity and sell them on the next step. (It’s kind of funny to think how the marriage analogy would go in those terms!)

The Buying Decision Process

At this point, you are not expecting someone to buy straight out. People buy from someone they know, like and trust.

Would you ask your girlfriend to move in with you after one date? You’d wine and dine her a few times, and ask after the relationship has developed over time. So now when you pop the question … she may surprise you – your most wanted response!

In marketing, your most wanted response at the start of the buying process is simply that targeted prospects click on your ad, open your email or click the link you give in twitter.

OK, so that got me thinking about what would work in our industry – marketing to the home business opportunity seeker. I’ve always known the importance of researching your buyer keywords.

In other words, you have to identify what people who are looking for a home business are actually looking for … and then draw them in using curiosity.

Identifying Buyer Keywords

The killer keywords are always the starting point of course. What is it that people looking for a business opportunity might be searching for – what solution are they looking for? What’s the problem or situation they want to resolve? What’s their most wanted outcome?

I think it was Perry Marshall who said if someone is out shopping for a drill, they are not searching for a drill they want a hole.

If someone is out searching for dog training, they most probably have a specific and immediate problem they are trying to resolve, like “my dog keeps barking every time we leave him alone in a room and it’s driving us mad, not to mention the complaints from the neighbours!”

Your headline still needs to be relevant to your target audience, but curiosity marketing is about taking people to the next step. How can you entice someone to take the next action step in your sales funnel and ultimately towards a buying decision?

Creating Your Sales Funnel

One approach I have found works really well for creating your sales funnel is to mirror the decision-making processes in your buying chain. In my game, I try to identify probable steps that someone looking for a home business would take.

Once you are clear about what is your ‘most wanted response’ from them at each step, you should be able to more easily identify both headlines and buyer keywords according to where a person has got to in making a decision to buy.

The first step in the sales funnel is to get people INTO your sales funnel. And this is where curiosity marketing to a targeted audience can be really effective.

You’re at the top end of the sales funnel where there is the most competition usually so you’re ad or email has to stand out in the crowd – in the search engine advertising or email inbox.

Throw in an incentive on the back of a curious headline and your click rates will soar. Offer your visitors valuable information – the 7 free tricks – and use curiosity to sell them on taking the next step into your sales funnel.

This next step might be to give you their contact details in exchange for your newsletter and/or a free report so you continue to provide them with useful information. As a follow up, you could offer a low cost product like a training guide or video bootcamp or perhaps a basic subscription.

There’s no limit to the length of your sales funnel. People who have bought on one step are your prime prospects. They are buyers.

Upsell – offer them your next product or an upgrade or extra related product. They are now buyers who like your information or your products and trust its value to them.

A buyer is a buyer is a buyer – Not sure whose quote that is (maybe Russell Brunson told me).

So curiosity marketing is all about taking people to the next step in the buying chain.

My headline on this article (and I’ll tweet and email on this too cos it’s fun!)

What three words will always make people give you their money?

Question: Who would I target this one at?

Answer: People looking for buyer keywords, marketing strategies, conversion tactics, sales training.

Oh, and I guess you want to know what are the three words, yes?

STICK ‘EM UP!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Three Simple Words that Push People to Part with Their Cash

Negative publicity online has become one of the most frustrating challenges for companies. It is typically anonymous. Names are often unattached to forum threads, blog posts, and even entire websites. Therefore,it is difficult to track and address the source of the complaint. Moreover, the growing popularity of social networking platforms has made it easier than ever for anyone with a mild grievance to give weight to their grudge. If you or your company have been the target of bad press online, it may be time to launch a reverse SEO campaign.

In this article, we’ll clarify how negative publicity gains traction within the search engines, and how it can lead to a public relations nightmare. We’ll also provide a working blueprint for executing a reverse SEO campaign and controlling the damage.

Controlling Bad Publicity With Reverse Search Engine Optimization

To appreciate why reverse SEO is effective, you should understand how negative press takes root within the top search listings in the first place. Google, Yahoo, and Bing rank pages based on a large number of criteria. If a website and its individual pages satisfy the most important of those criteria, those pages will rank well.

A lot of the bad press that targets companies (possibly even your own) is placed on websites that meet key ranking parameters in the search algorithms. That means the negative publicity can climb into the top positions and gain exposure. When people search for you or your company, they’ll see the bad press. That damages your reputation.

Reverse search engine optimization is an ORM strategy that pushes negative publicity from the top search positions. By moving the bad press off the first page of listings, reverse SEO limits its exposure and stifles its impact.

Ingredients For An Effective Reverse SEO Campaign

Like search engine marketing, reverse SEO uses a methodical, multi-pronged approach to protect your online reputation. The first step is to identify the sites and pages that contain negative publicity about your company, and are ranking for important keywords. Those keywords might include your name, that of your company, or key employees.

The second step of reverse SEO is to analyze those sites and pages for their respective ranking authority. That will help you determine the effort and tools you’ll need to use in order to move them from the first page of listings within Google, Yahoo, and Bing. A negative PR blitz that is spreading across the social networking sites is more difficult to remove than a single blog post that is on a non-authoritative domain.

The third step is to gather the necessary tools and execute your reverse SEO campaign. Utilization of optimization tools such as press releases, a new network of competing sites and blogs, social media profiles, and social bookmarking programs. Reverse SEO may also include heavy content syndication to build high-quality links. A search engine marketing specialist will have these tools at their disposal.

Reverse SEO Begins Before Negative Press Emerges

The best time to launch a reverse SEO campaign is before bad publicity appears in the search engines. This is due to the way that the pages link. A page will rank well within the search engines if there are enough thematic links pointing toward it. However, once it ranks, it will gain exposure. That exacerbates the problem.

Negative press can spread rapidly as people attach the press to their own blogs, sites, forums, and social media accounts. That creates a growing portfolio of links pointing toward the damaging press, cementing its position in the top listings. It becomes more difficult to address. By launching a reverse SEO campaign upfront, you can prevent the negative publicity from gaining exposure in the first place.

Protect Your Online Reputation With Reverse SEO

Reverse SEO should play a key role in your online reputation management program. It is far too easy for unsatisfied customers, resentful employees, lazy journalists, and malicious competitors to tarnish your name. And when it happens, it is usually done under the cover of anonymity. Anonymity makes the complaint or grievance impossible to address in private.

Launch your reverse SEO campaign now – before trouble strikes and the damage begins to gain momentum in the search engines. In a year’s time, you’ll be glad you did.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Reverse SEO: Restoring Online Reputations

Press releases and news announcements serve many different functions in addition to being source material for journalists to write about.  Yes, it is good to have BIG news that will motivate a writer, editor or journalist to write about your company, product or service, but that is no longer the only reason to create a press release. You don’t need big news just a good hook.

Whether or not you use a Public Relations Agency or do it yourself, here are three good reasons why you should try to write and distribute at least one press release every month.

1. Its Good SEO (Search Engine Optimization & Press Release Optimization) – One of the most important components to getting top Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., search page results – appearing high up or number one when someone searches for your product or services is the number of external web sites that link to your web site.

Your news release appearing on an online or industry news site, at a social networking site, on a newswire such as BusinessWire or PR NewsWire, or even at a directory of press releases, helps improve your site’s overall SEO. In addition to that posting and SEO results, many other sites and blogs may pick up that release and print it on their pages as well, further increasing the Search Engine results for your web site and business.

A good news announcement could show up on hundreds or thousands of different sites!

You need to post new releases on a regular (monthly) basis. As most major news sites only keep their press releases online for about a month or so, you need to keep posting new press releases and news announcements every month to maintain your SEO rating and web page search results positions.

By SEO optimizing your new release and by embedding hotlinks in it that link to specific landing pages on your site, you can further increase how high up your web site will appear in the search results.

You should also make sure your press release also gets posted on your own web site. (You will be amazed by how many businesses neglect this obvious step).  By posting your press releases on your own site, you increase the amount and quality of content on your site. As you probably know, most search engines heavily weigh the amount and quality of content on a site when assigning search results.  For most search engines, the two of the most important factors towards getting a high search page result is the amount of quality links pointing to your web site and the amount of quality content you have on your site. News announcements can fulfill both.

2. Your news announcements and press releases can inform potential customers about your company, its products, services and areas of expertise. No longer targetted to just the press and media, good press releases and news releases also function as marketing documents for your organization.

Most people and businesses now rely on a web search as an integral part of their search for products, and services. Seeing your news announcements all over the web – at the magazines they read, at various blogs, and as a result of web searches, can greatly help boost your company’s brand and product awareness in their mind. It is also useful to have news announcements that inform current and past customers of what is new and that you are still successfully in business.

3. Press may be interested in your “small” news and may want to include it as a standalone announcement or as part of a trend article or column. They may be doing an industry overview or product round up. Also, it is also useful to occasionally inform press that you are an expert in your industry area and are available for comment as needed.    If they don’t see press releases from you or your company on a regular basis, you will drop off their radar screen. You need to show ongoing, consistent news and growth or the press will forget about you.

Better Search Engine results and great SEO, direct out reach to your customers and potential partners, and ongoing contact to the media are the three main reasons why you and your company need to develop and distribute an ongoing series of press releases. They don’t have to be big news. Small news is fine. A new hire, updated web site, and upgrade to your software, new partnership, maybe speaking at a conference or industry event.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How You Can Use News Releases and Announcements to Promote Your Business

The reality though is the success criteria will vary depending on each individual business and the aim of the site but without an initial consult with the site owner or business marketing manager this important metric is often overlooked.

For example an informational or charitable site may only want an increase in exposure, the same could apply to a promotional site also. But an e-commerce site may need to see both tangible and non tangible results.

A tangible result in most cases could be a seen or measured return on investment from the SEO campaign by the generation of increased sales activity of either the target product and/or associated products, and non tangible success factors could be an increased public awareness of the business or brand awareness, and additionally lead generation from client capture that could lead to future sales and/or customer referrals.

In reality whilst the success of a campaign can come down to the increased ranking of a particular single target keyword or phrase resulting in increased visitor numbers or increased sales additionally, a successful campaign will also increase the site authority in the search engines as well.

Site authority can be gained from a short term campaign but in reality is often the result of a longer sustained and well planned campaign that not only targets a small keyword basket but also a diverse one.

Typically reporting only measures targeted keyword/phrase results but often a sites biggest boost in performance comes when it starts to develop authority.

So how do you know when your site is getting authority?

Simple, not only will your site rank for primary keywords but you will also start to rank for a whole bunch of keywords and keyword combinations especially if you have good on page optimisation or have had optimised copy written for you.

In addition to this you will also notice when checking your stats that search engines will send you traffic for phrases you have not even promoted and ultimately for phrases that may not even be on the page.

What happens here is the search engines surmise from your link popularity and on page factors that your site will most probably the site (or one of the sites ) most likely to provide the searcher with the answer they are looking for.

Some typical factors that help site authority are the quality, diversity and spread of the links to your site (not only the front page), new discovered link activity, new relevant pages on your site, on page optimisation and internal linking as well as a few other factors.

So in summary not only track your initial targeted keywords carefully to ensure the results are consistent with your success criteria, but also pay close attention to other keyword traffic that the search engines send you. If the search terms are profitable then develop additional optimised content and pages to grow your site organically and further develop your sites authority.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Successful SEO Strategies – What Should You Be Tracking?

1. Use a Text Based PDF Creator: There are a lot free tools available online with Adobe Acrobat being the best text based PDF creator. If a PDF document is created in an image based program, the search engines will completely ignore it. If the PDF is created using a text based creator like Adobe acrobat, the search engine robots will read and index the text like any other web page.
2. Update the Document Title: The title of the PDF file is as important as the title tag of a web page. The PDF title property tells the search engine robots about the type of content. The most important aspect of the title is that Google uses the text in the title field as the link in the search engine result pages. Thus, the title field should be keyword rich and should not contain random text.
3. Complete the document properties: A PDF file contains many document properties apart from the title field. These are keywords, description, author info, copyright info etc. All the fields must be completed with relevant information. The keyword field should not be stuffed with keywords or remain empty. It has not been proven that the search engines give importance to the keyword field in the document properties. If in future they do, your PDF file will have an advantage over other web pages.
4. Link to the PDF File from the Homepage: The Searchbots will not discover and index the PDF file if it is placed too deep within the website. To ensure that the PDF file gets crawled by the search engines, it should be visibly linked from the home page or any other page which gets crawled regularly. If your aim is to get the PDF in top search engine result pages, then you have to lead the searchbots to it.
5. Optimize the content in the PDF File: The content in the text based PDF files is similar to the content in a website. This makes content optimization an important aspect in optimization of PDF files. The content should be relevant to the subject matter. Important text should be highlighted by increasing their font size and utilizing the bold and italics features of the PDF files. Keywords should be placed in the first few lines of the content.
6. Place Links in the PDF File: When a visitor opens a PDF file ranking in the top search engine results page, there should be a provision in the file to link back to its original website. This action reduces the efforts of the visitor to hunt for the main website. Also, a link from the PDF file can be considered as a backlink by the search engine.

A PDF file is similar to a web page in an assortment of aspects. It should be optimized with as much care as a web page to achieve high rankings.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Optimize PDF Documents for SEO

1. Duplicate Content/Sites – Do not set up multiple sites or site pages using basically the same content with a few different keywords spread around.  This does not fool the search engines.
2. Cloaking – Cloaking is when a website or webpage is set up to show different content for a search engine spider than the human visitors.   The cloaked page (for the spiders) is stuffed with keywords in an attempt to get higher rankings.  What it can get you is banned!
3. Linking to Bad Neighborhoods – Be careful who you link to because you can be found guilty by association.   Do not link to adult sites, gambling sites or link farms.  Also be careful not to link to sites that use any of the SEO methods mentioned here.
4. Title Stacking – This is simply trying to give each page more than one title tag so you can use more keywords to get higher rankings.   The search engines consider this a dirty little trick.
5. Doorway Pages – Doorway or gateway pages are pages that are set-up for one keyword topic but then they take you to different content.   These pages usually have little value in the way of content and have little to do with the rest of the site.  They are used solely to try to get a higher rank in the search engines.
6. Redirect Pages – Redirect pages are set up to rank high in the search engines but when you click on the page, it will take you to another page which is usually a sales page for a product or service.  So, what you see isn’t what you get!
7. Automated Submission Services – Do not use automated submission services.  They are against Google’s TOS and can get you banned.
8. Hidden Links – This is when a link is added to a page in such a small size that it cannot be seen by human visitors but can be picked up by the search engine spiders.   This might work for a time but when the search engines discover it, you will be penalized!
9. Keyword Stuffing – Keyword stuffing or spamming is simply being too repetitive with your keywords as to the extent of your content not being sensible.  For example if your keywords are cat food and your text reads something like this:  When your cat gets hungry be sure to feed them this cat food because your cat will like this cat food.  This cat food comes in an easy to open cat food can and contains fish, chicken and healthy ingredients that all cat food should have.  So, when your cat is hungry for cat food, give them this cat food because this cat food is the best cat food for your cat!You can easily see why this kind of keyword stuffing should not be used.
10. Invisible Text – This is when you hide text by using the same color text and background.   The invisible text is meant for the search engines only and not for visitors.  This is done so you can stuff a lot more keywords on your page without wrecking your content.  The search engines will discover this and they will penalize you!

Be careful not to use these Black Hat SEO methods because it could cause you a lot of trouble with the search engines.  Be careful as well, who you hire to work on your site because some of these things can be done without your knowledge and cause your site to get banned or penalized.

A few things you should do to get higher rankings are:

1. Research keywords and use relevant keywords on your web pages and in your page title.
2. Add new content to your site regularly
3. Link with relevant, quality sites
4. Use a site map
5. Don’t use a lot of javascript or flash.  The search engines do not read these.

Following all of the above can keep you from getting banned and improve your rankings!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

10 Ways to Get Banned by the Search Engines

How do you do that? It’s not nearly as hard as you think, and it’s the way all the masters get their pages to the top for their selected keywords.

Here’s the way anyone can rank for a certain keywords at the top of Google. And why do you want to do that?

• Traffic!
• Targeted traffic!
• Money Making traffic! The traffic YOU want!

If the person types in “red umbrellas” and you have a good offer for red umbrellas then you want them to find you right at the top of the Google organic listings…FREE!

Free targeted traffic …it really doesn’t get any better than that.

So, here’s the plan. You have picked a keyword. Now you set out to get put at the top of Google Page One for that term.

• First – Put the keyword in your domain name! Or, at least do it this way…http;//www.yourdomainname.com/keyword.
• Second – Put a bunch of relevant content on your page with the keyword in it several times but not over 1%.
• Third – Now that that page is up, you can write an article describing the benefits of the offer on that page while using your “keyword” in the Title and Body of the article.

Fourth – This is the “coup de gras” as the French like to put it or “the biggie” as Americans are fond of saying. You write an authors resource box that asks the reader to click back to your offer for more information and the clickback (not Clickbank) hyperlinks have to look just like this example… “For the best in [rain umbrellas] selection and accessories go to my page on [rain unmbrella] (I use the singular and the plural) and NOW you have what Google wants to see. Keyword links back to YOUR site!

Getting ranked for a keyword is largely a popularity contest. The more “rain umbrella” text links pointing to your “rain umbrella” page that has your “rain umbrella” offer on it, the higher goes your ranking. One day you’ll write that last article who’s text link pushes you to the top.

One way to get a lot of the anchor text backlinks you need for Google to see fit to put your offer page at the top of Page One is to write an article and put those text links in your resource box. Everybody does this. It works.

Still, if you only submit one article to one place you are going to get only one backlink or maybe two if you go for two different keywords.

I like to write one article and get dozens to hundreds of backlinks. So would you!

And before I go off topic too far, let me suggest that you look into one of these “mass submission” article outfits. It’s what I use and I have thousands of links going all over and growing.

Even better than that is the fact that I’m on page one for some of my terms and I’m picking up more and more targeted Google traffic all the time.

This is something that works and it’s something you can do!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How Keyword Ranking Can Make You Money

The Influence Of Social Media Optimization On Search Marketing

Search marketing has always relied upon exposure in the search engines to drive targeted traffic. For years, gaining that exposure was based solely upon the development of your site and generating links pointing to your site. Both are still important today. However, social media optimization has shifted the landscape of search engine marketing.

Google once maintained several disparate search platforms for blogs, videos, news, and similar types of “social” content. Each functioned as a separate search engine with its own set of organic listings. A few years ago, Google blended the listings from each platform into a system called Universal Search. Yahoo and Bing have since incorporated similar systems. Universal Search is now used as the primary index. That means blogs, videos, and news have been incorporated into the natural listings, pushing many sites off the first page. This is one of the reasons social media optimization has become a critical piece of search.

Another factor that has influenced search marketing is the increased ranking authority given to Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and similar sites. These too, have quickly gained control of a significant amount of search territory.

Social media optimization preserves your current natural listings while helping you to gain even more search exposure. By using blogs, videos, and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, you can capture a greater number of organic positions.

Your Social Media Optimization Campaign: Rules of Engagement

There are several rules of engagement for launching and executing a social media optimisation campaign. If you ignore them, your SMO efforts will be far less effective than otherwise.

First, you should do everything possible to encourage your audience to link to your site. Integrating a blog is valuable because your content can continually be updated, attracting loyal readers. Encourage readers to bookmark, tag and “Tweet” your blog posts by installing a button plug-in.

Second, link liberally as a resource for your visitors. Social media optimization is dependent on assisting others achieve what they’re trying to do. Once you engage your audience, help them find the resources they need by linking to them. Eventually, your site will become regarded as a resource hub, which will help you attract inbound links. That’s a vital component of SEO.

Third, you must be able to identify your market. Social media optimization relies upon the connections you establish with niche communities. You need to target them properly in order to generate content and engage them. This is true whether you’re engaging them through YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, or your blog.

Fourth, integrate tracking tools to monitor and measure the success of your social media optimization campaign. Track mentions of your site and company. Watch your site’s progress in the natural listings for your main keywords. Generate linking reports showing inbound links pointing to your domain and specific pages. Tracking your metrics is crucial in order to determine whether your SMO campaign is effective.

SEO Social Media Optimization Explained

Each of the elements of a social media optimization campaign that we have described thus far dovetail seamlessly with SEO. The ongoing content creation, tagging and bookmarking, attracting inbound links by being a resource for your audience – these are essential for pushing your website higher in the search engines’ listings. SEO social media optimization leverages a new set of tools to accomplish the same goal as SEO: more exposure for your site on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. The challenge is knowing how to use these tools effectively.

The days of launching a basic SEO campaign within a competitive space and watching your site rise in the search engines’ results are long gone. SEO has become far more complex than it was a few short years ago. This is why many companies have made the decision to hire an SEO consultant. Social media optimization has transformed SEO from a relatively straightforward strategy into a complicated science. Having an experienced hand at the wheel helps to navigate the uncertain terrain.

If you want to boost your exposure in the search engines’ listings, consider social media optimization a priority.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Social Media Optimization- A Priority For Your SEO Campaign

Successful marketing is all about establishing a relationship; and that is so much easier when they can see and hear you. You may be very comfortable online, but some people are still sceptical about doing business with you over the Internet and you need to persuade them to trust you before they will buy from you.

These are my top 12 direct marketing principles you can use to make sure your Internet marketing really works for you:

1. History.

People want to know you are not going to disappear overnight so if you’ve been in business for any length of time then this will add credibility to you and your offers.

2. Statistics.

Use genuine statistics to give you more credibility by listing number of customers served, money saved, profits made, and so on.

3. Testimonials

I can’t overestimate the importance of these so get them from your Customers and Clients saying how you and/or your products have helped them. Get experts in your market to validate and endorse your products and services and if appropriate get celebrities who you either ‘rent’ for your marketing, feature at your events or use by association.

4. Demonstrations.

With the use of online video and ‘how To’ DVDs it is very ease to show a demonstration of your product both on and offline. You can even demo an ebook by printing it out and talking through what it contains live on screen. Camtasia is free software that lets you make a screen capture video where you can demonstrate your website talking though the sales letter or giving a demo of how easy it is to download your ebook. If you are in a market that isn’t really familiar with online buying this works really well.

What better proof that your product or service works than by showing an example of before and after. Many markets and products lend themselves to this treatment and it is very effective.

In our own business we use video to show how to confirm emails when signing up to our email lists, when demonstrating how to use our Membership site and examples of results in a number of our ebook markets.

5. Credentials.

What credentials do you have in your market? They don’t have to be academic, but can awards, accomplishments, membership to organisations that are relevant to your market. Both I and Neil Travers my business partner are CIPD qualified which is a training qualification we attained while working at the Bank.

This is ‘proof’ of our ability to run workshops that are designed to aid the learning and intake and retaining of information by attendees and gives us increased credibility in their eyes.

6. Publicity.

Reprints of articles about you in the press, or your articles being published in the media that lend weight to your credibility as the expert or authority in your market are highly valuable to you. Show your market that you are in demand, and have status as an expert.

7. Celebrity Spokesperson.

To be used with caution. It can be effective but can also backfire when the market remembers the celebrity and the advert, but not what it was advertising.

8. Guarantee.

If you can’t guarantee the product you’re selling then find something else to sell that you can guarantee. To really make your potential customers feel safe to buy from you you need to offer an ironclad guarantee.

9. Accessibility.

On your website have your full contact detail if possible as this will give a big boost to your potential customer confidence in you and your company. Using just an email contact is the worst and an email, phone and address the best.

Never give a PO Box as your address as it immediately makes people suspicious.

10. The Personal Touch.

Being visible in the business to your customers is a confidence booster for them. Make it personal so you are a real individual, anecdotes about you and your business, pictures and videos all make your customer more comfortable as if they have already met you.

11. Make A Damaging Admission.

No matter how good your product is it will have a disadvantage somewhere. Admit it up front and honestly comment on this fact.

Answer Questions and objections up front and when a customer asks them via email or the phone. People can call our office throughout the week and email at any time with questions and that makes them feel safe to buy from us.

12. Excess.

Use a combination of as many of the examples above in your marketing! What may seem like overkill to you may not be enough to overcome some people’s scepticism!

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

12 Ways to Make Sure Your Internet Marketing Really Works