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5 Google Tools For Researching Your Market

By Pete Moore in Featured

Internet marketers and webmasters have always had a love/ hate relationship with Google. Whatever you think of them they do provide website owners with some great market research tools.

No matter what market you are in or plan to be in, you will find these free tools provided by Google very useful when researching your market. You should be researching your market constantly, NOT just when your setting up your site. The internet is ever changing and if you’re not keeping up with those changes you will be left behind.

Create Your Own Customized 404 Error Page for Increased Traffic

By Ed Duvall in Featured

By design, the server that hosts’ your web site delivers a 404 Error / Page Not Found when a surfer clicks on a link that the server cannot find or something else unexpected happens. The most common error page is the HTTP 404 “Not found: The requested URL/whatever.html was not found on this server.”

This generally happens when a person clicks on a link for page that has been removed, renamed or otherwise changed.

If you were to enter the link below into your browser and hit the enter button you would see my own custom 404 Error page: cashway.com/aintnosuchpage.htm (This link is not active and will present you with my custom 404 Error page.) What happens to your web visitor who gets that error message on your site without a custom 404 Error page?

Generally speaking they’re off faster than a “speeding bullet” looking for the information they were seeking - probably to a different website. That’s something you really don’t want to have happen and it can be prevented with a custom 404 error page that gives them options on the error page that will tell them how to find what they were looking for.

So the answer is? Create your own custom 404 Error page that suggests other resources on your site and then helps redirects that person to them.

In essence you’re capturing traffic that you had, but lost and didn’t know it, and keeping that visitor by helping them find what they need and possible turn them into a buyer for your product or service later on.

But “I don’t have the time or know how to make a custom 404 page”, you say.

Well good news - it’s not as hard as you think. If you have about 30 minutes and your server is a Apache or Unix web server then it’s virtually a snap to do

** Your Custom 404 Page Design **

In my opinion your custom 404 error page should provide at least these components:

• A simple statement that the requested URL was not found on your site.
• A brief description of some of the most common mistakes that couldhave lead the visitor to the missing page.
• A “plug” for one of your Free products or services

You can of course add other components like simple java script code for date & time and IP address display, etc. if you really want to impress someone with your technical wizardry.

Your page also should carry the look and feel of your web site, so you should include your header or footer or both so it is clearly branded as yours. You may wish to include some other links for your site that lead visitors to other pages you may want them to visit.

Here are the basic steps:

1. The simplest method is to create your new custom page, then upload it to your site in the same folder where your home page is located. Servers vary in their requirements. For mine the page must have a specific name for it to function properly as my custom 404 error page.
2. If you don’t have an .htaccess file you need to create one in the same folder where your home page is stored, (in some cases, the file may already exist; on servers with Front Page extensions this file is automatically created).  You’ll need to do a simple edit inthis file. Use your text editor or server editing features to add the following command: ErrorDocument 404 /filename.html (where “filename.html” is replaced by the name of the actual file you want to appear as your Custom 404 Error page.)

You could, if you prefer, to insert your home page when a 404 error occurs. In that case, the correct command to add to your .htaccess would be: ErrorDocument 404 /index.html

The above example assumes your home page is named index.html. If not, replace it with whatever name you are using for your home page instead.

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer and the option to Show friendly HTTP error messages is enabled, the file size of your custom error page must be no less than 512 bytes to function properly. Otherwise, the program will show a generic message.

There you have it. Design your page, follow the two simple steps above and you’ll soon have your own custom 404 error page that will capture lost visitors and keep them on your site.

One final note - before you start on setting up your own custom error page check the FAQ or knowledge base for your website’s server for the specific requirements for making sure your new page works.

Ed Duvall - For more information on promoting your website and Free online business Resources visit http://www.cashway.com

My New Website-From Scratch to Profit

By John Smalley in Featured

Without traffic from search engines (both large and small) you will be very limited in your chances for success of any magnitude. Pay-Per-Click can be effective after you learn the ropes. Just be sure to limit how much you can lose. To get traffic from search engines, you will need page rank (where your organic-free ad appears when someone enters one of your keywords in a search box). In order to get your website to rank high enough that search engines give you decent position for your organic ads- you need to work on two aspects of your website. The content (words) on your home page which contain your keywords, and back links pointing back to your website. A back link is your URL in the content of another website. It could be a one-way link in a directory, or an ad with your link you have paid to place on another website, or it could be a free classified ad on a website, or it could be your URL on a discussion forum, or in an article you have written that has been published.

Keywords on your home page should be repeated maybe 3 to 5 times with the main keyword being repeated maybe 10 to 14 times. Your keywords should be included in well structured sentences and paragraphs. Try to get authority links to your website. Authority links are links to websites that offer the same type services and products that your website offers. These types of links will build your page ranking with the search engines much faster. Place your paid ads on high traffic directories that specialize in listing the same type services or products that you offer. Do a search for one-way free directory links and get a list of these directories and submit your URL to a few dozen of them. This should help your page ranking.

When I optimize my website to get a good page ranking, I figure that page content (keywords on home page) account for about 20% of page rank, and back links to authority websites account for 70% of page rank, and one way links to general directories and forums accounts for about 10 % toward a favorable page ranking. Keep in mind that it can take from 60 to 90 days for links of all types to become effective as a factor in search engine ranking.

Thanks to the internet, when we talk about making money online, we do not only talk about the big players. Fact is, there are more small businesses online than the bigger ones. The power of the internet has allowed greater competition and has allowed even smaller businesses to earn income online. One way you can make money online is by creating your own website. Building a profitable website is a four-step process.

The first thing you need is a domain. This is basically the name of your website. If you have a preferred domain name, you can check a domain name registrar and see if the name you want is still available. If it isn’t, some domain registration services will give you suggested names. You will also need to have a hosting service in order for your site to be viewed on the internet.

The process of optimizing your website so that it will rank high on search engines such as Google and Yahoo is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is important because 80% of traffic going to your site is through search engines. Aside from this, traffic from search engines is free so capitalizing on SEO is one of the best tactics used by most website owners today in order to get a return on investment at a reasonable time.

Search engines rank the importance of websites through the number of websites which are linking to your site. Another method is through the keyword density (number of times keywords are repeated) of the content found on your website. Most SEO experts believe that you need to place meta tags (keywords and phrases placed in the first part of your page code) on the pages of your website in order to help search engines understand what the page is about. Also, there shouldn’t be more than 25 keywords per page. It is important that keywords are repeated in the page content as many times as possible, but don’t overdo it because some search engines can already detect faked content.

The last thing you need to do in order for your website to become profitable is by promoting it. You can submit your site to search engines and website directories. You can also buy links or create valuable back links through articles. There are article submission services that will submit your article to hundreds of ezines and article directories. In the internet world, just like the real world, you need to make sure that your site gets as much exposure as possible. Remember that the more visitors you have for your site, the greater chances you have of making a sale. Keywords: your home page, search engines, back link, back links, authority links, your website, free directory links, page ranking, make money online, making money online, domain name, optimizing your website, page rank

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John Smalley of Smalley Web Solutions is a team of four people with skills in marketing, website design, and programming. Our website design fees are among the lowest in our industry. We offer free web hosting and domain name registration for one year to all of our clients. Contact Smalley Web Solutions at http://www.webwizardonline.net or jfsmalley@clearwire.net.

Your Website from the Ground Up in 10 Steps

By Scott Van Achte in Featured

So, you have finally decided to build yourself a website, but really have no idea where to start. The following 10 steps will give you some insight into what you need to address when creating a search friendly website from the ground up.

Website Marketing: Dramatically Increase Your Conversions with a Clear Call to Action

By Donna Gunter in Featured

One of the things I often notice on websites is that I’m not sure where to go or what to do when I arrive. There are those websites that are simply online brochures that tell me all about the features of a product or service, but don’t ask anything of me. There are other websites that give me a headache, as they try to send me in too many directions at once. When faced with too many choices, I become overwhelmed and ultimately leave the site without taking any action.

How do you get your visitor to stay on your site and convert to a prospect? By presenting one clear call to action on every page of your site.

Is Your Website a Unicycle?

By Robert Cerff in Featured

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

SEO Help From Google Webmaster Tools (Part 1 of 2)

By Matt Jackson in Featured

SEO Help From Google Webmaster Tools (Part 1 of 2)

Google Webmaster Tools is a suite of tools designed to assist the web marketer and website owner in ensuring their website is optimized for Google to access and crawl it properly. The tools are surprisingly beneficial and if you haven’t checked them out before, or it’s been a while since you last looked, you’ll probably be more than a little surprised.

Part 1 looks at the Overview, Diagnostics, and Statistics sections, while in part 2 next week, we look at Links, Sitemaps, and Tools and discuss how to use various aspects of Google Webmaster Tools to improve your marketing and site maintenance.

The quickest way to learn? Get in and get your hands dirty – you can’t damage anything by doing so.

Overview

The Overview tab displays a summarized report detailing when your site was last crawled, whether pages from your site have been indexed, and whether there were any errors when Googlobot attempted to crawl your site. It’s good information, and can give you an indication of how attractive your site is to Googlebot but it doesn’t contain the real meat of the Webmaster Tools.

Diagnostics

The Diagnostics tab gives a list of crawl types that Google may or may not have attempted on your site. Clicking on each of these will subsequently display a list of errors and problems that were encountered in the process. This can include links to your other pages that Google wasn’t able to follow so do check the errors and repair any broken links, pages that return errors, and so on.

>Fixing Broken Links

Fixing problems doesn’t just improve the experience for Googlebot it may mean more of your pages get indexed and ranked for your important keywords. One broken link can lead to a handful of other broken links although if you’ve submitted a Google sitemap then this should be less of a problem.

>Content Analysis

For a true insight of how Google is viewing the elements on your pages, pay particular interest to the Content Analysis section. The non-indexable content issues lists elements or pages that can’t be indexed largely due to the fact that Googlebot is predominantly a text crawler. Look at the pages highlighted and make sure that there is ample alternative text for the crawlers and for the sake accessibility – some users disable Flash in their browsers and they will fail to see these elements as well.

Every page should contain a reasonable amount of text for the crawlers and those that can’t view Flash, images, or other non-indexable items.

Statistics

The Statistics section is an Internet marketer’s heaven. You can view crawl data, index stats, link stats, feed stats, and your top Google search queries. We’re going to ignore the PageRank display that is offered in the Crawl Stats, because PageRank should not be your main consideration or a cause for concern – concentrate on your SERP ranking, your traffic, your conversions, and your profits. Don’t concentrate on a little green bar or other representation of a figure that bears no significant relevance to the performance of your online business (so much for ignoring it, huh?).

>Top Search Queries

The Top Search Queries displays the search terms that were used on Google and resulted in a visitor coming to your site. This is genuinely good stuff. No matter how much keyword research you do, no matter how well you optimize your pages, and no matter how many links you generate using keywords as anchor text, you will never optimize for some of the phrases that people use to find your site. This section lets you view those phrases and see just how well the long tail is performing for you. It should also prompt you into writing or adding more content to your site when you realize how effective the long tail of search can be.

>Subscriber Stats

Subscriber stats specifically shows you the number of visitors that have subscribed to your RSS feed using any of the Google owned feed readers. These figures can be used to show a rise or drop in the general popularity of a blog, but remember that Google readers aren’t the only readers that surfers use.

>What Googlebot Sees

What Googlebot Sees – this section gets special mention at the end of Part 2 because when it comes to improving your link profile, this offers some of the most invaluable information available about any existing links you have. Rather than just see the pages that link to you, using the Googlebot stats lets you see the anchor text that those links use – vital in SEO.

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Part 2 of the guide to Google Webmaster Tools will be online next week (subscribe so you don’t miss out). In the meantime let me know if any of you regularly use them and, if so, how?

WebWiseWords is a web content writer that specializes in SEO copy writing that also appeals to your visitors.

 

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