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By Terri Seymour in Featured

Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Shortly after its creation, Google’s popularity skyrocketed and it soon became
the dominant search engine for finding information on the internet. This is why, if you own a website, you want it to be high in the Google ratings.

Google is constantly changing and evolving so you need to keep up with the changes. Their recent changes, called the Panda Update, caused many sites’ rankings to drop significantly. Google’s mission is to provide the highest quality information for each search done and in doing this, many sites get lost in the endless pages of search results.

To get your website increased ranking there are many things you can do and many things you should not do. I have tried to list some of the more effective things you should do and a couple things you should not do for better placement in Google.

1. Limit Your Advertising – If you have a hodgepodge or cluttering of advertising on your site, this can decrease your ranking. Google considers excess advertising to be a sign of a low-quality spam site. And remember, Google’s goal is to provide the highest quality sites at the top of the search results.

2. Google Toolbar – The Google Toolbar is an important tool to have because of all the features that will help you improve your ranking. The Google toolbar can help you monitor your page rank, help you find sites to link to and help you find which sites are linked to you. You can also keep tabs on how your site is doing with targeted keywords. Get it for free at Google.com.

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

spn_exclusiveIt’s been an extremely busy year for the good folks at Google, not only did they roll out the game-changing Panda Updates, but now they have increased the stakes by implementing Google Fresh. This recent algorithm update is based on the Caffeine architecture introduced by Google a year ago and supposedly makes Google’s listings much fresher.

On the Official Google Blog where this new Update was announced, Amit Singhal states:

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

However, in an update, Singhal explains this measurement of 35% only applies to where at least one result was affected by the changes. In reality, this update only “noticeably” impacts 6 to 10% of searches.

“Update 11/7/11: To clarify, when we say this algorithm impacted 35% of searches, we mean at least one result on the page was affected, as opposed to when we’ve said noticeably impacted in the past, which means changes that are significant enough that an average user would notice. Using that same scale, this change noticeably impacts 6 – 10% of searches, depending on the language and domain you’re searching on.”

By Angela Charles in Featured

spn_exclusiveOver 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.

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.

By admin in Featured

There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of approximately eight hundred and fifty million dollars. It really is no surprise to anyone then that more businesses are investing in expanded web presence and capability. Yet, not every organization has the same successes. Barnes and Noble was selling books online before Amazon was even an idea, and yet it isn’t Barnes and Noble that people think of when considering online bookstores, it’s Amazon. The key? Amazon took greater advantage of the opportunity to effectively market their product.

Search Engines, Spiders and Websites, Oh My

The most important and often least understood tool for online marketers is the search engine. The primary type of search engine is the web crawler – these are largely automated programs that crawl through available web pages, indexing data according to a variety of parameters. In short, the crawler, or spider, examines each page of a website. Once it has examined the page, it submits it to an index. Then, when a person uses the search engine software, the index provides links to these pages, ranked according to relevance. It is worth mentioning two other points. First, not all engines index the same way. Some use keyword density; others focus on the content of the first paragraph. Second, any changes to a webpage are likely to affect search rankings, so webmasters must carefully consider each change and its possible effects.

I Never Meta Tag I Didn’t Like

One important part of preparing a page for good search engine rankings is effective use of HTML meta-tags. These tags do not directly relate to the position a site will have in a search result, but they do offer webmasters some control over the way their sites are presented when they come up in a search. In brief, meta-tags are additional bits of code added to the head of your HTML document, right after “TITLE.” Because of the tendency for unscrupulous coders to find and abuse loopholes in search technologies, search engines do not rely heavily on these tags for rankings. Their benefits to web users are important, however.

First, there is the Meta Description tag. This is a brief report about the content of the webpage in question. When a search engine presents users with a hyperlink, there is frequently a small description accompanying that result. In many cases, that is the Meta Description tag the Webmaster put in the HTML document so that when a spider visits the site, it indexes this information. This is not always the case, however; Google in particular will generate its own description for a site.

The Meta Description is often the first piece of information someone using a search engine will see. The URL may not mean anything to them, but this description will. If it is poorly written, the user will likely skim right past the site for one that presents itself more effectively. Thus, the key is effective, concise writing that conveys exactly what the site is about.

The second tag is the Meta Keywords tag. This tag is a list of keywords the Webmaster considers most pertinent to each page. Proper use of the keywords tag is also vital. While search engines use a variety of keyword systems, and have in recent years de-emphasized the Meta Keywords tag, it still contributes to website rankings and should not be neglected. The best method is to examine each page carefully, and pick approximately ten keywords that best represent the data therein. Too many nonspecific keywords will lead to inconsistent search results, and too few means missing an opportunity to get a message in front of users. In addition, many sites are actively on the lookout for keyword abuse. Google in particular is known to ban certain pages from its index entirely if they consider the article to be an abusive, loophole-seeking piece.

There are other, less relevant tags that can provide some benefits, though they aren’t as important as the previous two. An example is the Robots tag, which is only useful in making sure certain sites do not index a particular page. This can help a Webmaster keep their content from being associated with undesirable elements, but it does not contribute directly to higher search placement.

No Meta Tag is an Island

Once again, it must be stressed that meta-tags are not a magical solution to the very complex problem of online marketing. They must be regarded as one tool in an inventory of other tools, and should be used responsibly. Properly implemented, they will help complete an effective marketing strategy.

Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/

By Jeremy Gislason in Featured

The more times your customers visit your site, the more time they will have invested in your relationship and the more they will come to trust and rely on you. By building up their loyalty in this way, there is more chance that they will buy from you, follow your advice and buy your affiliate products, or click on ads that you recommend.

Put simply, a sticky site equals customer loyalty. Customer loyalty equals revenue.

1. Content. We can’t stress the importance of content enough. Keep the content up to date, and ‘time sensitive’. Remove out of date content so that it doesn’t affect the credibility of your site.

2. Give your site a personality. There is a huge amount of information on the internet, and you can be sure your members could find what you are providing elsewhere. What your members are really paying for is the way you present that information.

3. Remain focused on your niche. Don’t forget that your members joined your site because they had an interest in your niche. While it is fine to include content on a slightly different subject if you are sure it will be relevant and interesting. Never lose sight of your original subject. Wander too far off the subject and your may find your customers wandering off your member list.

4. Make information easy to find. Ensure the content on your membership site is organized in such a way that your members will find what they want easily. If your members view your site as a valuable information resource rather than just another website, they will want to us it again and again.

5. Provide what your customers want. Encourage your customers to ask for an article or information on a certain subject if they can’t find it. Writing an article specifically for one customer may seem like a lot of work, but if you think long term, that customer may then stay with you for the lifetime of your membership site.

6. Keep in touch with your members. Contacting your members via e-mail is essential to keep them engaged with your site. Send your members updates, informative newsletters, and reminders, and ask them for their feedback.

7. Ask them to take part in surveys. Ask your members to complete a survey about your membership site and then make sure you act on their feedback and let them know you have done so. Send out a special edition of your newsletter showing some of the results of your survey and detailing how you have responded and any changes you have made. Feeling that they have had a hand in shaping your site will really make your members feel engaged in your online community.

8. Allow customization of your homepage. Having some functions that your members personalize on your site will really make them feel involved. Even a simple message at the top of the home page saying ‘Welcome back [member name]’ will have a huge impact on making your members feel valued.

9. Build a sense of community. Being part of an online community is one of the main reasons your members will renew their membership. Here are a few additional tips on creating that sense of community.

10. Promote an active forum. This provides a place for your members to get to know each other and begin to care about each other. Stopping their membership once they have become involved in your forum would be like losing a whole group of friends. Provide a function that allows your members to send private messages between each other. If you run competitions, or encourage your members to submit content, make sure you acknowledge the winners or contributors. Nothing makes a member feel a part of your site like seeing their name in the latest newsletter.

Jeremy Gislason is a leading expert on membership sites, marketing and online business. Do you want to market and sell all of your products faster? Free how to business and marketing courses at: http://www.MembershipMillionaire.com

By Bill Platt in Featured

se-optimizationPeople who publish online newsletters, often referred to as “ezines”, have always played an important role in the growth of the Internet economy. In fact, if you listen to any of the Internet gurus, they are going to tell you time and again that the most important thing you can do towards the success of your online business is to build a list.

I think Titus Hoskins said it best when he said, “It is a well known fact that the key to successful online marketing comes from building a well targeted and responsive opt-in email list. This is mainly because your online marketing success comes from building relationships with a large subscriber base.

By Mel Strocen in Featured

Based on reports I’ve read at various SEO/SEM/Blog sites, it would be easy to conclude that the PubCon show in Las Vegas was a  major success. All the attendees must have been attending the speaker sessions because they certainly were not in evidence at the exhibit hall. The number of exhibitors appeared to be down from previous years and frankly, given this year’s attendance, I’d be surprised if 10 – 15 showed up next year.  On Thursday, there were more Exhibit Booth personnel on the floor than attendees. A sad turnout and obviously disappointing for exhibitors.

Pubcon, like many similar shows, comes across as a show for industry experts by industry experts. As a draw for newbies, webmasters and netpreneurs, it definitely tanked. Here are a couple of reasons why:

1. Poor site information. I registered online and expected to receive my badge by mail. Nothing I saw online indicated that badges would be sent by mail, but if they had been, it would have saved the time I spent at the registration booth. It took me 5 minutes to find any information at the Pubcon site on where to complete registration: http://www.pubcon.com/registration-notes.htm . The site indicated badges could be picked up at the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. I stood in line for 20 minutes at the South Hall only to find out badges could only be obtained in the North Hall – about a quarter mile away for those unfamilar with the Hilton. I pointed this mis-information out when I reached the North Hall but no one seemed particularly interested.

2. No signage. Yes, Pubcon was in the North Convention Hall of the Hilton, but the Hilton convention complex is massive and a sign outside would have been helpful and might even have attracted some people off the street.

3. Promotion. I find it hard to believe this show was promoted in any significant way. I’ve seen wakes that were better attended. Time to bring in the dancing showgirls.

Bottom line is that unless there are some major changes by the show’s organizers, Pubcon will be following Comdex and similar shows to the geek conference graveyard.

By Vincent Newton in Featured

webmastersAccording to an article in PC World Magazine, the average visitor spends between 25 – 45 seconds viewing the main page of a web site. That’s about enough time to read this article to the point you are at right now and, maybe, most of the way through the next paragraph.With that short an amount of time available to get someone’s attention, your main page better do a pretty good job of selling. The problem is, most main pages do not get the job done as well as they could.

Sure, you could hire a professional copywriter to re-work your sales page. Then all you have to do is keep testing different copy versions until you either run out of money or you hit upon the winning combination of words.

By Mel Strocen in Featured

Inside CRM just posted an article entitled “100 Awesome Webmaster Videos on YouTube“. If your learning preference is watching videos vs reading articles and/or ebooks, then this is a great resource. Check it out. And, if you have developed webmaster videos of your own, we’d love to see them posted in the SPN Webmaster community site

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

webmasters.jpgComing from an art background I know a few things about graphics, layout and design. I can usually manage to produce passable graphics for my different sites. But they are just that – barely passable.

Quite frankly, until recently, I didn’t have the money to spend on professional graphics for my sites. Now, as my sites are generating income each day, I can afford to re-invest some of my earnings into professionally produced website graphics.

That’s exactly what I did!

I just wished I had invested funds into these website graphics when I first started online because professional graphics will give you a much better conversion rate. Can’t begin to imagine the revenue I have lost by not having professionally produced graphics by web design specialists or experts. A well-done graphic is worth its weight in gold because you get a much higher response rate.

I am talking from first-hand experience here… for my latest site I invested in some professional graphics and the sign-up rate is much better than for my other sites. Plus, when I added these graphics to my other existing sites, my sign-up rates jumped 25% to 50% – just by adding this graphic beside the sign-up form.

So if you have a product, newsletter, ezine, guide… make sure you place a good graphic or picture right beside your sign-up form… this will increase your conversions and sales. If you’re thinking about creating a new site, consider investing in professional graphics – header, footer, logo… you won’t regret it.

Mainly because most surfers or visitors to your site will be a net-savvy crowd, within seconds they will make the decision if your site is worth their time or not. Unless you instantly project a professional image or site, they will have clicked that back button before they even blink.

Image vs. Trust

In order to have a successful site you must create trust with your visitors. Having custom graphics done will give your site that unique professional look that web-surfers now demand. First impressions are the only impressions you get on the Internet. You must hook your visitor at the first click, or it’s game over. Sad but true.

No matter what kind of site you have, using professional graphics will prove helpful to achieving your goals. These graphics will give your site a fighting chance to at least capture your viewer’s attention and allow time for your brilliant content to reel them in!

Here are some other reasons why you need professional graphics on your site:

- To give and project a professional image

- To give your visitors a tangible image of your product

- To improve the quality of your site for everyone IS a critic

- To help increase your sales or sign-up rates

- To make navigation of your site easier

Always remember, the web has become a very competitive place, you must do everything you can to give your site a competitive advantage over your competition. Professional graphics will make your site stand out; killer graphics will firmly place your site in your visitor’s mind and help them remember your site and entice them to visit it again.

Professional website graphics are very useful tools in creating a consistent overall image of your site. They will aid in your site’s navigation and give your visitor a good impression of your site. Well-designed graphics will help your site project a professional image and keep visitors from instantly clicking that back button. Professional graphics will give your site a fighting chance at making that sale or sign-up. In other words, professional graphics greatly increases your chances of having a successful site. That’s the main reason why you should use them.

The author is a full-time web marketer who owns and runs numerous websites, including two sites on Internet marketing. He contributes his online affiliate success to using the best Internet Marketing Tools: www.bizwaremagic.com and his proven strategies at List Building: www.bizwaremagic.com/opt-in.htm 2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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