SUBJECTS
Is Google Getting evil with Gmail? - Yahoo's First Quarter
The Missing Link (about linking)
Pay-Per-Click Tip: What is a strong click through rate?
Pay-Per-Click Tip: Is Google AdWords Right for a New Online Business?
Pay-Per-Click Tip: Norton Renders AdWords Advertising Useless
Online Marketing: Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
Pay-Per-Click Tip: First Place is Not Always the Most Cost Effective Placement
Pay-Per-Clicks . . . One Way to Boost Traffic to Your Web Site
Is Google Getting "evil" with Gmail? - Yahoo's
First Quarter
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Is Google Getting "evil" with Gmail?
On April 1st Google announced their new and free web based email system amongst rumors of an April fools joke. The program, Gmail, the account size limit, 1 Gigabyte! It wasn't too hard to believe that Gmail was a joke, in fact it seemed downright certain. It didn't help when we heard that Google was planning on scanning every email in the system and adding keyword matched Adsense advertising to each mailout... that just seemed way too 'overtly evil' for Google to be seriously considering it. After all, Google's motto (as I just love to remind everyone) is "Don't Be Evil!" But alas, the StepForth staff were in complete awe to discover that every feature of Gmail announced was in fact true! What are they thinking?!
What is the Issue?
Gmail's automated system will scan a user's email to find content that it can match to applicable AdSense advertisements. Once it finds an ad that matches the content of the email it will place the advertisement on the side of the user's email. The issue is the scanning... Google claims that since the scanning is entirely automated they are respecting the privacy of their users. Since this is an unprecedented move into the limited grey area of privacy rights, the issue has prompted some fairly raw emotions.
Hitting the Fan
It didn't take long for privacy advocates to smell blood at Google. The World Privacy Forum, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse are among the most prominent privacy organizations raising serious flags over the email match advertising policy at Gmail. On April 6th an open letter was sent to Google from 28 privacy organizations requesting that Gmail be put on hold while significant privacy concerns are considered. Countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands also voiced concern within the open letter.
Will Google stick to their guns? Do they realize the evil precedent that will be made if Gmail's Adsense advertising goes ahead? Google may not be consciously choosing an evil objective (that is for the world to decide), however, you just know that others will take advantage of this marketing tactic if it is approved. I shudder to think what ethically challenged spammers will be able to do with this technique!
Yahoo! Posts First Quarter Results (2pm PST today!)
This is hardly a surprise; Yahoo is doing well!
See below for their first quarter results and links to financial statements:
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2003
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2004
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Total Revenues:
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$282,948,000
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$757,786,000
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Cost of Revenues:
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$43,132,000
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$281,705,000
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Gross Profit:
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$239,816,000
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$476,081,000
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Net Income:
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$46,703,000
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$101,212,000
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Here is a link to Yahoo!'s first quarter press release in HTML
Here is a link to Yahoo!'s first quarter press release in PDF
Article by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Apr. 2004
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Weekly Quick Tip: The Missing Link
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While many aspects of search engine placement are a mystery to most site owners and even webmasters - that a site needs incoming links seems to be one of the only commonly accepted truths of the industry. Entire industries and software packages have been developed to promote just this area of SEO.
The concept of exchanging links (otherwise known as reciprocal linking) is commonly understood and practiced. I won't get into reciprocal linking too much here as Scott Van Achte has covered that above, but it is important to note it's importance.
That said I am going to mention something now that might shock you. It might even scare you a bit. If you want quick and easy links, with high relevancy and good PageRanks you will want to take a peek at (hold onto your hats) paid links (commonly referred to as advertising). There are many sites out there that will be happy to post a link to your website, often right on the home page, for a monthly fee. Sometimes you can even find a site that will post your link on every page of their site, often in the nav bar.
How much you should pay depends on a number of factors. How many pages will your link be on? What is the PageRank of the site linking to you? Is the site directly related to your industry? What industry is your site focused on? And a number of other factors.
I can't stress enough that you are going to have to look around for the best values in paid link advertising. If a site has a PageRank of 5 and wants to charge you $300/month for a single link off their home page you can probably find a better deal. If you find someone willing to post a link on every page of his or her PageRank 7 site for $200 you're onto something good. Keep looking; there are some great deals out there. We have found a number of great paid-links out there for a number of our clients. It just takes time. Something to keep in mind is this; you will be paying for this link monthly (perhaps annually but this is rare). Spending some extra time today to find the best value you can, will save you money for months/years to come.
There are a couple things you will want to look for very specifically in your hunt for links. You will want to make sure that the link is a direct link to your website and not through some tracking URL. A link through a tracking URL will not count as a link to your site. Also, you will want to know where the link will go on the page and what text is used to specify that these are paid links.
The higher up and further left on the page your link appears the better. This will make it one of the first things the search engine sees and thus the weight it is given will be higher. Additionally, if the link is placed in a table with a heading Sponsored Links or Advertising this tells the search engines that these are paid links and they will be give far less weight if any. That said; if this heading is in the form of an image (that isn't named sponsors.gif or advertising.jpg or the such) then it's perfectly fine.
If you would like further information on purchasing links or would like assistance in finding quality places to buy them from please don't hesitate to contact us.
Article by Dave Davies, Marketing Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Mar. 2004
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Pay-Per-Click Tip: What is a strong click through rate?
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I recently read in Search Engine Forums a question about Click Through Rates (CTR). The question was regarding whether or not a CTR of 8.1% is good or bad. In another thread someone was asking about average CTR's.
Here's my take on it. Lets use the all so popular widget example, lets say widgets are the Furby of 2004 and everyone wants one. Naturally, among others, you may want to target widget for your PPC Campaign (along with every other retailer). Chances are your ad will be diluted among many others, which will result in a lower CTR. (lets say 1.5%). If the competition is fierce, 1.5% could be a very acceptable rate, especially if there are tens of thousands of searches a day.
But lets say you decide to target blue widget with red stripe, and your ad has absolutely no competition for this term. If this is the case, chances are there will be very few searches, maybe only one or two a day. If your ad is all by itself, chances are you will draw much more attention, it will stand out, and you will get a much higher CTR. I have seen examples of this where highly targeted terms generate as high as 88%. Keep in mind this does not mean they are getting hundreds of clicks a day, most likely only 16 impressions a month with a total of 12 clicks.
So when it comes down to it, there really is no good, bad, or average, it's all relative. The successful measure of a good CTR, is totally dependant on how competitive, and how targeted the keyword. The important thing is to keep above that 1.0% mark.
Article by Scott Van Achte, PPC Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Mar. 2004
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Is Google AdWords Right for a New Online Business?
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So you have just opened the doors to your new online business. Your website is still too new to generate any traffic from the search engines. So while you are waiting for your site to be spidered and indexed, what can you do to start driving customers through the doors?
 The first thing I would suggest is start with an aggressive link building campaign. Whenever you have any spare time, try to seek out some extra incoming links. This will ensure that not only are you spidered sooner and more frequently, but also once you are indexed that you will rank higher in the se's.
But this article isn't about link building, so I will stop there. The real question is, should you, or should you not dive into AdWords, or any PPC Campaign for that matter? Weather or not to advertise with a PPC Engine really depends on a lot of things, your advertising budget, market competitiveness, and even overall site design.
Before starting any paid advertising campaign, double check to ensure that your site is ready for traffic. Check for the obvious things like dead links, but more importantly how is the navigation on your site? Assume that when a user comes to your site they know nothing about you or your products. How easy is it to find answers to any questions they may have? If they have to hunt around chances are they will go elsewhere and you will be out your 25 cents for the click. Make sure your site is user friendly before investing too much into PPC.
How competitive are your main keywords? If your website is small, chances are you wont be willing to pay two dollars a click. I would suggest coming up with a list of as many relevant keywords as possible. Check on Overture to see how much these keywords are going for, and keep all the inexpensive ones. These cheaper keywords will probably draw much less traffic, however this traffic is likely to be more qualified and less expensive! And for a new business starting out, less expensive is definitely a good thing.
If your new company targets a specific market niche that few online retailers cater to, I say go with PPC until your natural listings appear. These keywords are likely to be very inexpensive, and the traffic will be highly qualified.
What it truly all comes down to though, is your advertising budget. PPC advertising for a new business is sort of a chicken and egg thing. You don't have the revenue to pay for advertising, but with out advertising you wont make any sales. If you are able to target some low cost 5-10 cent words, even a budget of five dollars a day may bring in some sales and help to get the ball rolling.
Article by Scott Van Achte, PPC Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Mar. 2004
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Norton Renders AdWords Advertising Useless
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 For those that dislike advertising and pop-ups Norton Internet Security 2004 is a dream come true, but for advertisers it could be your worst nightmare...
The newest version of Norton Personal Firewall includes a new web assistant that allows users to block ads and pop-ups, this setting is turned on by default and is stirring up some controversy, but how does this affect the PPC world?
For an advertiser running a Google AdWords campaign, you may be losing out on potential traffic when a user performs a search on Google, AdWords and sponsored listings become un-clickable! If the Searcher has Norton Personal Firewall 2004 installed, and the ad blocker option is selected, (turned on by default), the searcher will see a mutated version of your ad. All titles are removed and the remainder of the add is left un-clickable. Probably the biggest problem with this is that ad impressions will still be recorded by Google. Since payment isn't by the impression, this doesn't cost the advertiser anything directly, but indirectly not only do you lose the chance at a potential sale, it reduces your Click Through Rate, effectively reducing your ranked position.
Google AdWords are probably the best known target, but by no means does this stop there. Featured sites on MSN, Sponsored sites on Yahoo (supplied by Overture), paid advertising on many other sites, as well as banner advertising are all affected, as are many affiliate links.
I suspect that Google is working on a fix for this problem, as it only seems fitting to do so. Unfortunately I was unable to reach David Krane, public relations manager at Google by press time to get verification.
Until a fix is announced at Google to prevent Norton from disabling AdWords links, there is little that can be done from an advertiser standpoint. My best advice at this time is to continue to focus on well-targeted ad copy. Well-written ad copy is essential to draw the attention of the user, if you write an ad that is focused enough you may get the odd searcher that is determined to type your URL into the address bar, however, this is unlikely to draw much traffic.
If you run an affiliate website and are concerned that your links are being blocked by Norton, I suggest contacting your affiliate manager to see if they have developed any solutions.
The most notable problem with Norton's new ad blocking techniques is that at times it will inadvertently block non-ad related material. If your Site Logos or header images fall within a set of specific dimensions it will be flagged as a banner and removed from your site. In order to be effective at ad blocking, something will have to be done to solve this.
Article by Scott Van Achte, PPC Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Mar. 2004
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PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES
A Pay-Per-Click search engine (also called Pay-Per-Ranking engines) allows you to place your site at the top of their results almost immediately. This comes at a price, though.
The idea is pretty simple. You put in a "bid" for how much you're willing to pay per click-through on certain keywords - the higher your bid, the higher you appear in the results for that keyword. A click-through is when a searcher clicks on your link in the engine and comes to your site. Regardless of whether this searcher purchases anything or not, you pay for them to come to your site.
The advantages of this type of system are obvious: they drive users to your site starting almost immediately and the amount of traffic can be fairly high with those visiting being likely to be looking for what you offer (these are targeted users). Some PPCs even send results to Yahoo! and other big directories (GoTo/Overture is an example of this).
In the short run this is a good marketing tool and useful to those impatient to get their site noticed quickly. Usually, you log into a PPC engine, open an account and deposit money into it. Then you put in your site information along with your bid for certain keywords, which will drive people to your site. This bid is what you are willing to pay for EVERY click-through you receive. So even $100 can go fairly quickly if you're in a high-traffic area of the 'Net.
Try to stick with the better-known names in PPCs and be wary of those that offer their surfers incentives to click on links - this is not conducive to "targeted" traffic. Also watch the engine's use-ability and function. If it isn't easy to use, nobody is using it and you're wasting your time signing up there. You can rarely get your deposit back from the search engine once it's been made.
Below is a list of popular pay-per-click search engines in alphabetical order. Many are not listed here, obviously, but I thought I would list a few and touch on some of their finer points to show you how a PPC can be used effectively.
Brainfox (www.brainfox.com): This is a decent, though relatively new PPC that offers itself as a budget alternative. Minimum bids are .001 cents! Not sure of the results of advertising here, but it may be worth a try since you only need to invest $5 to get started.
CleanSearch (www.cleansearch.com): Although not widely known, this is one of the few PPCs that focus on "family" results (no porn). You even have the option of "reporting" on results that appear to have them reviewed for content.
eFind (www.efind.com): This is a good example of a PPC you should NOT advertise with. Built like a slot machine, this one is set up to send users to paid listings in order to be entered to win prizes. Avoid these guys.
FindWhat (www.findwhat.com): I originally was not going to include this engine as they used to pay their searchers to go to advertiser's sites, but that seems to have changed. This may become a good engine in the future!
GoClick (www.goclick.com): This is a good engine and has a great explanation "help" FAQ to get new users going. It's reasonably priced and has some nice tools integrated to keep your bidding competitive.
GoTo/Overture (www.overture.com): This is the premier PPC engine. They offer shopping and auction sites (as per Yahoo!), but you'll need money to be competitive here. If you can afford it, this one is well worth the money.
Metamission (www.metamission.com): This allows you to advertise on their "metasearch" engine. I'm dubious about their results, especially when seeing the "too good to be true" 1000% bonus to your first credit deposit with them.
NetFlip (www.netflip.com): This is another bad example of a search engine gone awry. They pay users to click through and have become quite popular despite the lack of focused users they send to their advertisers.
Onesearch (www.onesearch.com): This is a good engine, though fairly boring to look at. They have a low minimum account requirement ($25 as of this writing) and offer pretty good results.
Searchhound (www.searchhound.com): This is one of the premier PPCs and their price and minimum account sizes reflect this. If you have the money to spend, though, you will probably get more traffic here than on any of the other engines.
Sprinks (www.sprinks.com): This is an easy-to-use engine that offers to get you listed in About.com as well. You may have good results here.
Turbo10 (www.turbo10.com): This is a great search engine with lots of neat bonuses for the users. Searching for exactly what you want is easy and you can jump around the search results as you wish-giving the user total power. I suspect that this will get more and more popular as time goes on and this use-ability will only enhance your listing here.
Overall, especially in the short run, Pay-Per-Click engines are a useful tool for marketing online. They require a little money to be used effectively and many require daily or weekly policing to ensure that you are not outbid and therefore ranked too low. The trouble can be worth it, though, as you drive more and more visitors (usually targeted!) to your site. As an alternative to getting listed in regular engines and directories, PPCs are very viable.
Aaron Turpen is the proprieter of Aaronz WebWorkz, a full-service provider of Web needs to small businesses. www.AaronzWebWorkz.com
By Aaron Turpen of Aaronz WebWorkz - Published Mar. 2004
First Place is Not Always the Most Cost Effective Placement
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In the battle for search engine placement across all organic listings, that golden spot of number one is top priority, and for good reason. That may not hold true in the realm of pay per click advertising. What many people may not know, is that the number one spot, although it typically grabs the highest click through's, may not always be the most cost effective. Here's why.
If you are running an ad campaign with limited funds, chances are you will max out your daily budget regardless of where you sit in the top 3, or even top 5 for that matter. It really makes little sense to pay a dollar a click for top spot if you are able to pay 50 cents for number 3.
Lets say you have a 10-dollar a day budget, currently sit in number one spot, and max your budget every day. You're paying a dollar a click and getting 10 clicks a day. Wouldn't it make sense to drop your max cost per click to 50 cents, drop to position 3, and generate 20 clicks per day instead? In my opinion it's a no brainer. If you can increase your traffic while decreasing your spending, that seems to me to be the way to go.
One thing to remember though, regardless of the PPC engine you are using, in most cases the top few positions are distributed across a variety of network sites. Make sure you know which positions will be distributed and stay within them.
Please keep in mind that this example is for illustrative purposes only and will not apply to all ad campaigns or keywords, and typically will work best for those on limited budgets, but this is definitely something to think about when selecting your max CPC.
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Article by Scott Van Achte, PPC Manager, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc. www.stepforth.com - Published Feb. 2004
Pay-Per-Clicks . . . One Way to Boost Traffic to Your Web Site
One of the ways to boost traffic to your Web site is by purchasing keywords from one of the pay-per-click search engines or directories.
But with literally hundreds of choices, how do you pick the pay-per-click engine with the best visibility that has the potential of giving you a higher return on your investment?
And, just as important, what are some strategies for working with the pay-per-click engines, and how do they operate?
How do Pay-Per-Click Engines Operate?
With pay-per-click engines, you bid on keywords that describe your business, your products, or your target audience. Then, you’re charged your bid price every time someone clicks on your ad, which is displayed when a searcher types in the keyword you’ve chosen into the search box at an engine. Whoever is willing to pay the most for the keyword or keyword phrase will be at the top of the rankings.
There are many benefits to working with pay engines, which we’ll cover in this article.
Important Pay-Per-Click Engines and Directories
Overture:
http://www.overture.com
Overture is certainly the pay-per-click engine that most people recognize. It’s also one of the most expensive and competitive.
However, the visibility of Overture is impressive, to say the least. It provides the top two or three results to “big boy” search engines and directories like Yahoo!, Lycos, HotBot, and MSN Search. In fact, Overture claims to reach 80% of all Internet users.
Overture listings are generally found at the top of the regular search results in an area called “Sponsored” results or sites.
Overture’s pay-per-clicks operate under one premise: whoever has the deepest pockets and is willing to pay the most gets on top.
The minimum bid is $.10, and there’s a minimum charge of $20 per month. A $50 initial deposit is non-refundable and will be applied to click throughs or to the minimum monthly spend. When your account is depleted, they’ll contact you to see if you want to add additional funds to your budget.
Google AdWords
http://www.google.com/ads/
Google AdWords have fast become extremely important in the pay-per-click arena, with results being shown at search engines like Google, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, and Teoma.
Google AdWords operates differently than Overture in a number of ways. Your click-through rate and cost per click together determine where your ads are shown, so better ads rise to the top. That means no one can lock you out of the top position.
Google AdWords are shown on the right-hand side of regular search results in a pink shaded area called “Sponsored Links.”
Because your click through rate has an influence on the placement of your AdWords ad, your ad’s title and description must be captivating and designed to pull in traffic.
With Google AdWords, there’s a $5 activation fee, and the minimum bid amount is $.05. You decide on the maximum cost per click that you’re willing to pay and set your daily budget. You don’t have to spend a certain amount per month, and you only pay for clicks you actually receive.
FindWhat
http://www.findwhat.com
Another popular pay-per-click engine that is generally much less expensive than Overture is FindWhat.
With FindWhat, whoever bids the most gets on top. The minimum bid is $.05, and they require a $25 minimum amount to open an account.
FindWhat provides results to 200 different partners, including many of the big meta engines like Dogpile.
Lycos InSite AdBuyer
http://insite.lycos.com/adbuyer/overview.asp
A fairly new pay-per-click program that’s displayed on both Lycos and HotBot is Lycos InSite AdBuyer.
Again, it operates similarly to the way that Overture and FindWhat operate, with the top results being those who bid the most for their target keywords.
The minimum bid is $.05 with a $50 minimum to open an account.
LookSmart
http://www.looksmart.com
LookSmart is a pay-per-click directory where you pay a flat $.l5 per click through. It claims to reach 77% of the Internet users through the partners that display LookSmart results.
Some of those partners include MSN Search, About.com, Netscape, and AltaVista.
With LookSmart, you don’t bid for listings. Everyone pays a flat $.15 per click through, and your ranking is determined by how relevant your site is to the search term, according to LookSmart’s ranking criteria. To get started with a LookSmart listing, the initial investment is $29.
Other Pay-Per-Click Engines
http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/
This comprehensive site lists over 500 different pay-per-click search engines and offers individual reviews on many of them.
Advantages to Working with the Pay Engines
The pay engines offer many advantages to Web site owners, including:
1. If you have a brand new site with little or no visibility and no link popularity, the pay engines are certainly a way to get started fast while you wait for your standard search engine marketing efforts to kick in and take effect.
2. Pay-per-click engines are ideal for holiday promotions, special sales, or to jump start slow engine traffic.
3. With the pay engines, you have instant visibility in whichever search engines display those results.
4. You choose your rankings, depending on how deep your pocket book is.
5. If some of your keywords aren't performing, you can choose other ones.
6. You only pay for clicks to your site, so you can target your traffic by the keywords you choose.
7. With regular optimization efforts, it's sometimes difficult to achieve top rankings if you're in a highly competitive field. With the pay engines, you pay for your rankings, and VOILA! You're there!
8. Purchasing keywords is certainly easier and less time consuming than optimizing your pages.
9. With regular engines, when algorithms (or ranking criteria) change, you can find yourself booted out of your top spot. With the pay engines, as long as you're willing to hand out the cash, you'll be on top.
10.You can target your audience based on the keywords you choose. Most Web sites have multiple target audiences, so pay-per-click keywords are a way to reach each of those target audiences.
11.Pay-per-click is generally less expensive than traditional advertising media.
12.With pay-per-click engines, you don't have to worry about design strategies that could mean death to a Web site otherwise. Is your entire site one huge Flash movie? No problem, if you go through the pay engines.
Tips for Boosting Your Chances for Success with the Pay Engines
When working with the pay engines, it takes practice to achieve a level of success. So, start out slowly, and keep a tight rein on your budget. As you become better at crafting titles and descriptions and choosing highly targeted keywords, you’ll gradually be able to increase your budget, if you choose.
Here are some additional tips:
1. It's not always best to be #1. Many compulsive "clickers" automatically click on the #1 result when they have no real interest in buying your products or services.
2. Be sure to include your keyword phrase in the title and description you create at the pay engines. Take special care in creating a description for your site, since within the top three slots, the best description gets the most traffic, as a general rule.
3.Your keywords must be relevant to the content of your pages. Overture is particularly careful about this.
4. Choose very targeted keywords so that you don't pay for needless click throughs. Don’t ever choose a general keyword, because your costs will skyrocket but the traffic won’t convert to sales.
5. Spend time researching your keyword choices at Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
or my favorite, WordTracker:
http://www.wordtracker.com
6. Generally, you'll have more success if you purchase 10- 20 keywords as opposed to just a few.
7. Choose a broad range of keywords and bid prices and test the waters. Watch your keywords carefully. Non-productive keywords should be eliminated and new, more productive keywords should be purchased instead.
8. For Overture, consider purchasing a "Premium Listing," which means that you hold the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd ranking for your keyword phrase. Why? Because engines like AltaVista and Lycos show the first listings only.
9. Set up a separate "tracking" page to send your pay engine traffic. In order to show whether or not the cost is worth it, you need to be able to track your click throughs and sales. Don't send pay engine traffic to your home page.
10.Write your title and description using “objective” language rather than “subjective.” In other words, don’t say that your product or service is the best or #1 (subjective). Rather, list some of the benefits of your service that make it unique (objective).
In Conclusion
You’ll find many benefits to purchasing keywords through pay-per-click engines, but you need to learn some basic guidelines before you get started. By doing so, you’ll hopefully find more successful when working with the pay engines.
Robin Nobles is Director of Training for the Academy of Web Specialists. Robin has taught several thousand students in her online and onsite search engine marketing courses during the past several years. Visit the On-lineWebTraining to learn more about their online search engine marketing courses and software solution. For onsite training by Robin Nobles and John Alexander, visit Search Engine Workshops
By Robin Nobles - Search Engine Workshops - Copyright © 2004 - Published May 2004
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SUBJECTS
How I reached #1 in Yahoo! ®
Frequent Spidering Doesn't Help Rankings
Maximize your rankings
by leveraging the five areas of the WebPosition Page Critic
The Keyword Tools Trap
Top 5 Tips for
Choosing the Best Keywords
Put Sound and Video On Your Web Site
How to Publish a "Blog"... and Why You Should!
Boost Your Search Engine Rankings with Email Newsletters
Case In Point: Designing A Site That Demand
How to design a search engine and user friendly website
How Can You Learn How to Achieve Top Search Engine Rankings?
How I reached #1 in Yahoo! ®
By accident, no all that reading and studying statistics finally paid off. I started out by reading articles from people with opposing views and trying to figure out who was wrong and who was right. To find the right person to listen to I didn’t only look at his educational background, but was more interested in his results. Good thing too, because results I found. And I hope people look at my results to help them reach #1.
In the past I had a great working simple traffic tracker on my site that stated someone visited my site by typing in ‘online editor flash sites’ into Yahoo!. I went to Yahoo! And typed in the keyword phrase and found out I hit #1 out of 1,040,000 hits! Two weeks later I dropped to #2 and found out that my other site took #1. Now I had the #1 and #2 position in Yahoo!. My world changed forever and at that moment and never will go back. Today I have more sophisticated software, charts, data, articles, and trends referenced for my webs posted on the wall. I maintain contact with forum discussions and receive up-to-date news in my email telling me of changes taking place. I have achieved the top 10 list in the top 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) and wish to educate you on how to do the same.
Keywords and Keyword Phrases
SEO- search engine optimization; the process of designing your site to achieve high rankings in the search engine
Picking the right keywords is essential. Step into your customer’s shoes and think of what keywords they would use to find the information on your site and write them down in a list. Get your friends and others with different opinions and ask them what they would type to find the information that is located on your site. Add these keywords and phrases to your list. Now check your competitors’ sites that have reached #1 status in the search engines. (Careful don’t pick sponsored sites located at the top or side, they got there by using a PPC (pay per click) ad campaign. You want the non-sponsored sites. Right click anywhere on the page and select view source to see the site in html format. Under the header tag called META name="keywords" content="keywords are here” you will find the keywords that the site used to get to the top. Add these keywords to your list.
Now you should have about 40 to 50 keywords and keyword phrases in your list to research. (By the way, 2 or 3 word keyword phrases are used the most today, when only a few months ago 1 word keywords were used.) Just following one of these three avenues (your list, your friends list, and view source) will not get you to the top, you must use all three and research the 40-50 words to get to the top.
Now take these 40-50 keywords to the search engines and type them in. Do the results pertain to the information on your site? If not, cross them off. You should have about 40 keywords left.
Here is a good SEO (search engine optimization) secret! Visit these sites: (http://excite.com, http://teoma.com/index.asp, http://www.lycos.com/, http://www.webcrawler.com/info.wbcrwl/, and http://www.bos2.alltheweb.com/ and reenter your 40 keywords and you’ll find a list of keywords under the heading, “Did you mean . . ., Other users typed in . . ., and Related links . . .” Using these search engines is an untapped resource that should not be overlooked. The list of keywords listed here are the ones that Joe Q. Public used to find the information you’re looking for. The average of all opinions of all the people browsing the internet looking for the information you want them to find on your site. Adding the relevant keywords from these lists will improve your chances of getting to the top immensely.
There are free keyword generators located on the internet to help you add to your list. The top two are Google Keywords (https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox ) and Overture Tools (http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/index.jhtml Click 'keyword selector tool.' Overture will tell you how many times that keyword was type in during the last month. Find these tools on the internet and type in your keywords to see how they rank, and cross off the ones that don’t generate much traffic. And guess what? You get a list of more keywords that will help your goal to get to #1! They show up in the order from most used to least used. Add the relevant keywords to your list.
You should now have a list of about 75 or more keywords. Remember: The more research you do, the better your chances will be to getting to #1. What do you do with this large list of keywords now? Determine how often they are used by Joe Q. Public and relate it to how many of your competitors use this keyword in optimizing their site. This will give you something called a KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index; compares the Daily World Searches with the number of competing Web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are good enough so you can use them while optimizing your site) rating.
Part two of this article will show you how to narrow your list to 10 of the most powerful keywords in the market to raise your ranking in the search engines.
(Go to part 2)
By Michael Rock © 2005 - http://www.TheInternetPresence.com - Published Feb. 2005
The owner of this registered company has over twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications, numerous programming languages, artistic development, and web design. Other areas of interest include web marketing, web promoting, and business marketing and development. After the persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go into business himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the same.
Frequent Spidering Doesn't Help Rankings
Hi Jill,
I've been following your newsletter for ages now (since before you went solo with High Rankings) and would appreciate your help with this question. I've been speaking with a client about changes to their web site. They have been told previously that using otating images on a web page helps to keep a site "fresh" for search engines. That sounds odd to me.
Plus, based on comments you have made in previous newsletters, I get the impression that good content does not need to be updated to remain high on search engines' results. So please help me...how important is updating content? Do search engines reward sites with recent changes?
Thanks heaps -- and I hope you enjoyed the SES conference and your time in Florida at Christmas. It's pretty warm here at the moment.
Stuart
Jill's Response
Hi Stuart,
Thanks, I did enjoy the SES conference and also our short vacation last week in Florida. It could definitely have been warmer though!
You are correct that changing images to keep your site fresh seems odd. It is! There are a few basic flaws with the whole concept, which stem from people only half-understanding what they hear or read online. There are people who think that a site that is visited often by the search engine spiders will rank higher for its optimized keyword phrases. But that's simply not true.
What IS true is that a site that is considered "popular" by the search engines may rank higher for its optimized keyword phrases. And sites that are deemed popular will also tend to be visited more often by the spiders. What has happened is that people have mixed this up and think that a site visited more often will rank higher. With that erroneous thinking in mind, they go to great lengths to entice the spiders to visit more often. The truth of the matter is that there's no evidence to suggest that rankings are affected by how often your pages are visited by the spiders.
The *only* reason why you might care if the spiders visit your pages often is if you are actually adding new content on a regular basis. That's exactly what the spiders are looking for when they try to decide how often to visit your site. They will find the new content, determine how often you add stuff, and try to schedule their visits accordingly. It's got nothing to do with rankings, however.
Hope this helps end your confusion about this.
Jill
Jill Whalen of High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization consultant and editor of the free weekly High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter.
Article by Jill Whalen, www.searchengineguide.com - Published Jan. 2005
Maximize your rankings by leveraging the five areas of the WebPosition Page Critic
If you've had a chance to try WebPosition Gold 3 released in August, you may have noticed that the Page Critic report is now divided into six tabs. As this report is so crucial to improving your rankings on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other engines, I believe the new format merits some explanation.
The first tab of the Page Critic report is simply a consolidation of the other report areas found on the remaining five tabs. This first tab is useful for those that wish to print the entire report, or for those that prefer to see everything all on one page. It provides an impressive volume of SEO advice and can be rather overwhelming at first glance.
The remaining five tabs serve to divide the content into smaller, more digestible pieces. These areas guide you through the process of tuning your Web page to the preferences of your selected search engine. The tabs are entitled Page Averages, Page Advice, Engine Advice, Page Analysis, Page Properties.
Everyone's Web site and target market is different. While there are some commonalities, most search engines rank pages based on differing criteria. Therefore, it's important to realize that the Page Critic custom tailors its advice for the specific Web page, keyword, and search engine that you select.
Page Averages:
The simplest way to improve your page rankings is to mimic the major attributes that cause other pages to rank at the top of the list. In September, I discussed the various comparison tools that WebPosition makes available to you. One of these methods is to compare your page's key attributes to the averages of other pages that already rank in the top 5 positions. For example, if the average top-ranking page on Google includes 5 words in the title tag area, then you should logically do the same in your title. In reality, you will not find every top-ranking page having precisely 5 words in the title. There's often a range of "acceptable" values that Google will give preference to. Therefore, you will notice that the Page Averages report will advise you to conform to a particular range of acceptable values. For example:
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A word count from 4 to 6 is suggested for the Title area. Your word count is 12 right now so you might consider decreasing your word count in the Title.
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A keyword frequency from 1 to 7 is suggested for the Link Text area. Your frequency is 0.0 right now so you might consider increasing your Keyword count in the Link Text.
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A word count from 1 to 270 is suggested for the Link Text area. Your word count is 0 right now so you might consider increasing your word count in the Link Text.
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You'll notice that in some cases, the range is fairly narrow like 4 to 6 words in the title area. In other cases, the range is broad, such as 1 to 270 words in the link text area. These values are based upon how widely top ranking pages deviate from the average.
If your page has 7 words in the title, rather than 4 to 6 words, does that mean your page can't rank at the top of the list? No, of course not. There's more than one way to rank at the top. WebPosition's report is only meant to be a useful guide to what the typical top-ranking page should look like.
In addition, some factors will be less influential than others. For example, your title tag will almost always have more influence on your ranking than your meta keyword tag. However, your best strategy is to tune your page to mimic as many of the averages as possible.
To save you time, only the "problem" areas will be mentioned on the Page Averages tab. If your title already has the optimal number of words, then WebPosition will not make any suggestions for that area.
Tip: If any of this search engine marketing terminology is confusing, you'll find many of the terms hyperlinked in the Page Critic report. Simply click on the underlined words to learn more
Page Advice:
Like the Page Averages tab, the Page Advice tab contains WebPosition's suggestions based on your selected Web page, engine, and keyword. In contrast to the previous tab, Page Advice includes all the page-specific tips that are unrelated to average word counts or average prominence. Instead, you'll find that WebPosition scans for missing tags and other elements that should be either present or excluded from a top-ranking page. For many well-built pages, this list will be relatively short as only the "problem" areas will be flagged.
Engine Advice:
Here you will find a wealth of engine specific advice. There's so many advice items to help you improve your rankings, that this section has been organized into eight categories:
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What's New - Tips added within the last few months.
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Keyword Selection - Advice for choosing the best keywords.
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Relevancy Tips - Techniques for improving your page's relevancy to the search engines. The more relevant an engine finds your page, the higher you will rank.
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Link Popularity - Strategies for building your link popularity to increase your traffic and your rankings.
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Submission and Getting Indexed - Guidelines for proper submission.
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Spam Warnings - Educate yourself on best practices and how to avoid spamming a search engine.
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Marketing Strategies - Online marketing techniques that will work hand in hand with your search engine marketing strategy.
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Other Information - Search engine news and miscellaneous SEO tips.
Page Analysis:
This tab gives you a table showing the keyword frequency, word count, keyword weight, and prominence of your page compared to your competitors. If you're serious about optimizing your page, this is the place to go. While the Page Averages tab gives you much of this data in easy to understand sentence form, here you'll see all the statistical data at glance. The exact averages are given here rather than "ranges."
The Page Analysis table divides your page into "areas" such as title, meta tags, link text, body, and so forth. You can then compare each area of your page to one or more top ranking pages. Some areas that are known to be ignored by the selected search engine will be omitted by default from this report. That way you don't waste time optimizing page areas that an engine does not even index.
Page Properties:
The final tab on the Page Critic report contains a list of useful traits relating to the page being analyzed such as whether it uses frames, contains java script, or repeats the same keyword more than once in a row.
Conclusion:
While the scope and breadth of the Page Critic module may look a little intimidating at first, you'll quickly learn your way around it. Although WebPosition is well known for it's impressive rank reporting features, you'll find the Page Critic module to be the key to improving those rankings. After all, it does you no good to submit your pages and to track your positions if you don't work to improve those rankings.
This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings. A free trial of WebPosition Gold is available from their Web site.
By Brent Winters - WebPosition Gold - Published Dec. 2004
The Keyword Tools Trap
When it comes to keyword selection, clients always want to optimize for the most searched terms (according to keyword research tools) and those alone. It takes some convincing to get them to go after lower search volume, but more relevant phrases. It's become a regular part of the cycle with my clients, especially those who are learning about SEO and the process of optimizing a site.
Real Searches vs. the Numbers Game
Last week, a client wanted to know why I had suggested several phrases to them that showed 0 searches in Wordtracker. The reason? Those phrases were showing REAL referrals in their logs for several variations. People were actually using those phrases to search, and although they found my client's site, it wasn't doing a good job of focusing on these relevant searched-for terms.
The Keyword Research Process
I usually have the client provide me with the typical words they think someone might be using to find the product, service or information that they offer. We look at what competitors are optimizing for and then I look at their log files. When possible, I talk to the client's salespeople and a few customers about the words that describe the products or services.
Then I may play with AltaVista <http://www.altavista.com> to see what phrases it thinks are related (you see a list of related searches to the right of the search results in AV). Then I'll hit Wordtracker <http://www.highrankings.com/wordtracker> and the Overture suggestion tool <http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/> to get an idea of how people are searching in that industry.
Other keyword research tools that may be helpful are:
* Search Term Research by PrioritySubmit
<http://www.prioritysubmit.com/research.html>
* Keyword Research Tool by Webmaster Toolkit
<http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-research-tool.shtml>
* Keyword Suggestion Tool by Digital Point Solutions
<http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/>
* Google AdWords Keyword Tool by Google
<http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox>
* Keyword Suggestions for Google by SEO Chat
<http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-suggestions-google>
* Keyword Generator by Espotting Media
<http://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.asp>
(Thanks to "BobMutch" for the list of keyword research tools -- see
more great info on his Free Seo Tools page
<http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/free-seo-tools.html>.
These tools are a great help in suggesting possible phrases that you may want to optimize for, but they are limited. They aren't inclusive of all searches, and they can't foretell the future. Just because people searched on a term last week doesn't mean they'll search for it next week.
Many people today simply run through Wordtracker, grab the results that have a high KEI, and set about optimizing for those phrases. Some of the problems with this tactic are:
* They believe that general phrases are relevant because they show a high number of searches. However, general phrases often bring traffic -- but no sales. Specific phrases bring traffic that converts.
* Wordtracker's KEI function doesn't tell you much. It doesn't really show how many other pages are competing for your phrases, and it doesn't matter anyway. You are only concerned with the top 10 results!
* Many keyword phrases are seasonal -- seeing what people searched for last month doesn't always tell you what they will search for next month.
Common-sense Keyword Selection
What many people miss is the common-sense aspect of search: what words will people who want to find your goods or services use to search for it? Besides consulting keyword research tools, your client, their salespeople, and their customers, here are 3 additional ways of finding out what people are typing in at the search engines to find what you offer:
1) trade organizations or industry news sites
2) usability testing/surveys
3) log files
A note about log files -- they can be deceiving. If you have a high-traffic phrase that is garnering lots of referrals, and you have a high exit rate from the page that is receiving those referrals, it's likely people aren't finding what they wanted. On the other hand, log files are a treasure trove of information. You can find some great search terms that are not very competitive and maximize them on your site.
Competitive phrases may not be as competitive as you think (check the top 10 search results to see) and the highly searched- pon phrases may not be as lucrative as you would hope. People often refine their search 2-3 times before getting the results they expect.
When it comes to keyword research, the bottom line is that it pays to know the industry. Use all the great tools available to help you come up with variations and alternate terms to target, but use common sense when targeting terms. Go for the ones that are going to convert!
Scottie Claiborne - The Karcher Group: http://www.TheKarcherGroup.com - Successful-Sites: http://www.Successful-Sites.com - Published Oct. 2004
Top 5 Tips for
Choosing the Best Keywords
You've probably heard of people claiming significant traffic to their site after achieving a top ranking on Google or Yahoo. But sometimes you hear from someone else who also achieved a similar top ranking but they were disappointed when no one arrived at their site. How can two people achieve a top ranking and have such markedly different outcomes? Simple. The person in the first example selected a keyword or phrase that many people are searching on, and the second did not.
Unfortunately, it's all too easy to brainstorm your own list of keywords, only to find out later that they are not as popular as you first thought. Keyword popularity is essential to success in search engine marketing.
The question to ask yourself is how do you really know if you're optimizing your pages for keywords that Web surfers are looking for? There are several good techniques you can apply:
Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience.
For example, you may have a "clothing business" where you "sell clothing." While those phrases describe what you do, they are not necessarily the words that your audience would enter into a search engine to find you. How many times have you went to Google and typed in "sell clothing" in order to find a particular shirt or hat?
Therefore, you must change your point of view from the person selling the product to the person that wants to buy your product. For example, popular phrases to target in the clothing category would be "plus size clothing," "mens clothing," or "womens clothing." How do I know this? I used the new WordTracker Keywords module found in WebPosition Gold 3. When I typed in the word "clothing," it instantly pulled up a wide range of related keywords from which to choose, all ranked by popularity.
I must admit, I was rather surprised to see such unusual terms like "medieval clothing" and "gothic clothing" was ranked high. However, that's the thing with keywords. It's next to impossible to simply guess what the most popular phrases will be today.
Target Niches.
While "mens clothing" in the previous example may be one of the most popular clothing related searches, it unfortunately has a lot of competition. If you do a search on Google, you'll find it returns over 1 million results for that phrase. While this type of phrase may gain you a lot of traffic, achieving a top ranking may prove difficult and time-consuming.
In addition, you will normally find visitors who search on very broad keyword categories purchasing less often than someone who knows exactly what they want. A good example of such a niche phrase would be "custom baseball hats." The benefit of "custom baseball hats" is that it's both a popular search phrase and it only has about 2000 pages on Google competing against it. That's much less competitive than the 1 million results returned for "mens clothing."
WordTracker calls the popularity and competition ratio the "KEI" or Keyword Effectiveness Index. The higher the KEI, the more effective the keyword will be for you.
Therefore, targeting relatively popular niche keywords has the following four advantages:
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Niche keywords still produce a nice flow of traffic if you're careful to pick ones that still have good popularity.
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Niche keywords will significantly increase your chance of success. Achieving a top ranking will be much easier with a niche keyword phrase versus a very broad, highly popular phrase. No top ranking can be guaranteed in an organic search engine like Google. There are simply too many variables. Therefore, you'll greatly increase your chances of success by choosing less competitive keyword phrases. Work smarter, not harder as I like to say.
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Niche keywords will save you time. While you could use various tools and research to achieve a top ranking for "mens clothing," the time required to do so may not be worthwhile. Let your competitor waste their efforts on the ultra-competitive phrases. In the same amount of time they spend trying to achieve a single top ranking for your industry's most popular phrase, you could achieve top rankings on twenty other phrases.
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Niche keywords yield more sales per visitor. That's because these keywords are more targeted. Therefore, these prospects have a better idea of what they want. If they find it on your site at the right price, then your chances for a sale are much greater.
Brainstorm for keywords in your category
There are many ways to brainstorm new keyword phrases. You can examine the content and the meta tags on your competition's Web site to see what phrases they consider important. While this is a good place to start looking for ideas, there's no guarantee they are targeting the best keywords. You must check these keywords against the corresponding popularity and competition factors. You could also consult with your thesaurus for synonyms and related phrases and correlate these to popularity and competition. Fortunately, WordTracker will do this for you within seconds. Simply type in the word "clothing" and it will return dozens of the most popular keywords, with the ability to drill down to hundreds more. In fact, the phrases you find here may trigger many new ideas to expand or grow your company's business into areas you had not previously considered.
Choose only relevant keywords
Just because a keyword is popular with a low competition factor, doesn't mean you should target that keyword or phrase. You may be tempted to optimize for phrases that are only loosely related to your site's content -- but DON'T.
The phrases you target must be relevant to what you have to sell. It must also be applicable to what you have to offer on the specific Web page you are optimizing. How many times have you searched Google, landed on a page, and then backed out within 5 seconds of arriving? That page had a top ranking, but it did not have what you were looking for.
Perhaps the Web site did have what you wanted, but the product resided elsewhere on the site. Unfortunately, your visitor may never know this. If you target a keyword or phrase, then the page they land on must offer the products, services or content that they expect, or you'll be wasting your time and your visitor's time. At the very least, the page should offer direct links to the potential products and services they may expect to find there.
How do you know what people are looking for on your pages? Simply check your Top Search Phrases report in WebTrends for a list of the keywords people searched on to find each page of your site. You may be surprised to learn that pages are ranking well on phrases that you had never considered. You can also see which keywords and phrases are driving the highest conversion and revenue, to ensure you maximize the return from your SEO effort. Once you identify these pages and search phrases, make sure you are giving the visitor exactly what they expect to find based on the phrases used to find the page.
Understand that keywords can have multiple meanings
If you have a travel business, then your first thought might be to target the word travel. However, if someone is searching on just plain old "travel" are they:
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Helping their child with a paper on some aspect of "travel?"
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Looking for the "travel channel?"
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Looking to plan a vacation cruise?
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Preparing to take a business trip?
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Day dreaming about time travel?
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Looking for driving directions for their travel across the country?
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Looking for a travel club such as AAA?
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Looking for the perfect backpack or hiking supplies for a travel expedition?
If you own a travel agency that specializes in vacation cruises and optimized your site for the single keyword "travel," only a limited number of the people identified in the example above would be qualified prospects. This of course assumes that travel was not too competitive to begin with.
While a top ranking on travel would yield a great deal of visitors to your site, many of them would select the "Back" button in their browsers, turn around and effectively walk out of your store! That's not the outcome you're looking for. When you select more targeted keyword phrases such as "Alaskan Cruise," there is a much higher likelihood that you have focused in on exactly the right audience. It's the difference between attracting actual buyers versus tire kickers.
Doing a quick search in WordTracker is a great way to get a feel for all the keyword variations that your audience may be searching on. You'll also discover which are the most popular, and least competitive. This is not only invaluable in regard to search engine marketing, but for your marketing efforts in general. If you haven't tried WordTracker yet, simply download the free trial of WebPosition Gold 3 and click on the WordTracker Keywords icon.
This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition Gold. FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings. A free trial of WebPosition Gold is available from their Web site.
By Brent Winters - WebPosition Gold - Published Jul. 2004
Put Sound and Video On Your Web Site
Sound and video are coming to the Internet in a big way. Now, with cheap new technology, anyone can turn their website into a TV or radio station without spending a dime.
Given the huge audiences that radio and TV have (99 percent of American homes have a TV and most own five radios), putting audio and video on your site could be the most important thing you do. Some studies show audio and video can increase website sales by as much as 50 percent.
Streaming media, as it is called, excites customers and keeps you ahead of your competition. The static printed web page will be around for a long time, but watch for most leading sites to start offering audio and video.
Streaming media requires a lot more data than a simple printed page. Having DSL or a T line helps. Since most consumers still use dial-up modems on lines that support less than 40k, Internet audio and video rely on clever methods for compressing and reducing big files of data.
The result is sometimes fuzzy audio and pictures that look faded and blurry. The level of quality might be annoying on regular TV, but it's nothing short of exhilarating coming from the Internet. One client who is using web video says he is getting a phenomenal rate of sales from it.
Your web site visitors won't mind a bit if your presentation isn't network professional. They will appreciate the big jump from reading text to seeing a media presentation.
Start with Audio.
There is a huge difference between the amount of work it takes to produce video and what is needed to build an audio-only presentation. A single individual can produce an outstanding radio show while even a simple TV program requires a full staff.
An audio presentation doesn't require location, lighting, or the inconspicuous microphone placement video demands.
You can record your voice, add some music, drop in a sound effect and your audio program is ready to hit the Internet.
There are a number of cheap or free programs that let you record your audio as a simple WAV file, a Real Audio file, or a an MP3. After trying several of them, I settled on a $20 program called Internet Audio Mix available from http://www.acoustica.com.
It works with your PC's sound card to record up to four digital tracks. Operation and editing is completely intuitive.
Most recent PCs have Real Audio bundled with windows. That means a large and growing number of your customers can click on your audio link, download your Real Audio file, and listen to it within a matter of seconds.
Speak with energy when you record audio tracks. Because people can't see your face, your voice has to pack extra punch.
Try to cut down on "uhs" and "uhms." Don't feel like you have to talk like an announcer. Customers respond better to a voice that sounds like a regular person.
Several companies have created easy systems for producing and hosting your audio for free. GiveMeTalk.com (http://www.givemetalk.com) provides a simple free program for recording your talk show, then lets you host it on their site where customers can hear you.
I recorded my articles as MP3 files (the format Internet music uses) and loaded them up on Live365.com (http://www.live365.com). The site rotates my talks, making them available non-stop 24 hours a day at no charge. I call it the DrNunley Radio Network and link to it from my site.
Moving Up to Web Video.
Video experts tell me we're years away from having quality streaming video on the Internet. Still, there are some easy ways to offer fairly good video from your site.
Because the Real Video format is becoming so widely accepted, you can download and use several of RealNetwork.com's (http://www.realnetwork.com) free video production applications.
Real Slideshow (free) lets you combine images with talk, music, and sound effects. Real Presenter (also free) turns your PowerPoint presentations into Internet video.
Several of the free web hosting sites now host your streaming media presentations at no charge. Tripod.com (http://www.tripod.com), one of the pioneers in free web sites, offers a program called ShowMotion. You can combine still photos with clips of video, scanned images, and backed with your narration. Tripod hosts it for free.
If all this sounds a bit too technical, Tripod features several fine presentations produced by high school students. The format is drag and drop and impressed me as being vastly easier than designing a web site.
Even though Internet audio and video is cutting-edge and exciting, it doesn't come near the quality we are used to with regular radio and television. That is good news for small web sites. You can turn out a homespun effort and still be right on the heels of professionals.
For true professional level video, check wbcimaging.com (http://www.wbcimaging.com). They are television engineers who have long taken an interest in the best ways to put video on the Internet.
Radio is a billion dollar industry. Television is arguably the most influential media ever invented. Now that it has become so easy to produce your own Internet audio and video, it makes sense to add those powerful dimensions to your web site.
Kevin Nunley provides marketing advice and copy writing for businesses and organizations. Read all his money-saving marketing tips at http://DrNunley.com/ or reach him at kevin@drnunley.com.
By By Dr. Kevin Nunley Copyright © 2004 - Published Jun. 2004
How to Publish a "Blog"... and Why You Should!
First, a quick definition for those who do not know what a Blog is. Quite simply, it's a Web Log. In other words, a regularly updated page of your thoughts, ideas, links - whatever.
It's very easy to publish a Blog these days and today I'm going to show you how in a few easy steps. Don't worry - all the sites, services and tools involved are fr'ee.
Before we go ahead I should first explain why a Blog is so useful. A Blog provides a number of benefits to you and your site and all for very little effort.
1. A Blog will add valuable content to your site. This in turn increases repeat visitors and increases the frequency the Google Page Bot (and therefore how often your site listings are updated) will visit.
2. A Blog can be updated very quickly (especially using the technique I show you below). It's much faster to update than editing your Web Page or sending out an e-mail.
3. Blogs can be delivered as RSS Feeds and this means a user can download software to have your Blog delivered direct to their desktop as and when it's updated. You DO NOT have to pay for sites such as Quikonnex or the new Cory Rudl software. RSS Feeds are NOT new and you shouldn't have to pay for what is essentially a fr'ee technology!
Do you now believe you should publish a Blog? If you do, just read on, and see how easy it is!
First join http://www.Blogger.Com - this is a popular Blog service (there are others) that makes the whole process as simple as possible. You just register your details and a title for your Blog.
Why choose Blogger? First, the Google Toolbar has a "Blog This" button that makes updating your Blog childs play. Click the button, and you can publish direct into your Blog immediately - including a link to the web-site you're currently on!
Second, Blogger will add you to it's directory and to a notification service AND they will let you publish to their site, though you can set FTP settings to publish to a page at your own domain. For now we'll publish to Bloggers host service "BlogSpot" since they are fast and the only thing they add is one banner at the top. You may also get featured as one of Bloggers daily blogs and gain massive traffic.
Blogger also has a range of templates and you can even edit these directly to personalize your Blog, right down to adding ads or links to your own site (Tip: include a navigation bar). Blogger will also archive your Blog and insert links to your archived months.
Blogger will create a Blog for you in a few steps. At the Blogger.Com main page click on "Start Now" at the top. Enter your Username, Password and Name and away you go.
Once you have your account validated, log in and create a new Blog. This is just as simple as creating a user account. Enter a Title and Description, and leave it as a "Public" Blog. Then select host at BlogSpot. Create a subdomain for your BlogSpot then select a template. You can create your own templates but that requires extensive HTML knowledge.
That's it! You have an account and a Blog setup. There are other settings to explore. You can set "Ping Weblogs" to YES in the Settings/Publishing option to notify Weblogs whenever you publish. You can also set "Show Title Field" and "Email" options to provide Titles to your Blog Entries and email a copy of your entries to you. Everything else is OK as it is.
With your Blog at BlogSpot and your Google Toolbar http://toolbar.google.com installed, set the Blogger function in the Toolbar Options and then click the `B` button in the toolbar. There you have it - one instant Blog entry.
How To Use Your RSS Feed
If you left the Blog settings as standard, your RSS feed is at your BlogSpot Address as atom.xml - the number of entries depends on your settings in Blogger, but it's usually a weeks worth. Although the Atom feed doesn't hold *every* entry, the end user's client software stores all entries as they come in. Your website Blog has complete on-line archives.
Instruct your readers to download an RSS Reader and to use that address to receive your Blog updates. Below I've included a quick tutorial that you can cut-out and send to your own Blog readers, just change the Blog Address.
How To Get Updates From This Blog... To Your Desktop!
First you need to download a "Feed Reader." This Blog uses an Atom Feed. Atom Readers can be downloaded from the following webpage: http://atomenabled.org/everyone/atomenabled/index.php?c=5
The above link contains a "big list" of resources, so you may want to use the program below if you want to get started with a quick and easy client right away:
Tristana Reader http://www.charlwood.com/tristana
The Tristana Reader is a small and quick reader. This "big list" contains this reader and others, including those for Mac OS and web-based services. There's also certain readers that integrate into your browser. Use the link to the "big list" to find one you like. Don't worry, they're nearly all fr'ee!
In Tristana, you simply click the large "+" sign and enter the address of the Blog Atom feed. The feed to this Blog is: http://netpreneurnow.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Once the feed is added, just double click it to get a list of headlines and click each headline to get the entry. You can add as many blogs as you want and Tristana will happily keep them all for you.
Blogger itself has a lot of help if you need it, so it's
time for me to sign off.
Happy Blogging!
Stuart Reid publishes Netpreneur News and it's Blog. Visit the main site to join the Email Ezine or to view the Blog at: http://www.netpreneurnow.com
By Stuart Reid Copyright © 2004 - Published May 2004
Boost Your Search Engine Rankings with Email Newsletters
SEO: search engine optimization. It can make the difference between a website that's rarely visited, and one that bustles with traffic. Email newsletters are an excellent and easy way to boost SEO.
Of course, email newsletters offer many obvious benefits to firms that want to nurture relationships with their clients. They are an inexpensive, effective way to keep in touch with your customer base while promoting your company, your products and services, and your brand.
Every time you send out a newsletter, you encourage people to visit your website. But that's not the only way it can increase your website traffic. If you choose to archive past issues on your site, you'll find that they can also attract targeted search engine traffic. Each issue you post helps your SEO results. With SEO, email newsletters do double duty - continually benefiting your web marketing efforts long after distribution.
Think about it. Each issue focuses on something that has to do with your business, right? So it's probably full of relevant key phrases that people use in search engines. A newsletter article allows you to write about a specific topic in great detail - perhaps more detail than you would include on a regular page on your website.
Also, articles give you an opportunity to link to specific pages deep in your website, using whatever anchor text you want. ("Anchor text" refers to the text of the actual link. For instance, if you want people to find your web page about email newsletters, the link "email newsletters" is much better for SEO than "click here.")
Articles let you optimize for different spellings or abbreviations of business terms that you might not be using frequently on your regular pages. The regular web pages for my client's Athena IT Solutions website are optimized for phrases such as "business intelligence assessment." But one of the firm's email newsletter articles ranks well for a phrase that uses the abbreviation for business intelligence, BI. In April 2004, searches for "BI architecture" bring up one of their articles in the #1 spot in Yahoo and on the second page of Google.
If your website isn't very large to begin with, adding your archived newsletters will help bulk it up with high-quality content. Before you know it, you may find that you're attracting visitors in ways you never expected. For example, Eye of the Storm Equine Rescue published an email newsletter detailing their innovative treatment for a horse disease. Their web stats show that the article page is now one of the most frequent "entry" pages to their site. Grateful horse owners who found the article when searching for treatments have even sent tax-deductible donations to the rescue center.
You can leave it to chance, like the equine rescue center, or you can take a proactive approach and actually optimize your articles for SEO. In addition to using SEO copywriting practices in the article itself, there are things you can do to enhance your article page's SEO. Just make sure that whatever you do for SEO is also good for your readers.
Use your key phrase in the title tag.
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Include links to several past issues.
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Link to regular pages within your site, where appropriate.
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Link to specific articles from your regular web pages, where appropriate.
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Make a link to your home page part of every article's boilerplate text.
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List all issues on a Back Issues web page.
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Link to issues on your site map.
Optimized and posted on your website, email newsletter articles help turn a lazy website into a hard-working web-marketing machine.
Andrea Harris - Minerva Solutions, Inc. - Published May 2004
Case In Point: Designing A Site That Demands High Traffic
Marnie Pehrson may not be well known for driving traffic to Web sites, but she should be! Her ability to get literally hundreds of thousands of page views a month is simply astounding! (NOTE: I said "page views," not "hits." BIG difference!) I had to ask her to reveal her secrets so that we all could learn how to create a Web site that simply demands high traffic.
KARON: Hi Marnie. I really appreciate you taking the time to give us your insights on traffic building. You seem to have the Midas touch in this area : )
MARNIE: Oh sure, Karon. Anything for a friend.
KARON: I know from our email conversations that most of your Web sites get anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000 page views a month. How do you do it? Search engines? Ezine ads? What?
MARNIE: Well, those things do help, but normally the site itself drives the visitors to return over and over. It also encourages viral marketing with lots of referrals.
KARON: So tell me about your two biggest sites (in terms of traffic). Those would be http://www.ideamarketers.com and http://www.shelovesgod.com, right?
MARNIE: Right. Both of these sites give the visitor a chance to shine - to contribute and be in the spotlight. They both accept article contributions; they both allow profiles of visitors; and they both have a place for me to give extra attention to visitors (the masthead).
KARON: So, because visitors are in the spotlight on these two sights, they recommend them to others, return repeatedly, and link back to you. Excellent!
MARNIE: Yes, I've built in automatic ways for visitors to forward pages to friends, which brings even more traffic. Basically, rather than having the focus on selling, I put it on the visitor. They are the primary focus with the products/services I sell taking a back seat (so to speak).
KARON: But you still make sales, right?
MARNIE: Oh yes! The sites wouldn't have been able to stay online since 1998 and 2000 if they weren't making money : )
KARON: Good point! What else can you tell us about your "magic formula?"
MARNIE: Well, both sites have *LOTS* of pages people can visit. As you know, more pages = more doors for visitors to enter = more listings in search engines = more traffic!
KARON: Keep going... I'm all ears.
MARNIE: The masthead I told you about earlier helps drive traffic from my heavy-hitter sites to my newer sites. Among other things, it features articles and tips from site contributors. Then, in my newsletters, I encourage people to go to the site to read further. In other words, everything's not there in the email, they have to go to the site to get some of the content.
KARON: Well, you just have all kinds of tricks up your sleeve, don't you? Anything else?
MARNIE: Yes, actually : ) IdeaMarketers is also a "newsworthy" site that is used as a resource for many people. It tends to get a lot of mentions in articles simply because of its nature. And because of the quality of the site, IdeaMarketers has been recommended in a lot of high-traffic ezines.
KARON: So the combination of all these elements creates a Web site that people WANT to visit time and again, right? Marketing sites such as these is left more to the visitors than to your efforts, huh?
MARNIE: In a way. The visitors most certainly are the reason for my success. As I said before, search engines are not to be ignored, and I'm a firm believer in ezine advertising, but when you build a site designed around visitor interaction, traffic usually comes without a struggle.
KARON: Thanks so much, Marnie. This gives us some serious issues to think about.
MARNIE: My pleasure!
The two sites of Marnie's we mentioned in this interview are her article promotion site http://www.ideamarketers.com, and her women's spiritual growth site http://www.shelovesgod.com. Visit them today to see Marnie's traffic pulling designs in action.
Most buying decisions are emotional. Your ad copy should be, too! Karon is President & CEO of Marketing Words, Inc. who offers targeted copywriting, search engine copywriting, and ezine article writing. Subscribe to Karon's free ezine at http://www.marketingwords.com/ezine.html or visit her site at http://www.marketingwords.com. You can also learn to write you own powerful copy at http://marketingwords.com.
By Karon Thackston Copyright © 2004 Published Apr. 2004
How to design a search engine and user friendly website
How often have you compromised website design for higher search engine results? I’m sure we all have at some time or other. But really, there’s no need to. By following these guidelines you can have the best of both worlds.
Before we get going, the most important thing to remember when designing a search engine and user friendly website is to design the site for the user. Forget the search engine. Why? Because (rather ironically), both the user and search engines like the same thing. Then both appreciate clear, rich and relevant content and they both like clean standard HTML code. Now, let’s get on with it.
Step 1. Requirements Gathering
The first step is to determine the objectives of the website. These include issues such as the websites purpose and the target audience. Once this is done, you can determine the content of the website. In some instances this will be provided to you and in others you’ll need to work with the client to come up with ideas. Content can include product and service information, product database, online ordering system, articles, press releases, news, company information, testimonials and so forth.
Step 2. Keyword Research
If you don’t already have your keyword phrases, you’ll need to research and select them now. They’ll be used in the building of the site, so it’s important you know what they are early on in the process.
Step 3. Site Structure and Navigation
Now that you’ve got your content and keyword phrases, consider the site structure. How should the content be grouped? You’ll most likely need to break it into top level and secondary level. In some cases even a third level. When labeling the navigation, consider using easily recognizable descriptions such as “Products” or “Services”. Don’t ever make your user have to guess what’s in a section by using cryptic descriptions.
Also, start to work out which pages your keyword phrases should be incorporated into. You’ll find in most cases they’ll naturally fit within the subject matter of certain sections/pages.
Step 4. Site Design
The first port of call in any design is the look and feel of the site. Considerations here include ensuring consistency with any branding the client may have. Also be aware of color choices. Colors that work in print may not necessarily work well on screen, so some adjustments may be necessary.
Next is page layout. How many columns will you have? Where will your navigation be positioned? If you have more than one navigation level how will you present this? Keep in mind that these days users expect to see information in standard places. You don’t want users to hunt for what they’re looking for.
This stage is also where you first incorporate your keyword phrases. As you’ve already allocated phrases to relevant pages you can start to incorporate them into your file names (where appropriate), headings, sub headings, navigation links and anywhere else you see fit.
With the navigation, you’ll need to decide whether links should be text or graphic. Keep in mind that search engine spiders crawl text links so if you go with graphics you’ll need to incorporate text links somewhere into your site design. It is worth including your keyword phrases into your text links where possible. Just make sure they read well and don’t look awkward or out of place.
Step 4. Keyword-rich Content
Once you’ve got your site together it’s time to add your content, ensuring you incorporate your keyword phrases wherever possible.
When using headings and sub headings, be sure you use the HTML header codes <H1>, <H2> etc rather than graphics as they’re given more weight by most search engines. They also load faster which is a benefit to the user.
Bolding your keyword phrases, incorporating them into lists and having them as bullet points are other formatting tips I find work well. It also helps break up your page and makes it more inviting for users to read.
Step 5. HTML Tweaking
Once your site is done and your copy is in place, it’s time to make the final tweaks to your HTML code. This is when you add descriptive Title tags (incorporating your relevant keyword phrases of course), Meta Descriptions and Keywords Tags. It’s also a good time to make sure your Alt tags are relevant and contain your keyword phrases wherever appropriate.
Be sure to have any non HTML code such as Style Sheets and JavaScript as external files rather than embedded in your HTML pages.
As a final step, make sure you remove any superfluous code, blank lines and so forth. The less code in your file the smaller the page which means a faster download and a happy user.
Step 6. Site Map
The sixth and final step is to add a Site Map to your website. A Site Map is an index of your whole site. It contains text links to every page on your site and is a fantastic way to ensure search engine spiders can crawl each and every page of your website. A Site Map is also a great way for a user to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Place a link to your Site Map at the bottom of each page of your website.
Tip: Including a couple of lines of text about each page can be a boost to your search engine rankings,
Conclusion
And there you have it. Follow these 6 simple steps and you’ll not only have a website that works well for your prospects but one that is loved by the search engines as well.
Sophie Wegat is a web design and search engine optimization consultant based in Melbourne, Australia.
By Sophie Wegat, Nitrogen Interactive - Published Apr. 2004
How Can You Learn How to Achieve Top Search Engine Rankings?
If you're serious about having a successful online business, you need to spend some time studying the search engines and how they operate.
Why? Because comparatively speaking, search engine marketing is generally much less expensive than traditional forms of advertising, which certainly appeals to those of us with low (or no!) advertising budgets. Also, the reach you can gain through a successful search engine marketing campaign can be extraordinary.
But, how can you learn search engine marketing strategies? People learn in many different ways.