Saturday, August 1, 2009

Copywriting for Search Engines, Directories and Websites

To get optimal listings in search engine and directory queries, keywords and key concepts must be placed strategically throughout your web pages. To summarize, you need these words in phrases in:

* Title tags
* Meta-tags (keywords and descriptions)
* Headings (if used)
* Body text, and
* Alt-attribute in the image source tags

When online marketing professionals optimize a web site for search engine and directory queries, they should not spend most of their time redesigning the layout (in HTML) or submitting the site to the search engines. Most of their time should be spent on researching, writing good copy that will index well in search engines, and writing thorough, accurate descriptions for directory submissions. Good web copy must contain well-researched and varied keywords and key concepts based on a web page's topic; accurately reflect the web pages' content; and be strategically placed throughout a web page as mentioned above.

Most sales and advertising "fluff" should be eliminated.

Here's an example (and one of our pet peeves). How many of you have seen this scam, "Put your printed brochure on the web!" Print advertising copy contains a lot of "fluff" phrases such as "service that is second to none." Search engine analysis? "Service" is a stop word in some search engines and will be ignored in a search query. "Second to none?" How many people do you know really search using that phrase? When we are looking for something on the web, we are going to type in exactly the type of product or service we are looking for, not sales and advertising "fluff."

Web copywriting should contain keywords and key concepts without all the "fluff." Web copy has to flow and be strategically placed to get your web pages ranked well in search engine and directory queries. Your potential customers will also appreciate being able to find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. That's just good customer service.

The one time that web copywriting is extremely important is your site submission to Yahoo. Although Yahoo reserves the right to change or modify the site description you send them, if you can submit a well-written description containing your most important keywords and key concepts without word stacking, Yahoo will likely keep most of your description intact.

Good copywriting is a necessary element of both online and offline marketing. If you do not have experience in writing good copy for the web, we recommend that you hire an online marketing consultant to initially write the copy for you. Then you can learn from the copy you paid for. The more practice you get at web copywriting, the better you will get at it.


Related Links :
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Content Management Systems & SEO Revisited

Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “Content Management Systems Equal Business Suicide.” The basic premise was that at that time, CMS applications were inherently devoid of basic SEO functionality. Building a new site, or converting an existing site to the existing CMS versions of 2 years ago was rapid way of consigning those sites to the oblivion of Google’s supplementary index. Lacking inbuilt search engine friendly URL’s, outputting duplicate titles, descriptions and keywords, no ability to have customised Titles that differed from Headings - all those things were extraordinarily bad elements.

Since then, things have changed markedly. These days, there are still deficiencies in evidence, but for the CMS applications that have survived the intervening 2 years, and those that have evolved since, most have addressed the basic SEO issues.

My personal favourite CMS is WordPress. Especially since version 2.5 there’s been a wealth of feature expansion in the core application, the availability of plugins that expand on the core functionality, and the advent of professionally designed Themes that have taken WordPress to new heights. All of this has allowed WordPress to blossom into a fully-matured CMS with exceptional Search Engine Optimisation features.

Lets take a closer look at the SEO functionality. As Google et al are attempting to analyse and categorise a web site, there are an estimated 200 individual elements that are calculated in the SE relevancy ranking algorithms. Every one of these you can get right improves your chances of attaining your full ranking potential. Individually, each element offers incremental albeit small gains, but collectively, they can add up to the winning difference in the ranking stakes for competitive search terms. Duplicate content is Google’s pet hate, and its vital to every site’s standing that every single page be accurately described and categorised. Here are 10 of the most prominent among the many opportunities to achieve this individualisation of pages are;

SEF URLS:
Search engine friendly URL’s are important, because inclusion of keywords in page URL’s are taken into account, and have a bearing on rankings - particularly on Yahoo. Being able to exercise total control over page URL’s is important, and WordPress allows this with Permalink mod_rewrite functionality, coupled with manual URL control on every page or post!

Meta-Tags:
There are several WordPress plugin tools to provide total control of title, descriptions and keywords, and these are easily installed and configured.

Titles:
Being able to control the off-page Title separately from the on-page heading is very important. The title’s 70 character limitation needs to be exploited to maximum effect, its the single most important on-site page SEO element! Page Headings are usually space-constrained, and in systems where the Heading automatically become the Title, you are deprived of a significant advantage.

Description:
The off-page Description (meta-tag) is a vital element in accurately describing the page contents. If each page has accurate, custom-written Description content, its used verbatim in the search engine results pages (SERP’s). In contrast, if you are forced to use a generic Description, then Google will helpfully do its level best to generate an ‘ad lib’ Description of the page based on content. The result of that ca neither be not so bad, or truly awful. Regardless, its essential that YOU have control of the Description, and that you use it to maximum effect!

Keywords:
Erroneously dismissed by some people as of no account these days, the Keyword (meta-tag) still has a part to play. Stuff it full of vaguely relevant garbage unrelated to page content and it will be ignored. Use it wisely, with specific / relevant long-tailed keyword search phrases and it can give you a little bit of SE traction - even on Google!

Image File Names:
Accurately name your image files, and include keywords relevant to the page. WordPress allows you to upload media and retain the original files names even when auto-generating thumbnail images etc.

Image ALT Tags:
Accurately describe your images using the Image ALT tag, and include keywords/phrases relevant to the page. WordPress Add Media tools allow you to add ALT text and captions, enabling inclusion of additional relevant text content. Used wisely, without spamming, its another useful element.

Anchor Text:
The words you use to link to other pages / sections of the site. WordPress Link Editor allows full control of anchor Text links, including the ability to specify “Hyperlink Title” which essentially work like Image ALT text - the title of the link pops up when the mouse pointer hovers over the link… Again, used wisely, its another useful SEO element.

CSS Dropdown Menus:
Many of the new, highly professional WordPress CMS Themes utilise CSS dropdown menus, which is extremely important in aiding search engines to locate and index internal pages. This also facilitates Google’s ability to pass Page Rank throughout the internal page structure!

Google SiteMaps:
Another delightful WordPress plugin is the automatic Google Sitemap Generator! Once installed and configured, every new page, post or edit of a page or post automatically updates the sitemap.xml page!

RSS Feeds:
WordPress RSS feeds are easily extended by installation of an onsite Feedburner email subscription service, where your posts and pages are automatically distributed to subscribers by email. Moreover, your Feedburner account and site feed gives your site a pipeline directly into the Google index! I regularly see WordPress posts that make it into Google Alerts distribution in less than 4 hours!


So, on that basis I’m happy to accord WordPress 10 out of 10 for SEO functionality. Couple that with more than 3000 available plugins to extend the core functionality, the thousands of available design templates or themes, the ease-of-use factor, robust software, ease of installation etc, and I think we’ve got a winning CMS formula.


Related Links :
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Colors and Banner Designs

When color is used correctly, it can add impact and clarity to your banner message. Color can emphasize, highlight, and lead your end users to a call-to-action (i.e. clicking on your banner). Color can also be used to trigger emotion.
When color is used incorrectly, it can compromise your message and confuse your target audience. The interpretation of a color depends on culture, physiology of the eye, readability, your target audience's profession or industry, and personal preference.

* Banner colors and target audience culture
* Colors and legibility
* Psychology of color
* Banner colors and ad placement

Banner colors and target audience culture
When designing a banner ad, you should be careful about the colors you select if you are targeting a specific country or a global audience. For example, though the color purple is also associated with royalty in European countries, the color orange is associated with royalty in the Netherlands. The color white is associated with death in China whereas white is associated with purity in Western cultures.

Colors and legibility
How the human eye processes color is also a consideration for selecting banner colors. Purple is one of the hardest colors for the eye to discern, so it might not be a good overall color choice. On the other hand, yellow is the first color the eye processes. So if you were t try and call attention to some text on a dark-colored banner, yellow can be an excellent color choice. But if you were to use yellow as a background color of a banner, you might want to alter the color so that it is less stressful on the eye.

In order to make the text on a banner legible, it is very important to use colors that provide a high contrast. Black and white is the two colors that provide the highest color contrast, but white banners tend to have the lowest click-through ratios (CTRs).

Psychology of color
The type of profession you are in should influence what colors you will select for your banner ad. In the finance industry, the color red signifies financial loss. In the health care industry, the color red is associated with danger or an emergency. So using the color red in the financial or health care banner designs would not be a wise choice.

Blues, teals, and greens tend to be safe color selections because many of their psychological interpretations include security, professionalism, reliability, conservatism, and technology. (Most web-savvy people know to click on the blue, underlined text link. So using blue in a banner design can help with CTRs.)

Banner colors and ad placement
Finally, when selecting colors for banner designs, it is extremely important to consider where your banner ad will be placed. You want your banners to stand out a bit from the sites they are being displayed in, but you don't want your banners to be so ostentatious and obnoxious that they conveys the message, "CLICK ME CLICK ME CLICK ME." Your banner ads should blend well with the web pages, and talented banner designers will always take that into consideration.

As you can see, selecting colors for banner ads is not as simple as using colors based on personal preference. Culture, readability, the psychology of color, and other factors are all considerations in designing banner ads.


Related Links :
Internet Media Solutions l Superhostindo l Jababeka Business l Ayo Kencan l Kesaksian Kristen l Lirik Lagu Rohani Kristen


10 Essential Onsite SEO Tips for Your Website

It is well documented that building links is a very effective way for your website to gain increased exposure in the search engines. However many people overlook the importance of the many onsite factors that should be implemented into your website to gain strength in the search engines. Below I have detailed the top ten that you should implement.

1. Title Tags:
his is one of the most known onsite tips; however it is still largely overlooked especially in ecommerce websites. All your title tags on you’re your website must be unique, short and contain the keyphrase you are optimising that page for.

2. Description Tags:
Another well-known optimisation technique, although again not used to its full potential. Your listings that appear in the search engine results pages are in effect an advert for your website so should be treated as such. Always include a call to action to entice the searcher to click on your listing.

3. Heading Tags:
You should always follow proper procedures when it comes to heading tags always give the page content a heading and try and include a keyphrase within the heading and use proper code, for the most important heading give it a h1 tag and use h2,h3, h4 etc as sub headings within your content.

4. File Name:
When naming your webpage always name it with the main keyphrase that you’re optimising that particular webpage for. Warning: Don’t rename your existing WebPages to reflect your keyphrase as this will be treated as a different page by the search engines and if the original page has gained any strength then all that strength will be lost.

5. Anchor Text:
The use of anchor text in external links is common place. However this should also be used on your own website. When linking to another page on your website use keyphrase rich anchor text in the page content. If you don’t how do you expect a search engine to think that your website is relevant for your keyphrases if your own website doesn’t? Check out Wikipedia for a good example of this.

6. Sitemap.xml:
You should create an xml file that contains a list of URL’s that are present on your website and submit it to Google and other search engines. This will help the search engines index your website more efficiently.

7. Sitemap.html:
All websites should include an HTML sitemap; this will also help the search engines index your website. If you have a large amount of pages on your website arrange you sitemap in categories and create more than one page. Don’t just create a list of your website pages as this isn’t much help to your website visitor.

8. No Follow:
If you are linking to a website that contains some relevant information that you think your visitors will find helpful but cannot vouch for that website, then use a no-follow attribute on said link to tell Google not to follow that link. You will also not bleed PageRank onto this external source.

9. Navigation:
Avoid linking to every webpage from every other webpage on your website. When linking from your homepage, link to your most important pages and from these sub pages link to other pages within your website. As the search engines will see which pages you consider important on your website, also from these sub pages link back to your most important pages.

10. Content:
This is an important one, create unique engaging content for your website that your visitors will find interesting. You should also add content on a regular basis as this will give your website more exposure in the search engines as if you have 10 pages on your website that’s 10 opportunities people will have to find your website, although don’t add content for the sake of adding content, only add it when you have something interesting to add.


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5 Ways to Make Your Website Mobile (And 1 Reason You Might Not Want To)

As of August 2008, mobile handset penetration in Italy was at 140%. You read that right: there are now more mobile devices than people in Italy. According to Engadget, some studies are predicting 100% mobile phone penetration in the United States within 4 years; at present, it’s estimated at around 84%. Some research indicates that as of 2008, as much as 3-10% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices.
So clearly, if your site is not accessible or easy to read via mobile devices, you’re missing a pretty large potential audience.

So, because I’m a helpful sort of gal, I thought I’d post 5 fast, simple ways to make your website mobile-friendly.

1. Mofuse.
Assuming your site is a blog, or at least has an RSS feed of some sort, you can create a mobile version of it lickety-split with Mofuse. Create an account, plug in your feed URL, settle on a subdomain (like http://socialmediaexplorer.mofuse.com) and then pick a way to integrate the mobile version with your regular site. You can either create an SMS widget, automatically detect and redirect mobile users to the mobile site, or add a “mobile version” badge to your site.

Mofuse allows you to do some styling and customization of your site, as well as add a custom domain. It also offers analytics, so you can keep tabs on your mobile visitors separately. You can also add a mobile-only homepage, as well as other mobile-only pages and links, including a Click 2 Call link. Click 2 Call allows folks to call a telephone number directly from your site (I could see this being pretty handy for a site that was primarily a lead-generation tool.) Publishers can opt-in to 50/50 revenue sharing advertising by agreeing to include ads from either AdMob or Google AdSense.

2. Mippin
Mippin is another option, if Mofuse sounds a little more complicated than you’re interested in right now. Mippin is extremely similar to Mofuse, allowing you to quickly set up a mobile version of any RSS-driven site, customize the look of it a bit, and also has the nice added feature of automatically generating some searchable tags for your site based on its content (you can also add tags manually). Advertising (which publishers share revenues on) is optional on Mippin, and offered through AdMob’s ad network. Mippin also has some analytics reporting available, called “Reports.”

3. Got no RSS?
No problem. Site.mobi has a free tool that will allow you to build a mobile site from scratch, customize the pages, and drop in whatever content you so desire, using one of several basic templates.

4. Let’s say you’re seriously over creating new accounts with free services.
You just want a way to make your site visible to mobile users. You can use Google’s mobile version tool to strip the images and styling and create a mobile/WAP version of your site in seconds. Take the following string, and place your URL in it where indicated: http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2F{YOUR URL}&hl=en&mrestrict=xhtml.

For example, you could go to http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.socialmediaexplorer.com&hl=en&mrestrict=xhtml Pretty nifty, eh? (Hat tip to Jerry Ong for this method)
Or you could just go here, and plug in your URL: http://www.google.com/gwt/n
Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s a heck of a long URL to remember. Which is why there are at least two steps to this process. One option (the easy/free one) would be to use your favorite URL shortener (TinyUrl, urltea, is.gd, bit.ly, etc.), plug in the lengthy URL string above, and you’re good to go. A slightly more complicated version would be to redirect a mobile-specific domain to that URL. For example, if your hosting company lets you set up subdomains, you could set up http://m.yoururlhere.com to redirect to the URL string from Google Mobile Sites.

The downside to this method is that your site will be framed at top and bottom with a Google header and footer. And Google could discontinue this service at any time. But it’s simple, free, and fast.

5. Let’s say you’re a bit of a control freak.
You don’t want your mobile site sitting on someone else’s service or domain or hosting or whatever. This method requires some light PHP coding skill, and the ability to set up subdomains and redirects, but it’s still fairly simple. Rather than copying the whole thing here, I will just encourage you to check out the original article, courtesy Mike Davidson.

An alternate “I don’t do no stinking PHP!” version for Wordpress users would be to either select a Wordpress theme that has a mobile stylesheet, or if you’ve got a designer whose done a custom theme for you, ask for a mobile stylesheet and the javascript code to detect mobile devices and apply that stylesheet. If you’re going this route, check out Alex King’s Wordpress Mobile Edition plug-in which auto-detects mobile devices, as well as the MobilePress plug-in, as it will also alert Google and Yahoo mobile bots to your site.

Okay, now that I’ve shown you a number of fast, easy ways to create a mobile version of your website or blog, it’s time for the caveat: You may not want to use any of these.
Remember way back in the day, when the web itself was brand-spanking new, and internet access boasted penetration numbers similar to what mobile web access has today? Back in the days before the dot.com bubble burst, lots of businesses approached the web with the same attitude that I’m seeing frequently today in relation to the mobile channel.

“Potential customers are there, I want to be there. Content? Well, I’ve got this great print brochure/catalog. Can’t you just put that up there?”

Content strategy is markedly different on the mobile web. If your mobile strategy consists entirely of “strip out all the images and styling from my regular web site,” then you haven’t thought it through sufficiently yet. Is the content on your regular website even of interest to mobile surfers?

If you’d like to do a serious deep-dive into mobile marketing strategy, check out MobiThinking’s Top 10 Mobile Marketing Mistakes article.You may decide that it’s more important to get a presence up and running on the mobile web now, and then tweak strategy and content in more detail later. If so, any of the five methods listed above should help. But don’t let that lull you into thinking you’ve got your bases covered when it comes to mobile. It means you’ve taken the first step.


Related Links :
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Friday, July 31, 2009

Designing Sites for Search Engines and Directories

In terms of layout, many web sites are not designed for optimum search engine and directory visibility. People or companies seem so centered on their corporate or personal images, products, and services that they neglect to design their web sites with search engines and directories in mind.

Search engines and directories vary in the way they rank your web site in a search query. Some search engines place primary emphasis on the text within your title tags. Some search engines place emphasis on the main ideas presented in all of your text on a single web page.

Some directories emphasize the text you submitted in their "Description" field. How and where you place your text, both in the copy your visitors see and within the HTML tags your visitors do not see, will affect your ranking.

* Keyword selection
* Keyword placement
* Keyword frequency
* Link and architecture
* Site statistics

Keyword selection
Of primary importance is selecting the best keywords for your industry and the keywords you believe your potential customers will use to find you. Selecting the right keywords requires research.

Look at your company's printed materials. What words do you use over and over? When you speak to new and current customers on the phone, what questions do they frequently ask and what words do they use? Ask your current customers how they would find you on the Internet. Then go to the major search engines and directories. Type in the keywords you want to use. Study the source code of the web sites that appeared in the top 20. Look at how your competitors ranked in a search query. Adjust your keyword selection accordingly.

Keyword placement
Of equal importance is keyword placement on individual pages. The text in your title tag is one the most important elements for ranking well in search engines. The text in your titles should be descriptive, using the words and lingo in your industry, and should accurately reflect the contents of each web page.

For optimum search engine positions, your keywords need to appear at the top of your web pages. Thus, before you design your web page, ask yourself if you (or your web designer) have strategically placed your keywords within your title tags, meta-tags, headings, graphic images, and the first paragraph within your body tag. If not, you might need to rethink your site design.

Keyword frequency
What is important to both the search engines and your target audience is keyword frequency and keyword prominence. Designing and coding your site with keywords in the right locations and the right frequency is an art form. Keywords need to appear frequently on your web pages, but if they appear too frequently, your site will be penalized for word stacking (also known as "spamming the index") or could be removed permanently from the index.

Also, some search engines ignore meta-tags. Thus, if you have included your keywords in your meta-tags but have not placed them elsewhere, you have missed a huge target audience, namely AOL users. Sites with frames have problems being indexed well because there is little opportunity otherwise to include additional text with keywords.

Very, very few web sites can get in the Top 10 of all the major search engines (AltaVista, FAST Search, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Teoma) without spamming. We cannot emphasize this enough: if you hire anyone (a submission service, an individual, an online promotion service, etc.) to do the services we just described, they need to have HTML and design experience, online marketing, and excellent copywriting skills.

You do not want your web site to be permanently banned from a search engine or directory due to ignorance or lack of experience. Furthermore, submission services usually do just that: submit. Many do not perform keyword research, the HTML coding, and copywriting necessary to get a site optimally placed within the search engines. Ask a lot of questions before handing over any money.

Link and site architecture
Placing keywords throughout your web pages is useless as a search engine marketing strategy if the search engine spiders are unable to record the text on your web pages. Therefore, always have link architecture on your site that the search engine spiders can follow. Oftentimes, this means having two forms of navigation on your site: one that your target audience prefers, and one for the search engines.

Site statistics
For the first few months after you have your web site submitted to the major search engines and directories, you should see a jump in traffic. If you look at your site reports with your visitor statistics, which should do frequently, you will see when the search engines spider and index your site.

Hopefully, because you have been thoughtful enough to give potential customers a reason to return to your site again and again, people will bookmark your site, and your web statistics will show an increase in a "No Referrer" category under referral URLs. Your site reports should show you where your potential customers are coming from (i.e. which search engine or directory they used to find you) and which keywords they used to find you.

After your site has listed in the search engines and directories for a few months, review your site statistics and determine where the majority of your traffic comes from. Then focus your advertising efforts on those directories and search engines. You get better sales from targeted marketing than from spreading your net too wide.

One client did exactly what we recommended, from keyword selection to monitoring site statistics. They found most of their sites referral traffic came from Yahoo queries. They bought banner space from Yahoo for two months. Whenever two of their keywords were typed in a search query, their banner would appear. Their traffic increased over 500%, and their sales reached five figures per month.

Lastly, the saying "Content is King" still rings true. You can increase traffic to your web site, but if (1) people do not like what they see, (2) you do not offer potential customers what they want to buy, or (3) you do not give customers incentive to stay and/or bookmark your site, they will click off of your web site as quickly as they clicked on to it.


Related Links :
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Choosing a Domain Name for SEO and Branding

Where have all the good domain names gone? You may be stumped about what domain name you ought to use for your new website. After all, there are several factors you must consider when choosing a domain such as if it helps to build your brand, if it is easy to remember, and if it has SEO benefits. Prior to brainstorming about a great domain name, you must determine whether your domain is disposable or permanent.

Disposable Domains vs. Permanent Domains
If you’re an affiliate marketer trying to make quick bucks selling acai supplements for weight loss, a domain such as acai-pill-for-weight-loss.com would probably fit the bill. Such a domain is considered a disposable or throwaway domain. You probably aren’t planning to use it for an extended period so making brand-building considerations isn’t really necessary.

If you have a permanent domain name that is an integral part of your larger brand-building efforts, you should use something that is easy to remember, distinctive, and credible-sounding. Your friends and webmasters would probably feel embarrassed linking out to a website with a domain such as acai-pill-for-weight-loss.com. Remember that you will have site visitors coming from several sources, not just search engines. A site domain that doesn’t look trashy is far more likely to get linked to on social media sites and beyond. Moreover, a site domain that is easy to remember will allow you to enjoy the advantages of word of mouth and score more return visitors.

Tips for Choosing a Brand-Worthy Domain Name
Great domain names are becoming scarce these days. That’s why when you get your hands on one it becomes an asset. So what defines brand anyway? A brand consists of experiences and associations that are connected to a person, company, or service. Think of a big brand like Nike for example. What do you associate Nike with? Perhaps you think of athleticism, victory, and self-confidence.

Nike has successfully built a respectable brand image over the years. But what about small businesses who don’t have millions of dollars to spend building brand image? The little guys can come up with a memorable domain name through the soft branding technique, which consists of tweaking a concept already in existence rather than coming up with a completely “meaningless” name to represent your brand.

Hotmail is an example of soft branding since people already understand the concept of “mail.” Google.com is an example of a “meaningless” domain name. People now associate the name Google with innovation, the future, and technology but when Google got its start, its name was little more than gibberish to most.

SEO Considerations when Choosing Domain Names
Some argue that it’s best to use a generic domain name that includes a target keyword because people are more likely to click on a URL that matches their search term. There is evidence which suggests that Google takes this factor into consideration when weighing the value of a website but different SEOs seem to have different opinions on the matter.

It can be difficult to include target keywords in your domain name if you want a brand-worthy domain that is unique and catchy. If you find that adding a target keyword would conflict with your domain name’s brand-building efforts, consider adding a byline. A byline describes what you do and contains your target keywords. Bylines become an important part of your brand as well. For example, if you sell curtains but your domain name is precision123.com, you could add a byline that says, “Window treatments in Philadelphia,” to give more details about your service.

Now that you are armed with this information, explore your options carefully when deciding on a domain name for your website. If you are looking to build a permanent domain that reflects your brand, by all means avoid cringe-worthy, hyphenated URLs and brainstorm to come up with something worthy of building your brand image upon. The key to success is coming up with a domain name that is memorable and distinctive and if possible, a name that hints at what product or service you offer.


Related Links :
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Build Your Email List Using Social Media: 8 Surefire Ways

When you are doing business online, it is important to build a list of targeted subscribers to market your products or services to. You want a responsive list and your job is to provide consistent value to them. Whether you have a blog or a website, you should definitely have an opt-in form to capture a visitor’s name and email address in a prominent location.

Two big components of effective marketing are reach and frequency. Reach refers to the number of people you reach with your message; while frequency refers to the number of times each person is reached on average. Frequency builds trust and drives your particular message home.

More people than ever are using social media tools so more of your target market is reachable there today than even just a few short months ago. Take advantage of these top ways to add subscribers when using social media sites so that you can begin communicating regularly with more potential clients and customers.

1) Create an effective profile.
What do I mean by effective? Use a real photo of yourself and your real name. Include your location and a good bio–complete, up-to-date and with all contact information.

2) Offer events.
A great way to add targeted subscribers is to hold an event such as a teleclass. Invite your followers and friends and direct them to a sign-up page specifically for the event. Let them know that in addition to signing up for whatever the event is, they will also receive a complimentary subscription to your e-zine or other valuable information.

3) Join a Ning network or create your own.
Ning is a platform which allows people to create their own social networks online. Anyone can create a network for free around a specific interest. This is a great tool for getting in front of your niche or target market.

4) Sync your newsletter broadcasts with Twitter.
If you use an email list service such as AWeber, you have the option to automatically tweet a link to your newsletter when the broadcast is sent out. Just choose Syndicate and Twitter Update.

5) Place an opt-in box on your Facebook profile.
This is something I explain how to do in detail in my free e-course. The Profile HTML application in Facebook allows you to add your opt-in box for collecting names and emails very easily. This way you can capture new subscribers right from your profile.

6) Use social bookmarking sites.
Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to search, organize and store bookmarks of web pages. Have a way for readers to submit posts they enjoy to bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.) right from your blog. This is a nice way to drive traffic to your site when others come across your bookmarked site.

7) Feed your blog posts to sites automatically.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have tools that will post your latest blog posts on their sites as soon as they are published. This keeps you consistently on others radars.

Be helpful and participate often. The best advice I can give for spending time on social sites is to give, give, give. You do not have to spend exorbitant amounts of time there, but when you do use them, offer suggestions, advice and tips. Create conversation as well as join it. People will get to know you this way and want to seek out more information about you.
Take action on several of these tips as soon as you can. It has never been simpler and more fun to build your list online than it is now!


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5 Content Creation Tips For Your Blog

One of the biggest problems with blogging is to be able to create content consistently that is both useful and helpful. So I am going to share with you some tips for creating content on hot topics your market will find both useful and helpful.

Market Related Forums
Busy forums related to your target market are an absolute gem of a place to find information to write articles on for 2 reasons.

Before I tell you why I must point out the word BUSY, you should be gathering a list of popular forums within your niche anyway because they are useful for so many reasons. Don’t waste your time with forums that aren’t regularly posted to, I would say a free public forum should be updated hourly at the most any longer than that don’t bother.

Back to the 2 reasons, first a popular forum will be full of posts asking How do I …..? or Does anyone know how to….? type questions this tells you what your market wants to know about. Second knowledgable people in your market will make helpful posts and from the feedback/ replies of the other users in the forum you will be able to see what are the hot topics.

If you can’t get article/ post ideas from the popular forums in your market then there is seriously something wrong.

Other Blogs
As I mentioned in the forums section above you should be gathering a list of the top blogs targeting your market. Not just for competitive reasons but also for ideas on what works in your niche.

Other blogs can give you an indication of what is hot in your market. This is especially useful if the niche you’re in, is something you’re not personally interested in, which by the way is something I would advise against for your first blog.

Article Directories
Article directories are another golden source of information for ideas. The thing you should be looking for here is what articles are being read the most. The top directories like ezinearticles.com will tell you the most read and downloaded articles in your category.

This will tell you what topics are hot in your market and they can help you learn how to write a good and informative article.

Google Alerts
Google being the smartest search engine in the world from a marketing/ webmaster point of view has a utility called Google Alerts.

If you’re not taking advantage of this great little tool or worse haven’t even heard of it I suggest you get yourself over to (URL) after reading this article and find out more.

Google alerts will send you an email with links to stories for keywords you specify on a hourly or daily basis, this is so useful because the quicker you react to big news in your market by publishing a post on your blog the more likely your traffic will increase and your visitors will come to you because you’re “in the know” giving you expert status (priceless).

PLR Content
Last we have PLR content or Private Label Rights content. I love PLR because I am not a natural writer, actually I hate writing which can be a big disadvantage on the internet.

PLR is great because you can have pre written articles or ebooks that you can put in your own voice. Granted a lot of PLR is questionable quality BUT I would rather have something to start with rather than a blank notepad file.

You can then put in your own voice and do your research to better the quality which to me is fantastic.

I hope these tips have helped you see how you can get an endless supply of ideas for updating your blog consistenly with quality content your visitors will find both useful and helpful.


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Internet Media Solutions l Superhostindo l Jababeka Business l Ayo Kencan l Kesaksian Kristen l Lirik Lagu Rohani Kristen


Article Marketing and Making Money Online


Article marketing is an essential part of your strategy if you are intent on making money online. It is especially useful to the newbie who has only a rudimentary knowledge of search engine optimization, and little hope of getting anywhere fast on the search engine scene.

In fact article marketing techniques can be used as your sole advertising medium, although best results are obtained by combining it with other means of attracting visitors to your website. Nevertheless, many people without websites are even now making money using only articles to advertise affiliate products.

Articles Generate Links
Generally, though, articles are used online to generate links back to your website, although there are some article directories on which your articles will be read if they are good enough. The majority of directories do not get read, but there are those that can provide you with a steady supply of visitors, and that can be used as a major source of advertising, if not the only source. The benefit of these back-links is that it boosts the popularity of your website in the eyes of Google, and if there is one thing that Google likes, it is popularity.

In spite of this, most people write articles hoping that enough readers will click on the URL provided in their resource to enable them to make a decent living. Such results rarely happen, and although articles can be used as the prime method of traffic generation, they should not be regarded as the only method.

Construct Your Article Properly
However prominently article marketing is in your sales drive or product promotion strategy, you cannot just write any old article and expect visitors to flock to your website. Your article has to be readable, and has to make the reader want to learn more from you. That means constructing your article in a specific way that is easier to write about than to achieve on paper (or screen).

First, it should be written in short chunks: small paragraphs of four or five sentences, and bulleted where appropriately. Online readers will not read large tracts of text as they would were they reading a book. They want their information in short chunks. In fact most online readers tend to scan, seeking something that catches their eye. So write that way, and try to catch their eye with something good. If you know how to write articles, then you can make them work.

First the Problem - Then the Solution
Present them with a problem and a potential solution, then offer that solution in your resource. Alternatively, write a two part article. Make the first part compellingly interesting, and then offer the second part to them on your website. Then offer it on a squeeze page in exchange for their email address, and once the have done that send them to your sales page for their first view of your product.

People take on average 7 views of a product before reaching the purchase decision, so make sure they get them. You won’t do that without their email address, so write your article with that in mind. You are unlikely to make a sale first time, and if they get away without leaving a contact email address, then you are unlikely to ever see them again.

Write your articles so as to offer a potential benefit. For example a solution to the problem you have just told them that they have, or tell them how to save money or time simply clicking on your link. Offer them a free product in your resource to persuade them to make that all-important click. Making money online often involves giving something away first.

Article Marketing is More than Writing
It’s not the article marketing that makes you money, it’s whether or not people read your articles, and then whether or not they click on your link. Until they do that they might as well be a million miles away because you are not going to sell to anybody that doesn’t click on your article resource link.

That is why article marketing is more than just writing articles: it’s designing them properly to keep people reading, and providing a compelling resource to force that click. Then you might have a chance of making money online.


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Internet Media Solutions l Superhostindo l Jababeka Business l Ayo Kencan l Kesaksian Kristen l Lirik Lagu Rohani Kristen