Razworks Web Designer Sarasota and 3D animation

Now that we’re living in a world where Pandas are something to be feared and relevant links are worth their weight in gold, there is an even bigger focus on quality SEO content writing.

The only problem?

Far too many of the content writers out there can’t actually write! As a result, they prey on people like you – hoping you’ll believe their promises and never notice that they don’t actually have any talent. Sadly, the odds are high that you’ve been lied to by an SEO content writer. Heck, you may have been told several lies!

There are some real doozies being told out there, but these 7 are the most common – and they’re also the most damaging to your business:

1. “I don’t outsource any of my work.”

This is a classic example of the ol’ “bait and switch.” Lots of SEO content writers promise that they (or a trusted associate) personally handle all of the writing. Then, they outsource the work to the far-reaches of the globe – and you wind up being the poor sap that gets stuck with content that’s not even remotely close to what you were expecting.

Before you agree to work with any SEO content writing service, you need to ask how they operate. If the person you’re talking to isn’t going to personally handle the writing, you need to find out who’s going to do it – along with what kind of credentials they have.

2. “I’ll have this to you in 24 hours.”

Have you seen those SEO content writing ads that promise tons of high-quality articles in just 24 hours? If you believe you’re going to get quality craftsmanship out of an offer like that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you!

When you take advantage of promises like this, you end up with two scenarios – and neither one is good.

The first possibility is that you might actually wind up getting your order on time. The only problem is that you’re not sure if your content was written in English or some kind of Klingon-spinoff language.

The second possibility is that 24 hours pass, and you’ve got nothing to show for the money you’ve spent. Then, when you try to get a status update from your content writer, you get fed more lies – like the fact that the writer’s cat had the hiccups and, as a result, they were far too distraught to focus on your order.

3. “I don’t use article spinners.”

You wouldn’t believe how many marketers have been fed this line – right before they were handed a bunch of poorly-spun gibberish content. I’ve heard this same story from a number of new clients. They trusted some “writer,” and it wound up coming back and biting them in the, you-know-where. Adding insult to injury, they had to pay me to either fix the mess or to start over from scratch.

4. “I have tons of experience.”

While it is possible to find a diamond in the rough, most of the good SEO content writers out there have solid credentials. Sure, writing involves having natural talent, but harnessing that talent – by doing things like going to college and majoring in something related to writing, or having legitimate professional writing experience – is what separates the cream from the rest of the crop.

Unfortunately, the world wide web lends itself to anonymity and resume-boosting (if not out-and-out lying). Some SEO content writers will swear up and down that they’ve got the experience you’re looking for. Then, they send you content that your third grader would be ashamed to put his name on.

A good SEO content writing service will be clear on its experience and qualifications right on its website. If you’ve got any questions, a good writer will be happy to answer them for you. If your potential SEO content writer seems a little too vague, chances are they’re not quite as experienced as they claim to be.

5. “I do tons of quality research.”

There are plenty of solid places to do research on the web. A good SEO content writer will take advantage of several of them, just for one article or blog post. The bad writers will tell you how thorough their research is – then head straight to Wikipedia and copy information that may or may not be accurate.

When you read the finished product, you’ll be able to tell immediately if your writer really did do solid research, or if they’re just passing on the same half-truths and rumors that are circulating around the web.

The best way to prevent this from happening to you is to check out other content that your writer has written – either on their own website or blog, or in a guest post somewhere. Even if the subject isn’t related to your niche, you’ll be able to tell if it’s chock full of legitimate facts, or if it’s all fluff.

6. “I can make sure that all of your keywords flow naturally.”

This is a big lie that content writers love to tell. After all, a huge part of SEO content writing is SEO!

Some keywords are tougher to incorporate than others, but a good SEO content writer will have the ability to make sure that none of them stick out like a sore thumb. The last thing you want is a keyword that screams, “Hey! Look over here! I’m a keyword! I hope Google loves the fact that I’m smack-dab in the middle of this sentence!” All you’ll get from content like that is readers that run screaming in the opposite direction.

How can you tell if your SEO content writer incorporates keywords the right way?

Ask!

A good writer will never say they have a “blanket” keyword density. They’ll say it depends on the keyword and how often they can incorporate it, while still having an article or blog post that flows properly. On the other hand, the bad writers will make crazy promises – like a keyword density of 3-5% for each of your target keywords, or promising to use each keyword at least 27 times in a 400 word article.

7. “I can create awesome SEO articles for just $2.”

The problem with content that only costs $2 is that it results in a terrible hourly wage for your writer. Personally, I write very quickly, so to research and write a 400 word article takes me about an hour (give or take, depending on the subject). Since I like having a roof over my head and food on my dinner table, I’m not willing to work for $2 an hour. I’m sure you couldn’t make ends meet that way, either!

When you’re paying a writer a couple of bucks per article, their focus isn’t on giving you a well-researched, carefully-crafted piece of content. Instead, their goal is to churn out $2 articles as quickly as they can, so that they can try to make enough money to live on.

Look at it that way, and it’s easy to see that you’re never going to get high-quality at those prices. But it makes for a great sales pitch, right? Too bad it’s completely untrue!

Bottom line – There are some amazing SEO content writers out there. They’re intelligent, hard-working, creative, and engaging. There are also a bunch of “wannabes” out there, who are only looking for a quick buck. If you don’t choose wisely, you’ll wind up getting these lies spoon-fed to you, and your business will have a real mess on its hands. Who’s got the time for that?!

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Nicole Beckett prides herself on being a “somebody,” instead of a “wannabe.” If you’re looking for SEO content that can take your business to new heights, Nicole and the team of professional journalists at Premier Content Source can give it to you.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

7 Dangerous Lies Your SEO Content Writer is Telling You – A SEO-News Exclusive Article

There are so many statistics available to the person who is submitting articles that it can be a little confusing as to what the purpose is and how to measure your progress.

There are a couple of really obvious stats that it may be tempting to pay too much attention to. They are clicks on the link in your resource box and the number of times each article is viewed on an article directory.

It’s always gratifying to see that people are clicking the links in your resource box. That’s one of the purposes for the link in the resource box, and it lets you know that at least some people have read your article, looked at your resource box, and have been inspired by what you said to the point where they want to visit your website.

That’s great, and it may give you an indication that you’ve done a good job in writing a helpful article and in creating a compelling resource box. How many people click the link in your resource box is not, however, an indication of your progress or success with article marketing.

It’s a similar situation with article popularity – the number of times your article is viewed on a particular article directory. It’s always great to see that an article has a lot of people viewing it, and if you look at your list of articles on that directory and notice that there are some articles that have vastly more views than the others, you can take some things away from that which can help you write more popular articles.

Maybe the subject matter that you covered in those super popular articles is more in demand, and you can figure out a way to cover that topic in more detail in future articles.

Perhaps it was the title that drew people in. Maybe it was a title that was in the form of a question, or a title that had your keywords at the beginning, or a title that gives a command or one that indicates that the article is a “how to” article. Whatever type of title you had, it might be worth your effort to use that same format again.

The article popularity can be helpful in letting you know when a topic has “struck home” with your readers and to help you know which topics to explore further, but again, the popularity of an article is not a good way to determine your article marketing success.

What is then?

The absolute definitive way to measure your progress with article marketing is to keep track of where your website is ranking in Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. for specific keyword terms that are associated with your niche.

Obviously in order to track this, you first need to figure out what your keyword terms are. This actually isn’t as hard as it may sound. You can use a free tool to research keywords like the one that Google offers, or you can use a paid service. When you’re doing your keyword research you’ll be looking for two things: the supply and the demand.

The demand is how many searches are being done for a particular phrase each month. You can find this information by using a keyword research tool.

The supply is how many web pages are competing for that particular keyword term. Your keyword research tool may provide this info, but if it doesn’t it’s easy enough to find it on your own. Just type the keyword phrase into Google’s search box, and it will tell you how many results are listed. The number of results are the number of web pages that are competing for that term.

You have to consider if the supply and demand for the term is worth your effort in trying to compete. For example, there may be a very large demand for a certain term, but if there are already loads of web pages competing for the term, the phrase may be already saturated and not worth your effort. The more saturated a phrase is, the more competition. The more competition, the more challenging it will be to rank highly for that phrase. You just have to weigh the potential reward against the effort you’d have to invest.

Compile a list of keyword phrases that are related to your niche, and you might also want to make a note of the traffic potential – that would be the demand for that keyword term. Do a search for each of those key phrases and make a note of where your own website is ranked. Update this every month to keep track of where your site is positioned in the rankings. This is the primary statistic that you’ll keep track of when measuring your progress with article marketing.

I hope this helps explain what to look for when trying to determine your article marketing success. I know it’s tempting to look to the articles for validation. The stats that the articles provide can be very helpful to you in creating new articles, but really the definitive measurement of progress is your website ranking for your keyword terms.

The ultimate goal is for your website to reach the #1 spot. The closer you get to that goal, the more targeted traffic will be funneled into your website from the search engines.

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Steve Shaw is a content syndication specialist. Do you own a blog? Need content? Join thousands of other blogs and get free high-quality, niche-focused, human-reviewed content from quality authors sent on auto-pilot – and it’s all 100% free! Go to http://www.autoblogit.com for more information.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How Much Do Clicks and Article Popularity Mean?

During a public meeting of the W3C CSS Working Group, Mozilla web standards lead Tantek Çelik precipitated a crisis in Web Standards Land when he complained about developers who misunderstand and abuse vendor prefixes by only supporting WebKit’s, thereby creating a browser monoculture. Tantek’s proposed solution—having Mozilla pretend to be WebKit—inflamed many in the standards community, especially when representatives from Opera and Microsoft immediately agreed about the problem and announced similar plans to Mozilla’s. To get to the bottom of the new big brouhaha, exclusively for A List Apart, our Eric Meyer interviews Tantek on Mozilla’s controversial plan to support -webkit- prefixed properties.

Any -webkit- feature that doesn’t exist in a specification (not even an Editor’s draft) is not CSS3. Yes, they are commonly evangelized as such, but they are not part of CSS at all. This distinction is not nitpicking. It’s important because it encourages certain vendors to circumvent the standards process, implement whatever they come up with in WebKit, then evangelize it to developers as the best thing since sliced bread. In our eagerness to use the new bling, we often forget how many people fought in the past decade to enable us to write code without forks and hacks and expect it to work interoperably. Lea Verou explains why single-vendor solutions are not the same as standards and not healthy for your professional practice or the future of the web.

In the first installment of this article series I talked about the issues of duplicate content and how it is becoming more and more important to provide a way for Google to easily acknowledge you as the originator of the web copy appearing on your website.

In this article I aim to show you how many web publishers like yourself can unwittingly loose upwards of 90% of their potential search traffic to ‘republishers’ or thieves, how your own web content can be used against you, and how you can take control over your content and take back the traffic which is rightfully yours.

What Type of Content Is at Issue?

Content is basically anything we choose to publish online – it all falls under the scope of this article. It can be a product or service description, a blog post, a review of some type, a page of text describing our company, even a ‘policy’ page is classed as content.

The Problem – Content Duplication and Distribution

Whether you actively seek to share your web content or not you are still affected by this issue.

Duplicated content is being handled differently by Google in 2012 and it’s important to understand how the changes affect you. In Part I of this series, I explained how Article Directories have been devalued by Google due, in most part, to the fact that they are a repository for duplicated content. But what if your content is replicated and published around the web, outside of article directories? How is that handled by Google and in what situations would an issue occur?

Proactively Marketing Your Content

If you are a proactive content or article marketer you’re familiar with the process. You write an article and submit it to your own site first and wait until it appears in Google’s index. Then you submit the article to various directories in pursuit of back-links, traffic and possibly syndication.

Passive Content Marketing

The web is all about sharing. Whether you actively seek to have your content shared or not is largely irrelevant. If you have good content, it’s going to get ‘shared’ whether you like it or not, and not always in ways you might think.

Content Scrapers

If you feel flattered when someone republishes your content, keep in mind that a large percentage of this republished content is collected and distributed by software – content scrapers. They automate the task of trawling the web and stealing text which matches a target theme. Many use integrated text ‘spinners’ which can churn out multiple versions of your original work. WordPress blogs are rife with heavily spun content collected by automated scrapers.

Remember -

1. If your content is found from Google search outside of your own website you are loosing direct traffic.

2. If Google is unable to establish you as the originator of the content, you may eventually have the content published on your own website devalued or even de-indexed.

The Consequences of This Content ‘Distribution’ And How It Affects You

I’ve written extensively for a wide variety of niches and I frequently find whole pages of content which I’ve written for a website reproduced elsewhere without my permission. I’m not talking here about content I choose to share, I’m referring to content which I’ve explicitly said ‘DO NOT SHARE’ via my Footer Copyright Policy.

Many people assume this cannot harm you, but at best it’s leaching your traffic away from you and at worst it could embroil you in the middle of Google’s campaign to reassess the usefulness of duplicated content on the web.

Here’s the simple scenario – you write an information piece describing your product and publish it to your website. Someone or something takes that web copy and re-publishes it, or some ‘spun’ version of it, on a different website. That page of content receives search-related traffic from Google and other search engines which rightfully belongs to you. Your own page, which is strikingly similar to the spun version may be devalued as a duplicate, so you loose the traffic from that too. Up to 90% of traffic which rightfully belongs to you can be lost in this way, I know this for certain. I’ve been testing the theory for over 6 months.

But I own the content, I wrote it and published it first!

Here’s where the naysayers will step in and claim that as long as you publish the content first on your own website, you can’t become a victim of what I’m describing above. But you can, you are already.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes your content appears on other websites in SERP’s ahead of your own? Article marketers will relate to this phenomenon since they are more active in content distribution. They write an article for their own website and wait until it is indexed by Google. Then they distribute the same article to various Article Directories in the hope of gaining some benefit from the back-link or from direct traffic. Then the article in the Article Directory is indexed by Google and in some instances appears higher in the SERP’s than it does on the author’s own website. And it can work the same way with illicitly obtained content regardless of whether or not it is ‘spun.’ Here is an actual forum post I found today which relates to this subject (name removed) -

“Title: Somebody stealing my content and outranking me with it? Hopefully somebody can help me with the following. I’ve been starting with my first website a few months ago, and have been steadily improving. Today when checking the ranking in google for a keyword, I found out that somebody had copied a whole blogpost of mine. Not that big a deal if I still outrank him in Google. Only problem is, he scored higher in Google than me with that blog post (!).

Does anyone have a possible explanation for it, something that I can do about it?”

The point is, Google does not always know where the content originated. That fact that you may have published it first, does not give Google the information that you are the originator.

Google can only determine the originator if it has real-time indexing of the entire web, which it does not. Think about it for a moment. If Google only has between 18% and 30% of the entire web in its index at any one time, how can it assume that a piece of content it encounters for the first time does not already exist elsewhere? In fact, mathematically it must assume the opposite of what you’d expect – it must assume that all new content it finds is previously published.

It’s Not An Issue For Me, So I Don’t Care

If you’re not convinced about the threat potential you might be using flawed reasoning. Because it hasn’t appeared to be an issue for you up to now you may feel inclined to ignore this and to carry on doing what you do. There are very good reasons why you shouldn’t ignore this information.

Throughout 2011, duplicate publications of the same piece of content have been allowed to coexist. But many people, not just myself, will point to the fact that this is starting to change. We all know that the first hit came in 2011 with the Google algorithm update termed ‘Panda.’ Panda resulted in a massive slap for Article Directories, the notorious publishers of previously published content.

But in a more subtle way Google has started to filter pages from other types of websites which contain largely similar content – and this is where it may impact you. Through its video broadcasts, Webmaster Tools and Webmaster Forums, Google has already begun preparing us for the changes. In the first week of February 2012 Google began rolling out its revised PR gradings and once again sites making use of recycled content are affected. The process has begun, it’s ongoing, it’s happening now. But where will it end and how will it affect you?

It could end up with Google making a decision about the origination of all web content and filtering anything deemed ‘not original’ on a much wider scale than it is already doing. This isn’t hypothesis, as I’ve stated and shown by example, the process is already underway, we just don’t know how far it will go.

Hidden Opportunities?

Google is in a constant battle to keep up with the people who try to exploit it. There’s an entire industry aimed at search engine manipulation, it started way back in the 90′s with the use of the ‘No Frames tag,’ Meta Tag Keyword stuffing, hidden keywords, cloaking etc, then more recently with bulk back-link building, content scraping, and so on.

If you’re a fool, you’ll be looking for ways to trick Google into providing you with more traffic. Each time a loophole is exploited, in this case the mass reproduction of simulated content for gaining SERP advantage through the manipulation of article directories, blogs and other content publishing platforms, Google has to step in and rewrite the rules.

If you’re sensible about search engine marketing, and you value the long-term health of your online business, you’ll be looking for ways to help Google help you.

One of the ways you can do this is to help Google determine that the content on your website belongs to you, assuming that it does. At the same time you can use a technique that will place a hurdle in the way of people who try to utilize your content without your consent.

Quite simply, use the following technique and you’ll avoid traffic loss through illicit use of your content and you’ll protect and even improve your own SERP’s.

The Google Credit Score

How can we create a situation where Google knows our content is the first copy to be published and at the same time lock it down against unauthorized duplication and republication?

The strategy is to simply ensure that it can have no duplicate.

Imagine that the parameter in the algorithm ‘original author’ is weighted, perhaps on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being an absolute certainty that Google knows you’re the originator of the content. So if you score 100, all subsequent processing of the algorithm is numerically weighted in your favor and your content will never be downgraded or removed for being duplicate.

The way to get a ’100′ credit score for your work and authority for your website, and more traffic, is to encode all the key content pages on your website with an encrypted ‘uniqueness key.’ That is, to give Google something to look at which it knows cannot be recreated outside of your own website. To do this you need to focus on creating more of your content which is dynamic and not just ‘set and forget.’

Some of the simple ways we can implement this is to create content with -

1 – Integrated video
2 – Integrated images
3 – Links out to authority resources
4 – Integrated social media within the page
5 – Google+ and FB ‘like’ on the specific page and not just the homepage
6 – Alternate formats for accessibility, like PDF, audio and audio/video
7 – Some pattern of social bookmarking and interaction
8 – The option for textual interaction with the page, either a simple comments script or full-blown blog

The key is the way in which you integrate everything into your content. For example, take a section title or some bullet points from your content and place the text within an image file. That way if the text is copied without the image being present it won’t make sense. You’ve now placed a hurdle in the way of content scrapers.

In the same way if you integrate a video or audio clip into the page, describe textually what is present in the video, so if the text is scraped without the video it will be incomplete and won’t make any sense. (Hyperlinks and embedded media files are usually removed by content scrapers, so be sure to describe your links textually, so that if the link is removed, what’s left behind won’t make any sense on the thief’s website).

The sooner you can build a few back-links to your new page the better. These help create a profile for the content around the web and help to raise your credit score. Make a post on Facebook and invite people to visit your page, then provide them with ‘like’ buttons. At the same time, why not ask them to ‘like’ your page from within the body of text.

WordPress and CMS owners can utilize useful plugins to help make content more dynamic. There are plugins to help with syndicated content distribution (which creates a solid footprint on the web for your content) and there are plugins which you can use to dynamically update a static page with texts from blog posts and other sources.

In doing most or all of the above, you’re creating a unique template for your work that cannot be replicated. You’re creating an encryption code which cannot be cracked outside of your own website and you’re giving Google a reliable way to index your content and determine authorship/ownership. The more uniqueness you can apply to a page in the form of components which cannot be easily replicated outside of your website, the more ‘bits’ there are in your encryption code and the more ‘secure’ Google feels about your specific content.

The reward is a high Google Credit Score, or more “Authority,” higher SERP’s, and the security of knowing that your page isn’t going to be devalued as duplicated content. You’ve also rendered the auto-content scrapers impotent, you’re supplying them with little of use.

I’ve heard many people comment on the benefits of integrating video and social media into web content. They consistently state that doing so helps them rank higher in Google’s search results. What if the main thing that has happened with their integrated media approach is the establishment of a high Google Credit Score? I believe that it is.

There’s one thing for certain, if your approach to article marketing is via the syndication route, you’re less likely to be concerned with, or affected by the new rules surrounding duplicate content, for now.

In the next article I’ll be covering how you can create an effective article for syndication, how and where to find sources/ outlets for syndication, and how to create your all-important sales funnel.

I’ll leave you with one parting comment. The most valuable asset for any website owner is a contact list. The most effective way of building a contact list is through article syndication.

If you’d like to have an advanced copy of part three of this report sent to you via email, please visit this page on my website http://webdesigndoorcounty.com/spn2.html.

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Author of the popular reference guide series “The Internet – No Place for Dummies,” Carl Hruza has operated his successful Web Design/SEO Company since 1998. You can learn more about the author from his website at webdesigndoorcounty.com or view the reference guide series at noplacefordummies.com.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Establishing Ownership of Your Content (Part II) – A SPN Exclusive Article

Every small business needs to advertise in some way to get their products in front of the right customers. Often this requires learning how to work with reporters and media professionals.

If you have been sending out news releases to alert the media to new products or events without much success, here are some suggestions that might land you in the public’s eye more frequently:

Know about current events in your community and see if there is a way to relate them to your company’s products and activities. Look beyond the community, in fact, to what’s in the news in your state, the nation and internationally. Media outlets are always looking for ways to make out-of-area news more relevant by relating it to what’s happening locally. Things from the outside may, in fact, affect what you do. Let the media know that. The issue of employment is currently a hot-item for news reports, whether you’re up or down. In most cases, the old saying that “any publicity is good publicity” still holds true.

Look for unique stories to tell. Within your ranks there may be good human interest stories that will get your name into the media. Many in the media refer to such “human interest” stories as “fluff,” but they nevertheless are always on the lookout for good ones. Be aware of special stories inherent in those you work with. Some of them may be dealing with unique family problems or have talents that would merit media attention. Is your company involved in charitable causes? Are there members of your group who are in the military? Plumb the depths and see what you can find.

Be as professional as possible. Press releases that contain typos and blatant errors usually end up in the trash can. Few reporters are willing to make a call to try to clarify the press release. Have two or more people proofread the press release before sending it out. Make your releases good to look at. Be certain each release has all the germane information, such as dates, times, etc., and include a telephone number or e-mail address that will direct queries to the person with the information. You might want to put together an informative packet that a news organization can put on file for future reference. Showing up in a media office in person to pass such a packet along couldn’t hurt.

Getting acquainted with the business writers/editors is helpful. And understanding the newsroom process is invaluable. You will impress those you hope to cultivate if you understand the realities of deadlines and the hierarchy that puts an editor more directly in charge of the day’s content than a reporter. An assignment editor usually is the nerve center of a newsroom, making many of the decisions on what, where and how items will be placed. However, it is the reporter who puts together that content. Develop relationships where you can, but don’t expect special favors. Remember that the number of choices editors and writers have on any given day far outstrip the available amount of press space or air time. Avoid last-minute notice of timely events if you want media announcements.

A picture may be worth a thousand words. But be sure photos, video or audio bits are good ones. Don’t waste the photo editor’s time. Provide good photo opportunities and describe them well so reporters and photographers/cameramen are not wandering around at a loss. Remember that the media is almost always in need of information before the fact, except in “live” story situations. If you call during your company’s big event, don’t expect a news person to arrive in time to clean up the dishes.

Buy advertising. Then when a news event relates to what you do, the editors and writers will remember your business name. Ad purchases do not position you for favoritism or guarantee spots in the news columns, but they make your name familiar.

Deadline is a firm fixture among the media. Be efficient, flexible and respectful in your interactions. In most cases, reporters have one day to turn around a story. If you miss an interview, it may not be convenient to reschedule soon. If you cannot meet a request for an interview, try to find someone else in your organization who can. Good old fashioned manners work with the media, as with anyone else. Some of the media, granted, have reputations for being pesky. But if you react in kind, the chances are that the word will get around the newsroom, squelching your chances for future favorable interactions.

Don’t just expect to deal with media issues when they arise. Work on a strategy and have a plan. Develop the relationships that count and understand how the media works. You may find yourselves in the headlines more often.

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Article by Sherry Tingley. Startup businesses often require a good source of cheap business checks. Coolchecks.net has prices that are lower than bank prices, provides delivery through the mail and has a good selection of business checks. Start your business off on the right foot by ordering your checks today. http://www.coolchecks.net/businesschecks/

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Woo the Media

If you attempted to take a test without studying, you’d fail!

Every single day on the Internet, thousands of newbies are performing the equivalent of the aforementioned test analogy, by putting up a website without having the slightest idea about how to promote it.

And guess what happens? They fail, most do. Most of these failed once, twice and then gave up. Just because they did not do it right, they lost a whole opportunity! An opportunity that others are efficiently using to earn a living from their home, on a regular basis.

The point is, starting a business, any business, without having the slightest idea of marketing is like playing flute before a buffalo and expecting applause!

There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious and enthusiastic, but being ambitious and enthusiastic, and having a marketing plan is better!

Marketing for the web is an entire profession in itself, but at least before starting a new website ask these questions:

* Do you have a Web Analytics program or script in place?
* Would you use E-Mail Marketing and do you have an opt-in-list you can target?
* How will you take care of Blogging if needed?
* How will you take care of Social Media Marketing?
* Do you have the money for Online Banner Advertising or Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
* How will you take care of Search Engine Optimization?

Let’s look into each of those.

* Web Analytics:
Most hosts today provide a pre-installed solution like AUSTATS. If your host has one, then you are good. If not, you can use pre-hosted solutions like Google analytics, or a free hit counter. Most free hit counters provide more than just a number these days. Just do a google search and choose one.

You will need this to at least find out which pages of your website are most popular, so you can fine tune them for better SEO, a better user experience, and even getting a step ahead of your competition by providing better content.

* Email Marketing:
Some say that this doesn’t work anymore, but I do not agree with them. Of course, if you send bulk emails to a non-targeted list, then it doesn’t work as well as it does if your list is targeted. Sending emails doesn’t mean you are spamming if members in your list have specifically permitted you to send them emails about your products, launches etc. These are called an opt-in-list.

There are a lot of free and professional pre-hosted solutions for you to choose from. Most of them provide you with a small piece of HTML code which you can use in your website’s HTML to display the signup form. You can give away some freebies to motivate people to join your mailing list.

Once you have a mailing list you can notify your users of new content on your website, new product launches etc, but don’t make it just a promotional mailing list.

* Blogging:
Blogging is one of the easiest ways to stay in touch with your website users as well as have new content on your website on a regular basis. Blogging itself can be turned into a profitable business. Get these free tips for successful blogging. Today you need not even buy hosting or a domain to start blogging. Of course, if you do, you look more professional. If you want some pre-hosted, free solutions, you might use wordpress.com or blogger.com

There is something else which makes blogging a must for your online business. It’s PINGING. When you write a new post on your blog, blog search services are automatically notified of the new content. This allows them to index your blog quickly and display your entry in their search results if appropriate. Won’t this get extra visitors to your blog?

* Social Media Marketing:
Social Media Marketing has become one of the most effective marketing tools today, and if you are not doing it, you are leaving money on the table. My personal favorite would be Twitter because it’s easy to use, can get viral, and you can post your tweets to Facebook directly from your twitter account. Use these free twitter tips that work to your advantage.

* Online Banner Advertising and Pay-per-click Advertising:
If you have the money, you can buy advertising in multiple ways like traditional banner advertising where you place a banner or a text link on another website which has high traffic, or you can go with more complex advertising like pay-per-click. This is where you place an advertisement on another website and you only pay when someone visits your website by clicking the advertisement – sound good? Not so much…

With banner advertising you can get unlimited clicks for a fixed amount, so your advertising cost is kind of controlled. Unfortunately, this is not the case in pay-per-click advertising. Here you pay for every click on your advertisement. Of course, you can control how many dollars you wish to spend and stop your advertisement after that amount, but think about it again.

Suppose you spent 10 cents per click and stopped your advertisement after 100 dollars, you got 1000 visitors, including clicks from your competitors, clicks from members which did not buy your product, did not sign up for your mailing list or anything else. Now let’s say that these “non-converting” visitors were about 50 percent, then you actually got only 500 useful visitors. Depending on your advertisement, landing pages, advertisement copywriting, landing page copywriting, and action required, this number of “non-converting” members could be more higher… This is just normal. Most potential customers “DO NOT” convert the first time. Generally, only about 2-6 percent of visitors convert to customers, and even that’s a high rate of conversion.

Unless you run another campaign and spend another 100 dollars, do you have any way of “re-targeting” those first time non-converting potential buyers?

If you had placed a banner advertisement on another website for a month using 100 dollars, then these same people would have kept seeing your advertisement for a full month, visited your website over and over and hopefully converted!

When using banner advertising make sure that your banner is displayed enough times and not just rotated a few times in a banner rotation script.

When it comes to advertising, you need to think of the solution that works best for you and go with that. Don’t forget to track performance of your advertisements. You did install a Web Analytics program, didn’t you?

* Search Engine Optimization:
Search Engine Optimization, popularly known as SEO is where you optimize your website pages to rank higher in search engines. This is a long process, takes time, and comes with no guarantee, but if your website makes it, you can keep getting a steady stream of traffic for free everyday for quite sometime!

I am pretty sure that almost 20% of the web is full of articles, tips, and tricks on do it yourself SEO, but basically it boils down to just 3 things:

- Keyword research. These are the terms that people are typing in search boxes.

- On-page optimization. This is where you copywrite your web content to target a specific key phrase for which you want to rank higher. Key phrase in title tag, meta tags, heading tags, and a sensible appearance in the regular content.

- Off-page optimization. This is where you get other websites to give you a link using the key phrase you are targeting. Better if the linking page shares a similar topic.

This is where having a blog hosted on a subdomain or a separate domain becomes useful. You can link to your website from your blog which will be considered as an external link. Of course, this is not enough to get you in the top search results, but it will at least help get your website indexed, especially if you are using a pinging service.

I’d personally recommend out sourcing this job to a SEO firm if you have the money and the need. Working on this yourself will take a lot of your time and you will end up adding another SEO website to the 20% SEO-Web!

How do you think I became a WebMaster? Yeah, I was already a programmer, and in love with my PC, but my first website in 2004 had nothing to do with website services etc., but the second one in 2005 did. Since then I’ve been a full-time webmaster! That’s 7 years, and you wouldn’t work for 7 years for free, would you?

If you still want to do it yourself, read these free search engine optimization tips that work.

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Follow S. Kumar on Twitter or visit BlogOfWebmaster.com to learn why the BlogOfWebMaster is called the Black Blog of Web Business Success.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Why Your Website is Failing – A SPN Exclusive Article

In case you missed it, according to data from Comscore, Bing has become the second most popular search engine in the world, surpassing perennial bridesmaid Yahoo, which falls to #3.

Bing, which launched June 3, 2009, amid much fanfare, and a8.4 percent search engine market share, now accounts for 15.1 percent of searches, compared to 14.5 percent for Yahoo.

Google remains far and away the search engine leader with 65.9 percent of search engine market share.

While on the surface, surpassing Yahoo so quickly might seem like an impressive feat by Microsoft, the truth of the matter is Bing’s growth has been almost exclusively at the expense of Yahoo and search cellar-dwellers Ask.com and AOL, rather than Google.

More ominously, Bing is in dire need of a financial tourniquet, losing nearly $1 billion a quarter, and $5.5 billion since its launch. Why? Because despite Microsoft’s “decision engine” differentiation campaign, it really isn’t doing anything that’s drastically different from Google in search.

Not only that, Yahoo has always been a contender with a glass jaw, and a dysfunctional mess for years – and quite frankly was ripe for the picking. Last month Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from the company’s board of directors and from all other positions with the company, potentially appeasing unhappy shareholders who blamed Yang for impeding efforts to breathe new life into the struggling company. Yang’s abrupt departure came just two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO.

And at the time of writing this article, The Huffington Post is reporting that Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and three longtime board members are stepping down, submitting to the demands of many frustrated shareholders who blame them for contributing to the follies that have dragged down the Internet company’s revenue and stock price. And the beat goes on…

This is what Alexander Chepakovich, CFA of iStockResearch.com wrote back in September, 2011:

Yahoo is a Mess

“Apparently, the company is in a mess. Just look at the assembly of sites Yahoo is today. True, many of the services and information provided by the company are still in demand. However, there has been very little progress in the company’s development over the past ten years. At the turn of the century, Yahoo was a flagship internet company. Today it is still big in terms of size, but relatively mediocre compared to the current innovators.

Size should be an advantage (because economies of scale, bargaining power, etc.), but, apparently, not at Yahoo. Instead of growing its empire, it should have rather concentrated on innovation and perfection of existing services. They have many things but do not seem to be an undisputed leader in any of them. What is troubling even more is the bugs and glitches you see in their applications. That means that they do not have time or desire (or both) to perfect their products. With such attitude, they risk disappearing from the internet landscape, which changes very rapidly.

Being one the first internet pioneers, Yahoo had immense opportunities to make new things that change the world. But the company just blew it. It relies exclusively on internet advertising to make money. But its audience is pulled away by the internet champions of today – the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook and many others. Very soon this will show in the company’s financial statements. And I am afraid this process is irreversible.

Yahoo just does not seem to have the talent or right incentives for its employees to come up with new and amazing products. In the internet world this is still a prerequisite for being relevant. Others catch up very quickly. If an internet company cannot differentiate itself in any substantial way from the rest, it is destined to disappear. My advice: if you still hold shares of Yahoo sell them. $15 per share is better than nothing.”

Is Bing Cheating?

Since Yahoo is my default home page, I use its search on a daily basis. In fact, I alternate back and forth between Google and Yahoo when I search for something. I’ve only used Bing two or three times since its launch. However, when I did use Bing, I noticed the results I got back were almost identical to Google’s.

Coincidence? I don’t think so, and Google doesn’t think so either. In fact, Google has publicly accused Bing of cheating. Google says it ran a sting operation that proves Bing has been cheating. How? According to Google, Bing analyzes what people search for on Google – sites Bing selects from Google’s search results. Bing then uses that information to improve its own search listings.

Like I said earlier, when I did use Bing, I noticed the results I got back were almost identical to Google’s. So you can take that for what it’s worth.

Bing Rebuts Google’s Cheating Claims

In Bing’s defense, it has strongly rebutted Google’s assertions. Bing’s Harry Shum states…

“Bing does NOT do this. There is no Google specific search signal that is being used, no list of all the popular pages as selected just by Google users. Instead, it has a ‘search signal’ based on searching activity observed across a range of sites.

We aggregate the information. The entire clickstream gets weighted along with different signals. For head queries, we have more signals. For tail queries, we have less. For the Google ‘synthetic’ queries [done for the Google sting operation], we have nothing.” (Source: SearchEngineLand.com)

What Is Bing’s Future?

So what exactly is Bing’s future? Your guess is as good as mine, but like I stated earlier, Bing is hemorrhaging money. Will Bing ever overtake Google? That’s highly unlikely, but then again, it was highly unlikely that 13 years ago a small search engine out of Stanford University would topple the mighty Yahoo. So anything is possible.

But my guess is the company that eventually knocks Google off its throne is an entity we haven’t yet heard of.

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David Jackson is a marketing consultant and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! http://free-marketing-tips-blog.com

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Money Pit Bing Surpasses Dysfunctional Yahoo to Become #2 Search Engine – A SPN Exclusive Article

This is part of a series I am doing on online collaboration and fads for CEOs, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. It looks at best habits for virtual video-conferencing technology and the strategies for keeping people involved using tools from the cloud. In this Vlog I talk to Phil Montero, president of Montero Consulting and founder of YouCanWorkFromAnywhere.com and http://www.TheAnywhereOffice.com. Phil’s avocation is working with small and mid-sized business leaders in putting together the technology, coaching and tools for working virtually and leading virtually.

Trends in CEO Virtual Collaboration

Phil sees the greatest trend in digital collaboration among execs as just that there is even more of it, and it is a pattern that won’t be changing anytime soon. In many instances, virtual colleagues may collaborate for years and never meet face to face, yet still maintain an effective business connection.

Technology Advances

Virtual leadership results comes from finding instruments that satisfy the practical objective without getting in the way of people learning to know, like and trust one another. That is still critical to human beings in any job environment.

What gets you nearer that works repeatedly and shrinks the virtual distance between any virtual associates?

Cloud-based instruments such as Skype Video, Skype Screen share, Google docs and a selection of mobile applications have cheapened the price of congregating from around the world. Additionally, the always broadening scope of Wi-Fi connections and hotspots has strengthened the significance of mobile tools, and cloud application creators are trying to keep pace.

Online Meeting Best Practices

Once the technology wall is conquered, not always as effortless as you would expect, today’s CEOs and Executives need to handle the human elements during online meetings. Attendants who are on the team with even the best intentions and motivation will wander and start to multi-task during a monotonous meeting. To achieve and keep maximum engagement, Phil suggests…

Short and On Point

There is a fad in the physical meeting area to attempt to shorten meetings because of the huge time obligation needed on the part of attendants. Intensify that for online meetings. Want an hour meeting? Break it into three 20 minute meetings if you can. It’s less accommodating for you but more engaging for participants, which means they are more effective after leaving the meeting.

Advanced Notice

Send out an agenda in advance so individuals can prepare, not just for their sections but to get their heads around what is going to be covered.

Elementary Teaching Basics

Call on people randomly to validate comprehension. Only a few examples of being blind-sided will produce the shared consciousness of keeping engaged to avoid the possibility of announcing, being unprepared and enduring the slings and darts of your colleagues.

Tech Numbness

In a procedure I call Tech Deadening; the digital technology decreases the enthusiasm of leader communication in reverse proportion to how far you are from the real deal. For instance, video is the next best thing to being there, but it isn’t being there. Only teleconferencing? Your attendees are still more de-sensitized. Texting– you understand.

Leaders have to be aware of this and exaggerate tone of voice, hand movements, facial expressions and their Knut Rockne speeches in order to connect.

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Karl Walinskas owns Smart Company Growth, a firm that helps businesses grow with innovative marketing and leadership tools that highlight their competitive advantages. He’s been published for years on better leadership, communication, and marketing practices for small business and authored the book, “Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership.” You can read the Smart Blog for small business growth to learn more tips you can use today.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Leading Through the Cloud: Ideal Habits and Tools – A SPN Exclusive Article

Would You Rather Buy from a Person, or a Brand?

We thought so. Most people would rather feel like they’re engaging with real people than with a faceless, nameless “brand.” That’s especially true in social media, where people readily express their opinions and personalities.

So, how do you stay human on Twitter? Don’t be afraid to BE a human being on Twitter. Even if your company’s Twitter account has your company’s name, you can still project some personality.

Notice that TravelOregon promotes its own content, while also responding to people and re-tweeting other people’s comments. That makes TravelOregon’s Twitter stream seem like a real person is writing it, and conversing with the account’s followers. It doesn’t read like a stream of pre-scheduled, rote tweets, or automatic tweets from the organization’s blog.

Need an example of a boring, un-engaging Twitter feed? Here you go:

This is a pretty typical business-account feed. It’s just a series of automated tweets from the company’s blog – no personality, no variety, and no conversation.

You may be thinking this is unfair. How interesting can a foreign-exchange company’s tweets possibly be? Well, let’s look at another example. Groceries are kind of boring, right? Maybe, but Safeway’s Twitter feed is engaging and feels like a real person is writing it. Note the two tweets to @Jonspach at the top that clearly indicate a real conversation is going on:

Make People Laugh, or Catch them Offguard

It’s okay to be funny on Twitter, and when a big brand shows some humor, it’s refreshing. Just take a look at Southwest Air’s Twitter feed:

Note that Southwest Air attributes its tweets to actual people by using the ^ character and someone’s initials. This is a great way to show that several different people are manning the account.

Try bringing a more human touch to your tweets. I bet you’ll pick up more followers and get re-tweeted more often. That gives you a much bigger audience, and more opportunity to win new customers. And you’ll probably have more fun!

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Have you seen a company with a great Twitter presence? Share it with us on Twitter by mentioning us (@AboutUs) or me (@AlizaEarnshaw) and the handle of the company or brand you think is doing a great job.

This article, originally published at AboutUs.com was contributed by Aliza Earnshaw of AboutUs.org.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Create a Personality for Your Brand on Twitter