Monday, April 30, 2012

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http://ow.ly/av8Bb The reason you want to start a Yahoo! Group to help your book sales. More...
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Sunday, April 29, 2012

http://ow.ly/aunjH Dr Ande will be on the Tony Gambone Radio Show, June 6th 1PM PST/3PM CST/4PM EST. Join her and get SEO Tips for your site
http://ow.ly/auYCY Have you wanted to publish your own book but wondered what was involved? Check out this FREE article to get the info
http://ow.ly/auXuH Journalists and reporters need websites too. Learn to properly utilize them to gather leads, screen interviewees & more
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http://ow.ly/auQPF Dr Ande's Writers' Radio is hosting a fundrasier. Help us raise money for new equipment. Great gifts for donors!!!
http://ow.ly/av5eS Come join the Sacramento Women of Color Writer's Group for a free workshop on social media for writers. More info here
http://ow.ly/apLD3 Help SEO Tips for Small Business bring SEO 2 Go Alive & bring SEO live trainings to more local small businesses.
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http://ow.ly/avamZ How writing eBooks can help your writing career & make you a best selling author...oh and put extra cash in your pocket
http://ow.ly/auqSi Join Dr. Ande on the Tony Gambone Radio Show, June 6th, 1PM PST/3PMCST/4PMEST. Get your SEO & SMO questions answered live
http://ow.ly/apLD3 Help SEO Tips for Small Business bring SEO 2 Go Alive & bring SEO live trainings to more local small businesses.
http://ow.ly/auQPF Dr Ande's Writers' Radio is hosting a fundrasier. Help us raise money for new equipment. Great gifts for donors!!!
http://ow.ly/av5eS Come join the Sacramento Women of Color Writer's Group for a free workshop on social media for writers. More info here
http://ow.ly/aunjH Dr Ande will be on the Tony Gambone Radio Show, June 6th 1PM PST/3PM CST/4PM EST. Join her and get SEO Tips for your site
http://ow.ly/av8Bb The reason you want to start a Yahoo! Group to help your book sales. More...
http://ow.ly/av8I3 Like to know how to write a best seller? Read this free article now...
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http://ow.ly/av9dz How to make your next book (or this one) a best seller. Keep reading here...
http://ow.ly/av43L The Sacramento Women of Color Writers Group is starting its open enrollment. Come and join us, Meet up is May 3rd...
http://ow.ly/auQPF Dr Ande's Writers' Radio is hosting a fundrasier. Help us raise money for new equipment. Great gifts for donors!!!
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Directory Submission to Generate Online SEO Promotion


Links to your site from other sites drive additional traffic. But since Google and other major search engines consider the number of incoming links to your website ("link popularity") as an important indicator of relevance, more links will help you rank higher in the search engines. Google has a measure called PageRank that reflects the quantity and quality of incoming links. All links aren't all equal. Links from trusted, popular sites help your site rank higher than links from lower traffic sites.


Submit Your Site to Key Directories, since a link from a directory will help your ranking -- and get you traffic. A directory is not a search engine. Rather, it is a hierarchical listing of sites sorted according to category and subcategory. Be sure to list your site in the free Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.com), overseen by overworked volunteer editors. But if you don't get listed right away, don't be impatient and resubmit, or you'll go to the end of the queue. A link in this directory will help you a lot.

Yahoo! Directory (dir.yahoo.com) is another important directory. Real humans read submission, so be careful to follow the instruction given. Hint: Use somewhat less than the maximum number of characters allowable, so you don't have wordy text that will tempt the Yahoo! editor to begin chopping. Yahoo! Directory Submit (ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/) requires a $299 annual recurring fee to have your site considered for inclusion within seven business days. Other paid business directories that might help are About.com and Business.com.
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The Trick to Generating SEO Driven Traffic


The trick to generating SEO driven traffic and going viral is to make sure people can find you. It's easy on one hand but hard in the fact it will take you some time at first to set it up. But the payoff is well worth it.


1. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. You want search engine robots to find all the pages in your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don't read JavaScript and Flash very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. Don't set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, out-dated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems.

Some content management systems and e-commerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages, often recognizable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go farther. If you find the search engines aren't indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.


2. Create a Site Map. A site map page with links to all your pages can help search engines (and visitors) find all your pages, particularly if you have a larger site. You can use a free tools, XML-Sitemaps.com (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/xml-sitemaps.htm) to create XML sitemaps that are used by the major search engines to index your webpages accurately. Upload your sitemap to your website. Then submit your XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo!, and Bing (formerly MSN), following instructions on their sites. By the way,  Google Webmaster Central (www.google.com/webmasters/) has lots of tools to help you get ranked higher. Be sure to set up a free account and explore what they have to offer.


3. Develop Webpages Focused on Each Your Target Keywords. SEO specialists no longer recommend using external doorway or gateway pages, since nearly duplicate webpages might get you penalized. Rather, develop several webpages on your site, each of which is focused on a target keyword or keyphrase for which you would like a high ranking. Let's say you sell teddy bears. Use Google Insights for Search (www.google.com/insights/search/) or the free keyword suggestion tool on Wordtracker (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/wordtracker.htm) to find the related keywords people search on. In this case: write a separate webpage featuring the keyword "teddy bear," "teddy bears," "vermont teddy bears," "vermont bears," "the teddy bears," teddy bears picnic," "teddy bears pictures," etc. You'll write a completely different article on each topic. You can't fully optimize all the webpages in your site, but for each of these focused-content webpages, spend lots of time tweaking to improve its ranking.


4. Fine-tune with Careful Search Engine Optimization. Now fine-tune your focused-content pages and perhaps your home page, by making a series of minor adjustments to help them rank higher. Software such as WebPosition (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/webposition.htm) allows you to check your current ranking and compare your webpages against your top keyword competitors. I use it regularly. WebPosition's Page Critic tool provides analysis of a search engine's preferred statistics for each part of your webpage, with specific recommendations of what minor changes to make. The best set of SEO tools is Bruce Clay's SEOToolSet (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/clay_seotoolset.htm). If you want more detailed information, consider purchasing my inexpensive book Dr. Ande's SEO Tips for Improved ROI (www.setipsforsmallbusiness.com/SEO-ROI.html). You can get a free SEO Tutorial on my site and even more in our (http://www.seotipsforsmallbusiness.com/Freebies.html ).


5. Promote Your Local Business on the Internet. These days many people search for local businesses on the Internet. To make sure they find you, include on every page of your website the street address, zip code, phone number, and the five or 10 other local community place names your business serves. If you can, include place names in the title tag, too. When you seek links to your site, you should request links from local businesses with place names in the communities you serve and complementary businesses in your industry nationwide.

Also create a free listing for your local business on Google Maps Local Business Center (www.google.com/local/add) and Yahoo! Local (listings.local.yahoo.com). That way your business can show up on a map when people do a local search.


6. Promote Your Video, Images, and Audio Content. Google's "universal search" displays not only webpage content, but also often displays near the top of the page relevant listings for images, videos, local businesses, and audio clips.  Therefore, consider creating such content appropriate to your business and then optimizing it so it can be ranked high enough to help you. For example, if you were to get a top-ranking, informative video on YouTube (www.youtube.com) that mentions your site, it could drive a lot of traffic to your site. For more information, search on "optimizing images" or "optimizing videos."

6 Simple Search Engine Strategies


Perhaps the most important -- and inexpensive -- strategy is to rank high for your preferred keywords on the main search engines in "organic" or "natural" searches (as opposed to paid ads). Search engines send robot "spiders" to index the content of your webpage, so let's begin with steps to prepare your webpages for optimal indexing. The idea here is not to trick the search engines, but to leave them abundant clues as to what your webpage is about. This approach is called "search engine optimization," abbreviated as SEO.


1. Write a Keyword-Rich Page Title. Write a descriptive title for each page -- rich in keywords you want people to find you with -- using 5 to 8 words. Remove as many "filler" words from the title (such as "the," "and," etc.) as possible, while still making it readable. This page title will appear hyperlinked on the search engines when your page is found. Entice searchers to click on the title by making it a bit provocative. Place this at the top of the webpage between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format: <TITLE>Web Marketing Checklist -- 37  Ways to Promote Your Website</TITLE>. (It also shows on the blue bar at the top of your web browser.)

Plan to use some descriptive keywords along with your business name on your home page. If you specialize in silver bullets and that's what people will be searching for, don't just use your company name "Acme Ammunition, Inc.," use "Silver and Platinum Bullets -- Acme Ammunition, Inc." The words people are most likely to search on should appear first in the title (called "keyword prominence"). Remember, this title is your identity on the search engines. The more people see that interests them in the blue hyperlinked words on the search engine, the more likely they are to click on the link.


2. Write a Description META Tag. Some search engines include this description below your hyperlinked title in the search results. The description should be a sentence or two describing the content of the webpage, using the main keywords and keyphrases on this page. Don't include keywords that don't appear on the webpage. Place the Description META Tag at the top of the webpage, between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags, in this format:

<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Increase visitor hits, attract traffic through submitting URLs, META tags, news releases, banner ads, and reciprocal links.">
The maximum number of characters should be about 255; just be aware that only the first 60 or so are visible on Google, though more may be indexed.

When I prepare a webpage, I write the article first, then develop a keyword-rich title (#1 above). Then I write a description of the content in that article in a sentence or two, using each of the important keywords and keyphrases included in the article. This goes into the description META tag.

Next, I strip out the common words, leaving just the meaty keywords and phrases and insert those into the keywords META tag. It's no longer used much for ranking, but I'm leaving it in anyway. I think it may have some minor value. So to summarize so far, every webpage in your site should have a distinct title and META description tag. If you implement these two points, you're well on your way to better search engine ranking. But there's more that will help your ranking....


3. Include Your Keywords in Headers (H1, H2, H3). Search engines consider keywords that appear in the page headline and sub heads to be important to the page, so make sure your desired keywords and phrases appear in one or two header tags. Don't expect the search engine to parse your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) to figure out which are the headlines -- it won't. Instead, use keywords in the H1, H2, and H3 tags to provide clues to the search engine. (Note: Some designers no longer use the H1, H2 tags. That's a big mistake. Make sure your designer defines these tags in the CSS rather than creating headline tags with other names.)


4. Position Your Keywords in the First Paragraph of Your Body Text. Search engines expect that your first paragraph will contain the important keywords for the document -- where most people write an introduction to the content of the page. You don't want to just artificially stuff keywords here, however. More is not better. Google might expect a keyword density in the entire body text area of maybe 1.5% to 2% for a word that should rank high, so don't overdo it.


5. Include Descriptive Keywords in the ALT Attribute of Image Tags. This helps your site be more accessible to site-impaired visitors (www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/) and gives additional clues to the search engines. The ALT attributes do help get your images ranked higher for image search (see #12 below).


6. Use Keywords in Hyperlinks. Search engines are looking for clues to the focus of your webpage. When they see words hyperlinked in your body text, they consider these potentially important, so hyperlink your important keywords and keyphrases. To emphasize it even more, the webpage you are linking to could have a page name with the keyword or keyphrase, such as blue-widget.htm -- another clue for the search engine.

7. Make Your Navigation System Search Engine Friendly. You want search engine robots to find all the pages in your site. JavaScript and Flash navigation menus that appear when you hover are great for humans, but search engines don't read JavaScript and Flash very well. Therefore, supplement JavaScript and Flash menus with regular HTML links at the bottom of the page, ensuring that a chain of hyperlinks exists that take a search engine spider from your home page to every page in your site. Don't set up your navigation system using HTML frames (an old, out-dated approach); they can cause severe indexing problems.

Some content management systems and eCommerce catalogs produce dynamic, made-on-the-fly webpages, often recognizable by question marks in the URLs followed by long strings of numbers or letters. Overworked search engines sometimes have trouble parsing long URLs and may stop at the question mark, refusing to go any further. If you find the search engines are't indexing your interior pages, you might consider URL rewriting, a site map, or commercial solutions.



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3 Tips to Easy Business SEO promotion


Many local businesses struggle to find ways to promote themselves, get links, rank in search engines, and ultimately drive traffic to their websites. Most small businesses also have limited budgets making the task more difficult. For those businesses here are some ways you can promote your business online for free and generate some SEO traffic organically.
  1. Email Signatures: Be sure to add your business URL to all of your outgoing email. Want to catch the reader's attention? Try adding your mission statement, or a catchy phrase to help people understand what you do. Change the statement a several times a year so people notice it again.
  2. Syndicate Your Content and Ideas: Take advantage of article distribution Services like EZineArticles, ISnare, and IdeaMarketers to spread your message and approach. Use them to bring leads to your site by offering things like free eBooks or PDF’s that they can download after entering their contact information.

    These create link backs to you because you will include your business URL in your resource box. When you do this try and be just as creative. Don't just point them to the first page of your website. You can either create specific landing pages to send them too based on the company you post the article with or by topic (keep in mind this can become a lot of landing pages unless you write about one or two categories or topics).
  3. Get listed: This is one of the most basic methods of business promotion, both on and offline. List yourself in as many business directories as you can; yellow pages, and local business Websites as you can find. Many of these will list your company for free, though some might require you to pay a small fee.

    This type of promotion is well worth the time and investment, as most people consult these publications when looking for a designer, plumber, electrician etc. You see the point.
Getting your business name recognized in appropriate circles is one of the biggest hurdles a fledgling company is going to face, but with a little fore-thought and some shameless self-promotion it's not as hard to get noticed as you may think.

Using Seminars to Promote Your Business


Promote your business by giving a seminar or presentation. You have expertise that other people are interested in! (You couldn't be in business if you didn't, and if you are an employee the employer is in need of your skills as only you can do it.) Why not share that expertise and promote your business at the same time?

For example, a local carpet company advertises a free seminar on installation techniques for a type of laminate flooring. Participants not only learn how to install this type of flooring themselves, but are offered special discount prices if they wish to purchase laminate flooring. Another local retailer who sells goods made of stained glass offers courses on working with stained glass on-site.

If there's no direct tie-in to your product or service, you can still give a presentation on a related topic. Nursery people or horticulturalists, for instance, often give demonstrations on topics such as tree-pruning, or slide shows of famous gardens they've visited. In my case, most of my business involves providing specific writing or training services to businesses and SEO advice so I give presentations on general topics such as "Promoting Your Business on a Shoestring" or "Using SEO to Increase Your Target Audience".

If it's not feasible to present the seminar at your site, because you're a home-based business or just don't have the facilities you need, arrange to give the seminar elsewhere. Many government-sponsored organizations, such as Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, Libraries and non-profit programs are always looking for experienced business people who are willing to give presentations. You may also be able to arrange to present your topic through the Continuing Education branch of your local college or university.

Scared? Start small and start building a name by making a presentation to one of your local groups such as your Home-Based Business Association or Business Women's network. If public speaking terrifies you, I can't recommend Toastmasters highly enough; this organization has helped a great many people get over this fear and be able to address groups of people.

So try using your voice to promote your business. It's actually one of the better low cost ways to do it.
http://ow.ly/auQPF Dr Ande's Writers' Radio is hosting a fundrasier. Help us raise money for new equipment. Great gifts for donors!!!
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Saturday, April 28, 2012

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Press Releases and Free Business Promotion


Sending out press releases is another great way to get some free business promotion.

The caveat to using press releases as a business promotion tool is that your press release has to actually contain information that is newsworthy, and be engaging enough to get people's interest. Has your business recently expanded? Do you have a new product? Have you been involved in some promotional activity such as sponsoring a charity event? Have you or your company recently won an award? All of these are examples of "news" that you can capitalize on to get some free promotion for your business.

While many business people send press releases to newspapers as a matter of course, don't forget about the Internet. Web sites like mine, for example, that specialize in providing business-related information, are interested in you and your accomplishments. You're always welcome to post your press release or information about your event on the Small Business: Canada forum, for instance.

What else can you do to get some free business promotion? What about using Internet forums and freebies as business promotion tools or doing some buddy marketing to promote your business? 
http://ow.ly/aiflB Check your site for any sites linking to you that you don’t know about. Help us continue providing SEO Tips
http://ow.ly/av43L The Sacramento Women of Color Writers Group is starting its open enrollment. Come and join us, Meet up is May 3rd...
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How Article Writing Improves Your SEO and Small Business Marketing


Writing articles on topics related to your business expertise is an excellent business promotion technique. Well-written articles can provide free advertising and build positive word-of-mouth. If you're a realtor, for instance, you could write a piece on preparing your home to be shown. If you're a Web site designer, you might write a piece about assessing Web site usability. The more specific your topic, the better. Write a short biographical note, or "blurb" about you and your business to go with the article. Then send it out!

Where? As the goal is to promote your business, ideally you'd like it to appear in a publication that your target audience will be reading. Realistically, you may have to send it to a publication that accepts unsolicited work from unknown authors. Magazines generally have a long lead time, so I would focus my first efforts on the 'Net. There are an astronomical number of eZines and sites with newsletters that are hungry for content.

One place to look for eZines to send articles to is eZine Net Top 20 Directories. eZines also provide excellent advertising value; the trick is to find the right eZine for your target audience. Freelance writing sites also provide a great deal of information on all kinds of publications that might publish your efforts. Make your research easier by starting with a great site that provides all kinds of lists and information on markets such as About Freelance Writers, or FreelanceWriting.com.

Newspapers are also excellent places to place your business promotion article, as they too have a much shorter lead-time than magazines, and are always looking for material. Try contacting the Business editor of your local paper and pitching your article. If this approach fails, you might be able to get your piece into the paper by sending it in as a letter to the Editorial section.
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Simple Small Business Marketing that Works


Here's a method that's sure to draw attention to your business.

Use every outgoing piece of paper, and every electronic document as business promotion. You have business cards, but you also put out a lot of other documents in the course of doing business. Check these to make sure you're using their promotional possibilities to full advantage.

For instance, business stationery is an ideal business promotion tool. Is your business name, logo, contact information (including URL if you have one), and slogan on your envelopes as well as on your letterhead? Or are your envelopes only printed with your business name and return address? What a waste! Your phone and fax numbers, your URL, and even a memorable slogan should be there, too. It's not just an envelope; it's a business promotion tool! You're sending it out anyway, so why not make it work for you?

The same goes for outgoing faxes, bill payments, receipts; whatever paper you send out should carry your full company message. And don't forget to make sure that your email has a complete signature that provides all your business information and a promotional tagline.

Electronic documents, such as email, are also easy to update with your latest business promotion information, whether it be a special price on your product or service, or letting people know that your company has won an award.

Articles and press releases are also excellent business promotion tools that you can use to promote your business inexpensively. Read on to learn what types of articles and press releases you should write and tips on where to send them to promote your business effectively.
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3 Tips to Help You Cheaply Market Your Small Business


Okay you've heard the selling comment before, "you're not in business if you have no clients or customers." Well it's true, if no one knows you're there, how do you expect to make sales? No sales equals no business.

Try these 3 ideas out to help you market your business at a low cost.

1) Contact nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges, and even other businesses who have customers who may need your services. Ask for work or leads.

2) Get on the telephone and make "cold calls." These are calls to people who you would like to do business with. Briefly describe what you do and ask for an appointment to talk to them about ways you can help them meet a need or solve a problem.

3) Offer a free, no obligation consultation to people you think could use your services. During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas -- and before you leave ask for an "order" to implement the ideas.

The point is to get samples of your product or your work into as many hands as possible. You want to use other people to sell your product or service. Instead of (or in addition to) selling your products yourself, in other words, go viral.  Nothing makes sales like word of mouth endorsements made by friends. Think of how many times you've eaten at a restaurant or tried a new store because one of your friends, family, or co-workers recommended it.

These three business promotion ideas are just some of the ways you can promote your small business without spending a small fortune. With a little experimentation and time, you'll find out which of these ideas work best for you - and best get the word out about your small business.
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9 Proven Methods to Market Your Business Without Loosing Your Shirt


Business promotion is to running a successful business as practicing scales is to playing the piano well; it may not be a thrilling activity in itself, but you just have to do it! You should spend at least an hour a day on business promotion or planning how to promote your business (and more is better, if you can fit the time in)!

You promote your business by getting the word out. The first axiom of business promotion is that you have to do this consciously. You can't rely on other people to do it for you, no matter how great your product or service is.

The second axiom of business promotion is that like every other aspect of your business, it's a budgeted activity. But business promotion doesn't have to be expensive. Here are ten inexpensive ways to promote your business; all most of these will cost you is some time. 

Here are 9 proven methods to help get your business off the ground without spending a fortune. 

Business Card Marketing
1) If you don't have a business card and business stationery, have them made up -- immediately. Your business card, letterhead and envelope tell prospective customers you are a professional who takes your business seriously.

2) Get your business card into as many hands as possible. Call your friends and relatives and tell them you have started a business. Visit them and leave a small stack of business cards to hand out to their friends.

3) Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services. Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know anyone who can. If they have newsgroups where business cards are displayed (printers often do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board.

Networking
4) Attend meetings of professional groups, computer user groups and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, or civic associations. Have your business cards in a pocket at the ready; but don't just hand them out to everyone at these functions. Be selective, make sure the party is interested in taking the card. You'll know this because they'll ask to see it.

5) Look for something unusual about what you do, and publicize it. Send out press releases to local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV stations, or magazines whose audiences are likely to be interested in buying what you sell. To increase your chance of having the material published, send along a photo (but not to radio stations) with your press release. Editors of printed publications are often in need of "art" (drawings or photos) to fill space and break up the gray look of a page of text.

6) Write an article that demonstrates your expertise in your field. Send it to non-competing newspapers, magazines, and Web sites such as the Business Know-How Web site. Be sure that your name, business name, reference to your product or service and phone number are included at the end of the article. If the editor can use the article, you get your name in print, and possibly get your contact information printed for free, too.

PR Marketing
7) Whenever you do get publicity, get permission from the publisher to reprint the article containing the publicity. Make photocopies and mail the copies out with sales letters or any other literature you use to market your product or service. The publicity clips lend credibility to the claims you make for your products or services. 

8) If your product or service is appropriate, give demonstrations of it to whatever groups or individuals might be interested. Or, teach others how to use some tool you use in your work.

9) Find out what federal, state, and local government programs are in existence to help you get started in business. Most offer free counseling and some may be able to suggest possible prospects for your business. 



LOW-COST PROMOTION



Promotion and advertising can be a heavy expense, especially for a new business that wants to make itself known in a community. A home-based business, however, more often than not, has a very limited budget when it comes to advertising. The home business owner needs to make the public aware of his or her product or service at the lowest possible cost. There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized "birth certificates" for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent. The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn't afford much advertising, so she began offering "home cleaning seminars" to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients. Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success or business failure.

Look at your business and decide what kind of complimentary fund gifts or give a ways can you do to help add and attraction to your clients. What quirky or offbeat things add a smile to your face when you see them and how can you apply them to your business?

Just look around or you can even ask your friends and family what ideas they have about what you could do to generate sales. There's always something you can do to help you stand out in an over saturated market place that will draw attention.

Think about it McDonald's had signs that said "Over a billion sold" long before we ever knew what "one billion" was. Nike, says, "Just Do It" and Walmart has "Rollbacks". Take a look at what you are offering and just make one tweak that will be catchy, evoke an emotional response or just get people talking about your business.

Low cost advertising is simply a matter of adding a little something extra to give your customers more perceived bang for their buck and you get more clients; without breaking your bank.
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Every Page of a Site Indexed by Search Engines is a Potential Landing Page.


The goal of search engine optimization (SEO) is to leave few landings to chance. The content of the page and/or links to the page are optimized for very specific, carefully researched keywords and phrases. Those keywords and phrases that are of most value for "organic" or "natural" search engine optimization are those most likely to be used by prospective customers in their search engines. Good choices will cause the site to rank higher in search engine results.

For large websites covering many products or many topics, a single home page cannot be optimized for every topic and still be relevant to all. A different approach is needed, a landing page that will not convert a visitor directly. A "hub" page is optimized for more generic, less targeted keyword phrases that have naturally a lower conversion rate than more-specific search terms. Hub landing pages serve as a "mini portal" within a site – the site establishes a number of virtual home pages, each for a broader topic.
There are two types of landing page, reference and transactional.

A reference landing page presents information that is relevant to the visitor. These can display text, images, dynamic compilations of relevant links, or other elements. Reference landing pages are effective if they meet the objectives of their publishers, which may be associations, organizations or public service entities. For many reference landing pages, effectiveness can be measured by the revenue value of the advertising that is displayed on them.

A special type of 'reference landing page' is the 'webvert', the marketing goal focuses on lead generation and interaction with the visitor. A webvert is not 'transactional' in nature. A webvert is a reference based, ethical landing page. The webverts consists of an advert, deigned on the AIDA principle. The traffic is driven from 
Google Adwords and is designed for two specific marketing tactics;

1) To attain high Google Adwords landing page quality scores, the benefit being any Adwords campaign costs are minimized.

2) The webvert has a clear call to action, usually a reply form.
The visitor traffic is immediate as the webvert relies on Google advertising to drive visitors to the webvert.

A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sale of a product or service. If information is to be captured, the page will usually withhold information until some minimal amount of visitor information is provided, typically an email address and perhaps a name and telephone number as well – enough to "capture the lead" and add the prospect to a mailing list.

A visitor taking the desired action on a transactional landing page is referred to as a conversion. The efficiency or quality of the landing page can be measured by its conversion rate, the percentage of visitors who complete the desired action. Since the economics of many online marketing programs are determined by the conversion rate, marketers constantly test alternatives and improvements to their landing pages. Some of the testing methods used are A/B testing and multivariate testing.

In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

In pay per click (PPC) campaigns, the landing page will also be customized to measure the effectiveness of different advertisements. By adding a parameter to the linking URL, marketers can measure advertisement effectiveness based on relative click-through rates.
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7 Reasons You Create Landing Pages Specifically for Your Incoming Email or Social Media Links


Why is it so important to create a special Web page for the e-mail reader to visit? Why can't you simply send the prospect to your home page and make the offer a clickable item there?

Well, first of all, if you dump potential customers onto your home page, they could get lost. They could have trouble finding your offer and might give up. Or they might see something else of interest on your site and click away to that. Hey. You don't want them randomly browsing your site. You want them to respond to your specific offer!

The bottom line? When you send the reader to a landing page, you're in control. Which is where a direct response writer always wants to be.

Exactly what should you do on your landing page? Keep reading and I'll share a few ideas with you.

1. Thank the reader for responding.
You can begin your landing page with a brief headline like: "Thanks so much for responding to the e-mail we recently sent you!" This maintains continuity of communication. When they get to the landing page and see this message, they know they're in the right place and that they're at a special page created just for them.

2. Capture crucial data.
The whole idea of lead generation is to get people to raise their hands and indicate some level of interest, however modest. When they identify themselves, by responding to your offer, they enter the sales funnel. Then, you begin the job of converting prospects into buyers. This means that before they get to download your White Paper, your demo, or whatever, they must provide some information about themselves. Beginners think that you should let people take advantage of the offer without having to provide the info you're after. Wrong!

3. Don't ask too much of them.
Ask for the minimum information you need. Maybe name, title, company, and e-mail address. The fact you need to remember is that the more information you ask for, the more you'll turn people off. Never ask people, at this stage, when they're planning to make a purchase or what their budget is. Way too pushy!

4. Provide a promise of privacy and make your policy clear.
For good reason, prospects are reluctant to give up personal information. They know all too well that if they're not careful they may get an e-mail telling them that they're eligible for a share of a Nigerian prince's estate. Have a good privacy policy and make it crystal clear!

5. Keep the copy short.
The landing page is not the place to write a novel. Thank them. Convince them that their data will be kept private. Thank them again. Let them click to the download. Get out.

6. Use different landing pages to test different offers and creative treatments.
You can test variables by sending prospects to unique landing pages. Just measure the click through rate and you'll find out fast what works best. E-mail is much underused as a testing medium.

7. Don't forget to follow up.
After people take advantage of the offer on your landing page, work those leads! You should have follow-up messages ready to roll automatically. The whole idea of lead generation is to capture contact data and then press ahead with e-mail, postal mail, telemarketing, whatever. Failing to follow up aggressively is a big (and common) mistake!


The take-away message? Creating a great e-mail is crucial, but so is providing a landing page that does its job . . . getting the crucial data you need to begin an ongoing marketing effort.
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7 Important Pages Your Website Might Be Missing


Don’t look now, but your Web site might be missing a few pages—a few very important pages.
You’re not alone. Most small-business sites are a work in progress—constantly being revised, improved, and updated. So invariably, something is always missing. But some pages are so important that not having them could hurt your bottom line.

A 2007 Forrester Research study of business-to-business Web sites found that many of the pages it examined were difficult to navigate and use. About one-quarter of them lacked critical pages containing privacy and security policies, for example. Those are essential pages for any business site, big or small.
"Many companies get sidetracked from what is really important," Kelly Cutler, chief executive of the Chicago-based strategic interactive advisory firm Marcel Media, told me. That is, sites that are "clean, professional, and easy to navigate," she says, generally have most or all of the pages customers are looking for.

So, you can let your customers tell you about those missing pages. Or you can read this story and then add these commonly overlooked components.

Let me tell you about having customers tell you what is missing, because that’s a road I’ve taken. When I began designing and publishing Web pages in 1996, there were, for all intents and purposes, no standards. Back then I wouldn’t make a change to my site until people e-mailed me en masse to complain ("You don’t have a Contact Us page? Get one!").

That was the hard way.

This is the easy way. Here are seven pages every business Web site must have, and where they need to be:
  1. Contact Us.  "Every small-business site should have a Contact Us page," says Melissa Campanelli, author of "Open an Online Business in 10 Days" (Entrepreneur Press, 2007). "It should offer visitors a complete list of ways they can contact you – from e-mail addresses to toll-free numbers to a physical address." It’s easy to overlook a Contact Us page because, after all, this is your company’s online presence, and why post something like your physical address. But customers don’t think that way. When it comes to contacting you, they want options—or they just might take their business elsewhere.
Where it goes: There should be a link to it on the nav bar and on every page. Give your customers as many choices as you can, including a form, e-mail address, instant-messaging account, regular mail, toll-free number, and toll number for overseas callers. Leave no virtual stone unturned.
  1. Testimonials.  Many companies skip the Testimonials page because they consider it too self-serving, says Lori Quaranta, president of Consetta Web Solutions in Shelton, Conn. "Some people would argue that this is not necessary, that business owners plug their business with bogus testimonials. But again, it’s a natural human instinct for people to know, ‘What’s so good about you? I wonder what others had to say.'" In other words, while having a page like that may seem self-promotional, people will look for it. And when they don’t find it, they might begin to make assumptions. Why don’t they have a testimonials page? Can’t they find enough people to say nice things about them?
Where it goes: Ask long-time clients to supply a short testimonial and make sure a link to it is on your nav bar where anyone can find it. Remember, people will be looking for this one.
  1. Privacy policy.  Web users are more conscious about safety and privacy than ever, so a good privacy policy is an absolute must, according to Corey Donovan, vice president at Vibrant Technologies, an IT reseller in Minnetonka, Minn. “If you collect user data via a Web form such as a contact form, then you really should have a privacy policy page,” he says. “Linking to this page on any page where you request personal information is a trust-builder and will decrease form abandonment.” Not only that, but many companies require that you have a privacy policy before they do business with you. So get one. (The Better Business Bureau has a good sample privacy notice on its site.)
Where it goes: A privacy policy doesn’t have to be prominent in your design. Most people look for a link to it from the bottom of every page.
  1. FAQ.  Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are frequently forgotten, too. At least that’s the assessment of Joel Fisher, vice president and creative director at TruePresence, an Internet marketing firm in Baltimore. Why is an FAQ page so important? Mostly, they’ll ensure you won’t have to answer the same questions over and over. "This will save time and money by letting your clients service themselves," Fisher says. "And if you don’t think your customers have questions, you’re wrong." Not sure what they want to know more about? You can always solicit questions on a feedback form, and if you see repeats, turn them into an FAQ for the page.
Where it goes: You already know the most common questions. Post them—and the answers—somewhere that’s easy to find. A lot of FAQ sections are linked to from the bottom of each page, along with the site’s privacy policy.
  1. A "gimme" page.  Want readers to sign up for your newsletter or regular special offers? You need what Drew Barton, president of Southern Web Group in Atlanta, calls the "gimme" page—a section where users can be persuaded to give up some of their personal information (such as their names and e-mail addresses) in exchange for … well, something else. "Information has a price," he says. "Web site visitors withhold information about themselves and can only be persuaded to give that information up in exchange for something of value. In many cases, this is an informative report, a keychain, a chance to win tickets to a ballgame, or a cash prize. I’ve even seen Web site owners raffle off a kayak in order to entice site visitors to sign up and divulge invaluable information."
Where it goes: "Gimme" pages should be linked to or even integrated into the page on which you ask readers to sign up for your free newsletter or your weekly specials. Yes, they need a reason.
  1. About Us.   Another often overlooked component: the About Us page. "The Internet offers businesses the opportunity to expand their market reach like never before," notes Thomas Harpointner, chief executive of AIS Media, a Web site design and hosting company based in Atlanta. "But just because you can do business with people you might never meet doesn’t mean they don’t want to know about who they’re doing business with." The most effective About Us pages are succinct and use no jargon. I’ve seen "about" pages that scroll on for several pages and read like a doctoral thesis. Most of the experts I talked with say that’s a big turn-off for potential customers.
Where it goes: Web users look for an About Us page link at the bottom of the home page or in the nav bar. Caution: Don’t get fancy and call it something else. Stick to "about" or "About Us"—that’s what they’re looking for.
  1. Confirmation.   A decent confirmation page that acknowledges an order and thanks the visitor for his or her business is essential—and often lacking, says Brian Drum, chief executive of Drum Associates, an executive search firm in New York. "If a customer is taking any action, a page that says 'Thank you for purchasing this product' or 'One of our representatives will contact you shortly' can really cut down on time answering customer phone calls," he says. That means less time spent answering queries such as "Did my subscription to your e-mail newsletter go through?" or "Did my order get processed?" The reason these pages are easy to overlook is that they aren’t static. They’re usually generated after a transaction takes place, and people don’t spend much time worrying about what happens after a transaction.
Where it goes: If there’s any kind of form on your site—e-mail us, subscribe to our newsletter, buy a product—you need a confirmation page to follow. It should reassure the customer that their information was received, thank them for it, and offer additional resources and contacts in case they have any other questions.

Already have these pages? Well done. But don’t get too comfortable. Just like the Web, these must-have pages can—and almost certainly will—change with time. The only way to make sure your site doesn’t become obsolete is to listen to your customers.

Search Engine Optimization – Title and Meta Tags


Now that you have a better idea how to pick your keywords for your website/blog pages it’s time to take a look at Meta tags and how you can use them to achieve higher rankings in search engines.
Traditionally, Title and Meta HTML tags – parts of your websites’ underlying source code– have been centerpieces of any successful search engine optimization campaign. In the early days of the search engines, a top ranking often could be secured by simply building the right Title and Meta tags for your website or blog. Today, well-optimized Title tags remain among the most important search engine optimization factors, while the value of Description and, particularly, Keywords Meta tags has declined. Still, because most small and/or niche search engines and Web directories continue to incorporate all three elements into their indexation and ranking procedures, you should add carefully-optimized Title and Meta tags to your website.
Now while keyword meta tags and description are overlooked today, due to the Google SEO rage of the past few years, I’m going to explain why ideally, all of your site’s main pages should be equipped with individual Title and Meta tags that reflect the products and services offered on each of the pages, and why you want to put in the description and still use those keyword meta tags. You see, doing so allows you to aim for a top search engine ranking for each individual page, based on the keywords and phrases specific to each page.
Let me break it down for you.

Friday, April 27, 2012

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Keyword Density for SEO


Keyword Density is the percentage of keywords compared to the rest of the text in your Web page. This metric is important because it gives you a tool to compare a Web page or site to that of similar pages with higher rankings. You can see how your use of keywords compares to theirs.
If you see a comparable keyword density between sites, chances are their higher ranking is due to inbound links and/or inherited page rank. If their keyword density is higher than yours, there’s a good chance you can increase your ranking with some careful keyword placement for organic search optimization.
Use one of the following free keyword cloud tools to check your site’s actual keyword density:


Visual Results
Use font size and bold-face to get a quick visual of what words have the highest density on the pages you search (without the actual statistics).

Keyword Cloud from webconfs
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

Keyword Density Checker from iwebtool
http://www.iwebtool.com/keyword_density


Statistical results
These tools give you actual number of occurrences, percentages of density and other key metrics by keyword.

Keyword Density Tool from SEO Tools™
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/

Keyword Density from Link Vendor
http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/keyword-density.html


Compare two sites
Use this tool to see how your site compares to another.

Keyword Density Analyzer from KeywordDensity.com
http://www.keyworddensity.com/
What do you do with the information once you have it?
Once you get a good understanding of what keywords are strongest on your site. You might be surprised that your organic content is pointing search engines in a direction you didn’t expect.
1.       Evaluate that and decide if you need to modify your copy and tags/titles, or if it’s something you should use to your advantage and build upon.
2.       Take a new look for competition. Try searches on the top keywords in the major search engines and see who shows up.

Take a look at their sites and see if they truly are competition. Review their offers to see how they compare to yours. Also be sure to read the search engine results set for their site compared to yours…whose is more compelling? How can you change your copy to better grab the potential customer’s attention if your results were to come up side-by-side
3.       Compare keyword density with your known top competitors. This might give you an idea who’s more likely to come out on top in the major search engines (of course, keyword density is only one factor in the mix – don’t forget that incoming links, overall relevancy, etc., also determine page rank).

Use the results to help prioritize the copy you need to tweak in the future, or maybe set your goals to build some new content pages that will make you a stronger competitor in those areas.
4.       Target online directories where you can submit your site and increase incoming links. To ensure you get approved for inclusion, have a blurb that clearly ties your site to that directory.
Until Next Time
Good Luck & Good Business