Archive for Building A Better Blog
How to Increase Google Page Rank
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Visit any internet marketing forum and you are bound to find at least a few discussions on Google page rank. But what exactly is Google Page Rank and what do you need to do to increase it?
First of all Page Rank is a value that Google assigns to a web page based on the importance of the page. It is determined by the number of incoming links to that web page and few other factors including the page rank of the page giving the link to you.
There has been discussion recently asked to the importance of page rank. However one thing to consider is this, if Google thinks page rank is important than page rank is important.
Remember Google gets over 65% of all the search traffic on the Internet every day. If you were to take 10 websites that were all optimized for the same keywords, typically you would find that the page with the highest page rank would rank higher in the search engine results than the other pages.
So what are the best ways to increase your Google Page Rank?
1. One of the first things you should do is aim to increase the numnber of backlinks that you have pointing to your website. This fact alone can increase your link popularity and ultimately increase your page rank. Combined with that is the fact that the more back links you have pointing back your website for more potential traffic you will get from it.
2. As well as increasing the quantity of links to your website you should also try to get your links on high quality web pages. This means getting your link on pages that are ranked as high or higher than yours. When you do this some of their page rank can be transferred to you which ultimately helps increase the page rank of your site.
There are lots of ways to increase your page rank, but the most common methods are posting in discussion forums that have a high page rank, article marketing, submitting your site to directories, commenting on blogs and distributing press releases.
You should also try to get some deep links in addition to the links to your home page. Deep linking means linking to internal pages on your website as opposed to always linking to your homepage.
There are many other methods that you can use to improve your page rank, but any time you spend on getting links is well spent!
It is worth noting that the page rank displayed on the Google toolbar is not up to date. Although Google is always internally updating the page rank of web pages, the toolbar page rank is only updated every few months.
You should also be aware that just because a web page has a low page rank it doesn’t mean that getting a link on that page isn’t worthwhile. The page rank could increase on the next toolbar update.
Finally, it is worth remembering that a good Google Page Rank on its own is not necessarily going to mean lots of traffic. You also want to ensure that you have chosen good keyword phrases and have optimized your website.
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Visit Suzanne Morrison’s Higher Search Engine Ranking website and download her SEO EBook for more SEO tips
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How to Increase Google Page Rank
Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds
Posted by: | CommentsYou probably don’t need to read the latest advice from the online marketing consultants to figure out the basic idea behind link building. Without links, your site won’t develop authority. Without authority, it won’t move up on the search engines. But even the most savvy online marketing consultant would have to admit that doing that is just not as easy as it sounds.
More Is Not Better In Link Building
Just going out and getting a bunch of links won’t necessarily help your site. You need quality links to get higher search rankings. But sometimes figuring out what makes one link better than another is tough. This is where you do need to keep up with what the online marketing consultants are recommending or you may just be wasting your time.
Targeted Anchor Text Is A Must
When you start pursuing links on sites, you need targeted anchor text. However, you don’t want to use the same text everywhere. Google will notice that in a bad way. You want to use two or three different phrases and the proper name of your website. If you can’t get anything but an image link, make sure the site owner puts your anchor text or the name of your site in the ALT tag of the image.
Pay Attention To Links In And Out
Google looks at the site where your link appears and decides how much benefit your site gets back. A site with a lot of inbound links passes more authority to your site. At the same time, being linked on a site full of low-quality, outbound links probably won’t help you much.
PageRank Isn’t Everything
Don’t be one of those site owners who sees nothing but PageRank. A site with high PageRank can still have low link value. This is especially true of sites that sell links. Steer clear of sites that use phrases like “sponsored by” or “paid for by.” Google may not let that site pass PageRank at all. Move on. They’re not worth your time.
Concentrate On Site Relevance
Let’s say your site is about red widgets. You get a link on a site about purple doohickeys. That link isn’t worth as much as one on a site about red widget management. Make sure you’re pursuing links in relevant places and look at how those places are optimized. If a site owner gives you a choice of having a link on a page titled “About Us” or one with the title “About Red Widgets,” which one do you choose? The link on the optimized page, “About Red Widgets,” has more value.
An Online Marketing Consultant Checks What’s Not Obvious
Take your cue from the pros and check sites in ways that aren’t obvious. For instance, in any search engine, you can type in “cache:” followed by a site url and find out if the site has been indexed and when it was last crawled. But what do those dates mean?
Chances are good that if the site hasn’t been crawled in 30-45 days, it’s not a good place for a link. But some domains have more value than others. For example, links from .edu domains are better than from a .com, but .info is worth less. All these factors should be weighed in judging a site’s worth in your link building efforts.
Does Social Networking Matter?
We’ve all seen the little link bars under blog posts and in forums asking people to Digg or Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. Do you need to try to get links in places where social networking can happen? Yes. Alone those links may not have a lot of value, but Google is increasingly looking at the “active Web” in determining site authority.
It’s time consuming, but participating in forums and social sites and getting blog owners to run your articles with your linked anchor text included can be worth your time. But remember, relevance is a basic rule in online marketing consulting.
Are You Getting Clean Links?
When you get a link on a site, do you go look at the page’s source code? Is there anything extra in the “href” tag on the link? Is the site using redirect code? Is there a “nofollow” in the site’s meta data? If there is, the link is useless to you. It won’t pass any authority to your site because that code tells the search engines not to follow the link. Make sure you’re getting clean links.
When you’re on a tight budget and trying to develop your site and get higher search rankings, it can be a tough decision to work online marketing consulting into your thinking. The Web used to be pretty much a do-it-yourself place. That all started to change in 2004 when people began talking about “Web 2.0.”
It’s harder than ever to judge quality link building in the new world of Web applications and social networking. You can do it, but try to stay up to speed on what the online marketing consultants are recommending as good strategies. The Web is changing all the time. Good link building takes time and effort; you don’t want to waste those any more than you want to waste money during hard times.
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Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consultants expert offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall.
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Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds
Use SEO Strategies to Increase Web Traffic
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Every new technology adopted widely by society brings about a number of new opportunities. The movable type printing press created affordable print information, the telephone and radio created the concept of instantaneous communication over great distances. Today, the Internet has unified both of these concepts into the information explosion that is the digital age.
Consider this article alone – a mere forty years ago printing even fifty copies of each page would cost either a chunk of change or at least a suspicious look from the boss as you hovered over the office copier. Now the information can be sent to thousands of people within the time it takes to brew a good cup of tea.
Of course with every technology comes a system to make the best marketing use of that advancement. The radio gave rise to the modern commercial advertisement, which was refined by the television and still persists on the Web. The telephone gave us telemarketers and the first concept of communication networking. For making the most of the Internet, the strategy of the day is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
What is SEO, again?
In short, SEO is the presentation of a webpage in such a way that it consistently ranks highly in particular search engine results. While fads and sensations can quickly boom online from “word of mouth,” they don’t produce the same reliable success as a balanced, systematic approach.
Very few businesses, after all, want one rush of attention that leads to a website crash, followed by an equally quick slide into the various forgotten graveyards of the web. Therefore, SEO uses a combination of elements to make the site increasingly relevant to the various searches that Internet users perform, to bring it up again and again among the best results.
Key SEO Strategies
1. Set goals.
Identify what you want your SEO campaign to accomplish. While any SEO-conscious writing and page design can contribute to a site’s search engine rankings, an unfocused effort will simply waste time and money. After all, a business promoting athletic clothing and footwear may not benefit too much from showing up in searches for evening wear. Is your goal simply to increase your site’s visitor traffic? Do you want to generate more sales of a product? Is it part of an effort to promote your digital brand? Each of these goals benefits from different aspects of SEO technique.
2. Link up.
Link building is one of the cornerstones of any SEO effort. Many search engines are spider-based, meaning they use automated processes to collect and categorize information on various websites. When a large number of websites provide links back to your business, or when a particularly high-traffic site does so, the spiders take notice of it and increase the relevance of that link in searches related to those sites.
3. Get the keys.
Keyword writing is consistently stressed as a requirement when websites look for content writers. Keywords are just that, words and phrases chosen for their popularity and relevance to key searches.
There are dozens of theories about keyword writing. In the earlier days of SEO writing, it wasn’t uncommon to see pages that were nothing but long strings of repeated variations on a few keywords. This has evolved into more organic writing that fits in keywords with the article as a whole.
Whichever strategy is chosen, care must be taken to avoid the temptation to abuse keyword searches. Yes, a proper keyword density will bring up your search rankings over time. However, Google can and does ban pages from its index when they determine it to be a keyword-abusing effort. So consider your keyword choices carefully, and seamlessly integrate them into your entire strategy.
4. Be on the right page.
One aspect occasionally neglected in SEO is the architecture and design of the webpage itself. Search engines and their ranking systems (be they spider or human based) are growing more sophisticated all the time, and look at many different factors in their decisions. A site that buries its keyword-rich articles on interior pages behind dozens of subsidiary links will not perform as well as one with strategic keyword-oriented material right on the front page. Have an SEO-conscious designer look over your page, as well as your articles.
Remember that every business is a multi-faceted whole. Many failures occur when people attempt to compartmentalize too much. You can’t consider SEO as some sort of ‘event’ that you do every so often, just as a business can’t put off routine maintenance of their equipment and expect it to function properly. Integrate your efforts into the entire process, and give them the same focus as any other effort in the business, and they will return their investment much more reliably, quickly, and ideally.
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Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Use SEO Strategies to Increase Web Traffic
How to Get More Blog Traffic
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How to get more blog traffic is the question of the hour. The number of websites in cyberspace has increased exponentially since the advent of the blog. Blogging itself is so easy, even many children host their own mini-sites! We’re talking more than a billions sites pushing and shoving for space. So how do you stand out in the crowd and actually attract a crowd?
First, determine the purpose for your blog and stick with it 100%. If you’re writing about homeschooling, then don’t deviate from the program and throw in your opinion about the economy or the latest Hollywood or political scandal. Keep your posts targeted to your niche, and you’ll attract folks who want to search your site for tips, tricks, ideas, and to see what you’re up to.
Secondly, write with all the personality you can muster. Don’t be boring. If you absolutely go brain dead one day and can’t think of one thing to post, find an inspirational YouTube video to share. Give folks a reason to come to your blog. Think of your visitors as real folks who might come to your home. Shine for them. Don’t allow them to snooze on your site!
Thirdly, post regularly. Put it on your calendar. Every Monday and Thursday, or once a week – whatever is best for you. But post consistently. It’s that discipline and consistency that will draw folks in over the long haul and keep them coming back.
Fourthly, consider how to get more blog traffic with sites like Twitter. Sign up for an account that’s only for your niche. Start off following others and you will gradually amass a following of people. The following isn’t good for anything though, unless you’re actually posting some good info. If you’re serious about getting traffic from Twitter, then log in to your account daily and make at least one helpful post. Never post wasteful information like “going beddy-bye”. Think in terms of giving, serving, being of assistance. That’s what will attract a crowd from the get-go.
Finally, link up your posts with your social networking sites like Facebook. You can set up your blog so that when you post, a notice goes out to your Facebook friends. I will often visit blogs of my friends, just to see what they’re up to. Many people, in an effort to gain more traffic, think of amassing thousands of visitors right off the bat and overlook the eager folks right in their own backyards!
Everyone wants to know how to get more blog traffic, but few actually take the time to put forth the effort to make it happen. You don’t need to invest a penny for quality traffic, but you do need to keep your blog hospitable and targeted. Reach out to the folks you already know and encourage them to share your posts on Facebook. You’ll find your traffic stats increasing within a few weeks!
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Lisa Rae Preston, creator of best-selling software Instant Niche Emails, helps marketers develop trusting, profitable relationships with online clients. Get your free report, Insider Secrets to Follow-Up Fortunes at http://www.instantnicheemails.com
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5 Things Bloggers Shouldn’t Do
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There are a lot of articles and blog posts on the web that will present a list of things you should do in order to run a successful blog, this is not one of those articles. I want to discuss some of the things you shouldn’t do, opinions may differ but most of these you will likely agree with.
1. Don’t call yourself, “An Authority” or, “Expert” on your blog’s subject.
If you run a great blog and seem to have a great answer for everything, then yes, you are likely an expert or authority; but the minute that you announce to your readers that you are, you become a jerk instead. Think about it, the people who we admire the most are those that are modest and in denial about their own talents, whether they fake the denial or not, it is the cool thing to do. Same thing goes for heroes right? When was the last time some guy pulled a kid from a burning building, and when the reporter calls him a hero he says, “Yup, absolutely, I am incredible, aren’t I?” Never, that’s when. Anyone in that position knows that they have to say, “Hero? Nah, I was just doing what anyone else would do, I ain’t no hero.” Otherwise, he would be a jerk.
2. Don’t argue with your readers.
It doesn’t matter if he is the biggest idiot in the world, and you are right as rain; you are the only one with something to lose: your readers. If you think that your content is so good that you can say whatever you want to whoever you want, then people will go out of their way to ignore your blog and tell all of their friends to do so also. Treat everyone with the same respect that you would want, even if they are wrong, it will make you look like the better of the two.
3. Don’t fail to remember your theme.
This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are so many blogs that ramble on and never recover. Please do not get the wrong idea here. If you write a blog about playing baseball, then each and every one of your posts do not have to be about baseball, but if the last twelve posts are about your mother-in-law’s divorce struggle, then you seem to have lost direction. Yes, people want to understand that you are a real person, with real problems, but unless your blog is specifically about those problems, then stick to the subject.
4. Don’t alienate the “majority.”
Now this is a big one I see continually. Please don’t think that just because two or four people want your blog to go a particular route, that ALL of your readers want it to go that way. Keep in mind, a successful blog is about pleasing the majority of your readers. Just because you have a few people who LOVE a particular type of content, it doesn’t mean that all of them do. Remember, you likely have many readers whom you will never hear from on your comments, but are extremely in to your blog. So how are you supposed to know which direction they want you to follow? Well, try using the poll feature in Blogger or Wordpress, and ask your readership what they like best; you may be surprised. Also, keep a mailing list that is up to date, and ask your members for their view; most people jump at the chance to offer their voice in a matter that concerns them. Plus, it will make you look great that you are asking for their input.
5. Please do not be a rolling billboard.
Look, everybody understands that advertising is what pays the bills for a full-time blogger, but when you jam ad copy down their throat at every single turn, it gets annoying. Take care of the most vital thing, the content, and the rest will take care of itself. Yes, ads are significant, and you should optimize your ads and put a ton of work into it; just don’t be overbearing with them. They are there, people see them, and if they are interested, they will click.
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James Junior – When I started my first blog years ago, there was no blueprint to follow or system in place that told me exactly what to do and what not to do. Today, bloggers are lucky that there are guys like Rob Benwell around to teach bloggers his award winning blogging system. If you want to become wealthy through blogging, then this system is the way you do it. Click here to read more about it.
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5 Things Bloggers Shouldn’t Do
2010 Resolution — Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up
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We all make New Year’s resolutions – some are personal, some are business or professional in nature. Even if we don’t actually make New Year’s resolutions, we engage in formal and informal “planning” as we look ahead to the new year.
If you operate a website, you’re probably aware that your website operations are now highly regulated. And the pace of legal regulations continues to accelerate.
Which means that you face an increasing risk of legal liability.
So, it’s a good idea to give your website a legal check-up and to update your site before it’s too late.
General Issue Checklist
The general checklist below covers issues that are not new issues which arose in 2009. These issues have been around for a while, but some may be new to you, particularly if your website or marketing activities changed recently.
• Copyright Notice. These are the basic elements of a copyright notice: the word “copyright” or copyright symbol (c in a circle) followed by the year of first publication followed by the name of the copyright owner followed by “All rights reserved worldwide.” Here’s an example taken from my digicontracts.com website: Copyright 1996-2010 Digital Contracts, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.
• Blogs. If you’ve recently added a blog to your site, or if your site is a blog site, it’s possible that a visitor could post infringing materials (e.g. text, video links, images). Under the strict principles of copyright law, you’d be a copyright infringer even if you were unaware of the posting. Your liability could be significant. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a “safe harbor” from liability provided you publish a DMCA notice and register with the Copyright Office.
• Collection, Use and Sharing of Personal Information. Your marketing activities determine the categories of personal information you collect, how you use it, and how you share it. As you evolve your marketing practices over time, it’s easy to forget that your Privacy Policy should reflect your actual practices regarding personal information. This is one area in which most online marketers are the most vulnerable to legal liability. So, review carefully your present and anticipated future marketing activities that include personal information and update your Privacy Policy accordingly.
• Data Security. Technology and security practices are in a continual state of evolution. You’re required to implement and maintain “reasonable and appropriate” data security measures, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). If your site does not actually implement up-to-date measures, you should update them immediately.
• Service Providers. Do your outsourced service providers – hosting, SEO, website development, etc. – have access to the internals of your website server and your databases that archive personal information? If so, according to the FTC, you need to enter into simple confidentiality agreements with these service providers.
• Human Intervention in Online Contracting. Two 2008 cases highlighted the fact that human intervention in online contracting may be a recipe for creating unenforceable agreements. The recipe for enforceable online agreements is well settled, but if you add intervention by your employees into the acceptance process, your online agreement may end up becoming unenforceable.
Emerging Issue Checklist
The emerging issue checklist below covers issues that were new in 2009 or experienced relatively significant new developments in 2009.
• Keyword-Triggered Ads. The issue is familiar: Whether pay-per-click advertisers should be permitted to use keywords that are also competitor’s trademarks for purposes of triggering the advertisers’ ads on a search results page. This issue continued to be hotly litigated in 2009 without ultimate resolution due to a split among various Circuit Courts of Appeals. However, a 2nd Circuit ruling in 2009 narrowed the split in favor of trademark owners. Congress may resolve the split with specific legislation in 2010.
• Behavioral Ads. Behavioral ads are highly relevant to consumers because they are based on consumers’ online behavior, including data tracked regarding sites visited, length of visits, content read, and searches made. In February 2009, the FTC issued a staff report entitled “Self-Regulatory Principles For Online Behavioral Advertising”. This report set out certain principles for purposes of protecting consumer privacy. Later, Google issued a notice that “interest-based” advertising utilized in its AdSense program required a modification to the Privacy Policies of all participants in the AdSense program. Look for congressional action on behavioral advertising in 2010.
• Red Flag Identity Theft Policy. 2009 saw deadlines for establishing a Red Flag Identity Theft Policy come and go. Extensions of the deadline were ordered by the FTC due to confusion over the scope of the regulations and who is covered. The current deadline is June 1, 2010. In simple terms, if your registered users make periodic payments payable as monthly or quarterly installments, or if you extend credit so that payment is made after receipt of the product or service, you’re covered by the regulations, and you should implement a policy.
• False Advertising. In July 2009, the Attorney General for New York reached a settlement with a cosmetic surgery company over the company’s fake positive consumer reviews on the Web. The company ordered its employees to pose as customers and to write flattering reviews. The Company agreed to pay $300,000 in penalties.
• FTC Guides. Concerned over false advertising on the Web (including the type of behavior discussed in the False Advertising point above), the FTC issued new Guides explaining how they will interpret existing law regarding endorsements and testimonials used in online advertising. if you recruit affiliates, resellers, or bloggers to promote your offering, you’d be classified as an “Advertiser” under the Guides, and if you’re recruited as an affiliate, reseller, or blogger to pitch the products of others, you’d be classified as an “Endorser” under the Guides. In simple terms, Advertisers are required to provide guidance and training to their Endorsers regarding the Guides or face liability. Endorsers are required to disclose material connections with their sponsoring Advertisers including receipt of compensation of any kind. Drafting and posting a Disclosure Policy is the key to compliance for Endorsers in order to avoid a fine of up to $11,000.
What to do if You’re Developing a New Website
If you’re developing a new website (or heaven forbid, if you have an existing website that has yet to incorporate website compliance documents), your website should incorporate some combination of the following documents:
• FTC Guides Disclosure Policy
• Legal Page
• Terms of Use
• DMCA Registration Form
• Privacy Policy
• Service Provider Privacy-Security Agreement
• Customer Agreement (click-wrapped SaaS, Membership, Subscription, Account Agreement)
• Red Flag Identity Theft Policy
Conclusion
The checklists in this article are not exhaustive; however, they should be a good start to a comprehensive legal check-up for your website as you move into 2010.
It’s not the “wild, wild west” atmosphere on the Web anymore. Legal compliance is essential if you want to avoid liability in a highly regulated environment.
This article is provided for educational and informative purposes only. This information does not constitute legal advice, and should not be construed as such.
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Leading Internet, IP and software lawyer Chip Cooper has automated the process of drafting website legal compliance documents with his MyLegalFirewall website documents drafting service. Use his free online tool Website Documents Determinator to quickly determine which documents your website really needs. And grab your 3 complimentary Special Reports.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
2010 Resolution — Give Your Website a Legal Check-Up
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Getting a Web Presence – Six Reasons to Go Cyber
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Saying that the Web is complicated is like saying that football is aggressive. Web trends come and go, with success stories and disasters wrestling for attention in the public eye. Sometimes people get it, and you have an amazing case like the advent of Twitter. Others miss the point spectacularly, such as CNN’s short-lived series where newscasters read excerpts from blogs.
With so much coming so quickly, it’s no surprise that some people are hesitant to expand their business into the online marketplace. It’s intimidating, and the penalties for failure can be harsh. However, here are six good reasons that every business can and should establish a Web presence.
#1 – Common Reference
Today, the Web is an integral part of most people’s lives. It’s not surprising that fewer and fewer people each year go to the newspaper or television for information and entertainment. News travels faster on the Web, and the sheer volume of entertainment available via sites like YouTube, Netflix, College Humor and others all mean less time in front of the television, and more time surfing the Web.
This is a warning and an opportunity. Traditional venues do still have a place simply through inertia and ubiquity, but they also are giving ground to the rising force of the Web. Getting a presence online allows you to keep pace with these growing trends; as people grow ever more dependent on the Web as a means of information and conducting business, it is the Web-oriented enterprise that likely will have its customer base grow, rather than shrink.
#2 – Innovation
The Web is so unrestrained that there are all manner of ways people can develop their creative impulses and come up with the next world-winning idea.
In that spirit, it’s healthy for any business to expose itself to innovation and competition. The increased tide of information may seem overwhelming, but managed carefully and studied diligently it can provide a wealth of ideas that can help your business grow. Any organization that cuts itself off from valuable information is just asking to be bypassed.
#3 – Communication
No other system of communication has been so fundamentally universal as the Web. People crave communication and contact, and the Web has affirmed this through every social multimedia network that has evolved and thrived. This is much more than a simple case of friends catching up on the latest gossip; it is a powerful tool that can keep your business ahead of the game.
The Web is bursting with information. Many experts use the Web to publish materials they don’t want to take the time to ram through slower, more traditional channels, because they’re eager to share. If you have an issue for your business, the Web has an expert ready to discuss it. Getting a Web presence allows these experts to see what you have to offer, and to help you refine it, be it through a forum discussion or a friendly email.
#4 – Efficiency of Exposure
This is where the Web truly shines, as demonstrated by the success of bookselling giant Amazon. Advertising takes time and money, so you want to put your advertisements where the greatest number can see them for the smallest cost. So rather than have many scattered retail bookstores, Amazon has one centralized system that everyone can go to, almost anywhere in the world.
These benefits extend beyond the mail-order mindset, as well. Having a well-designed, effective website for your store can get people interested. Rather than take a gamble on an unknown restaurant, for example, consumers can come to its site and see exactly what’s on the menu, for what prices, and even reserve a table with a convenient online form. As a result, the restaurant fills up tables, and its competition misses out.
#5 – Inexpensive Investment
Very few businesses have to incur a massive expense when setting up their initial Web presence. The cases in which you’d need your own server, for example, are vanishingly rare. Bandwidth and hosting space can be acquired for very reasonable rates, with many hosts offering trial periods and special business discounts. For the many benefits a Web presence can offer, the investment is hardly worth mentioning-but the ROI can be staggering.
#6 – A Case in Point
This is a bit of a ‘meta’ reference, meaning it requires a little thinking outside the usual box. But consider for a moment just where you’re reading this article. Consider what probably brought you to this website. Is it a coincidence that an article about establishing a Web presence can be found on the Web? A bit of lighthearted irony, but it does get you thinking a little, doesn’t it?
People are using the Web, and are going to continue using it. Major legislative battles are being fought over just how the Web should be allowed to function, but the Web most likely is going to be the defining arena of all business for the next century and beyond. Do your business the best service you can, and consider not if you should get a Web presence, but what form is the most appropriate to begin with.
About The Author:
Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. Go to http://www.Brandsplat.com/ or visit our blog at: http://www.brandsplatblog.com/
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Getting a Web Presence – Six Reasons to Go Cyber
Top 5 Steps to Website Marketing
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Why market your site
This is an era of products galore. Each product and producer is trying to outdo the other. Marketing costs are turning out to be more than production costs as marketing has an ability to take products and services to a new high, or bite the dust. Without marketing, a product is as good as non-existing. At the same time, clients and consumers do not have enough time to go around looking for everything that is offered. Clients want it all on their fingertips. Keeping this in mind, internet or online marketing has quickly come to the rescue. It bridges the gap between your service or product and client or consumer.
Having your own website has become an important marketing tool. Almost all products and services have their own presence on the internet in the form of a website. However, there are numerous websites trying to affect the decisions of clients. So, website marketing has become an important and integral part of every business’s marketing strategy. Let’s understand the five most important steps to website marketing.
Understand client requirements
Understanding what your clients are looking for is the key to effective website marketing. Amidst a plethora of websites on the same subject, a client will most likely stick to the sites that are focused on her unique requirements and give her exactly what she’s looking for; e.g. if a client is looking for a website on alternative medicine; the website must focus solely on the various alternative medicines and not generalize on all types.
Get the right design and content
The rightly designed website will catch and hold more eyeballs. Your design should not only have right aesthetic appeal but also facilitate easy navigation. To many flashes, to bright colors running at the same time, plus disturbing pop-ups are sure fire turn offs. Clusters of information placed on the homepage may dumbfound the visitor. At the same time, too little info will dampen her. Your site should strike the right balance of information and placement.
Once you’re done with the designing part of your website, comes another important part, content. Your content should always be current, crisp and clear. It should convey exact information without being verbose. It should be logical, smooth, and flowing. The language should be set keeping the client in mind. The quality of your content should reflect a professional attitude.
Make it user friendly
Once on your website, the client should get important information like variety of products, possibly with their images, price ranges and product availability. Your website should facilitate ordering products online with great ease. It should also give requisite information like contact numbers of the home office or representatives, firm’s location, previous track record and after the sale service.
As customer choices and preferences are always distinct and all of them cannot be addressed on the site; provide for direct contact with your customer service department in order to answer their queries. In case of an email, a prompt reply must be assured.
Blow your trumpet
Once you are done with your website, it is high time to get on the rooftop and tell people that you’ve arrived! What’s the use of a wonderfully designed, beautiful looking site that few know about or catches hardly any eyeballs? Avail other mediums of advertising viz. seminars, articles, television, newspapers,ect… to widen your client base and reach every possible client. Get press releases distributed. A good advertising campaign is essential to attract initial traffic to your site.
Utilize the internet to its fullest. Begin blogging about your site and products/services. Forward links to as many other websites as possible. Get links on social networking websites. In simple terms, talk, talk and talk more about your site.
Action backup
The types of services and products that you offer on your website must be put into action by an efficient team. Your client must feel she is getting a good value for her money, and also her time spent. This will assist to establish a reputation for your business and create your brand image. Website marketing will only be effective if and when your promises are fulfilled in reality.
And yes! Do not rest on your laurels. Continue updating your website with any new developments and also, continue to support it with on going action.
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Before you begin your first steps in website marketing and dive head first into a nightmare of potential failure, you might want to look into what it’s actually going to take to be successful in marketing your own website. Visit James Trent’s website now and learn the key steps to unlimited success; http://thesevenfigurepro.com
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Top 5 Steps to Website Marketing
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Monetizing Social Media Is About Targeting First, Everything Else Second
Posted by: | CommentsAbout 60 days ago, my team was working on an email program with an online retailer focused on expanding participation in their loyalty program. Unlike previous programs, the call to action of this email was not to “click a link” and join the loyalty program; rather; it was to share the experience of the loyalty program with their friends and encourage them to join as well.
This was no simple share-to-social initiative. The retailer created several incentives to motivate sharing behavior. Next, they tracked the number of invitations each customer sent to their friends and attributed those that actually “subscribed” to the loyalty program back to the initial inviter.
The results far surpassed previous email campaigns; in fact, the social program described above generated three times the number of subscribers than the previously launched un-socialized programs. Major results included:
- 1 new member for every 1.8 peer-to-peer invitations
- 10% of new members went on to purchase
- 4.3 emails sent, on average, by each influencer
While the program clearly extended reach and subscriptions to the loyalty program, the team believed there was an opportunity for optimization - and implemented two minor yet critical tweaks, both focused on enhanced targeting of the socialized campaign.
The company looked at their loyalty program members and created a segment based on engagement metrics: for example, how long a subscriber was part of the loyalty program. Targeting based on engagement is not a new concept to email marketers. Transactional email programs garner a higher response rate than broadcast campaigns do, because they target the customer at the point of maximum engagement: during a purchase cycle or some other lifecycle activity.
In addition to developing targets based on engagement, the company did more analysis to identify “Super Influencers” within their recipient lists. Super Influencers in this case are customers who already have a defined Web presence within a specific vertical.
In the retail space, there are a number of “Discount Bloggers.” These bloggers aggregate special offers on blogs or personal Websites. These customers can have a huge impact on campaign performance, since they already have a following relevant to a specific space with people looking for new content or the next great deal. The identified “Super Influencers” were added to the segment and the optimized campaign was ready to go.
The email program was launched to the new, targeted segment with the same offer and creative. The result? The targeting impact was off the charts.
- 420% Increase in loyalty member subscriptions from the initial campaign
- 326% Increase in purchase conversions from the initial campaign
- Thousands of additional subscribers and hundreds of new purchases
The lesson is a simple one: Do not abandon the best practices you have grown to rely on when developing programs in the social space. The same email strategies you have been applying for years need to be relied upon as you activate new channels.
At the same time, it is critical to understand that not all customers are created equal on the social Web. There is a big difference in extended reach between me posting an offer on my Facebook page and a serious blogger embedding the offer for their followers to take action on.
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Ryan Deutsch is vice president, strategic services & market development, for StrongMail Systems, a leading provider of online marketing solutions for email and social media.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Monetizing Social Media Is About Targeting First, Everything Else Second
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6 Useful Wordpress Plugins to Prevent Spam
Posted by: | Comments6 Useful Wordpress Plugins to Prevent Spam
from SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources by Stacey Zimmerman
In starting your wordpress, there’s a great possibility to receive spams. Receiving comment spam when first starting a blog can gain such traffic that could be alarming for beginners. For this reasons we don’t have the access to prevent spammers to read our blogs. In just a minute your blog can be spammed by thousands of comments. This article introduces 6 proven useful plugins that is available in wordpress to help you fight and eradicate spam.
yaCAPTCHA
It is a CAPTCHA plugin designed for WordPress, it helps you block comment spam from automated bots. So if you post comments, users have to write down the characters of an image provided. It is planned for automated programs to find it hard figuring out those characters, a great help in preventing comment spam.
These are the requirements to have yaCAPTCHA in your computers: WordPress 1.5 or above, PHP 4.0.6 or above with GD2 library support, Theme must support the ‘comment_form’ action.
Trackback Spam Resources
A very simple b ut effective test on all trackbacks in order to stop spam. The TrackBack Validator, a plugin for WordPress that are sent by people commenting on your weblog that go along by a URL that points to that commentary. Spam TrackBacks are accompanied by a URL that points to a pay-per-click affiliate website or other irrelevant material. The Validator exploits this key difference:
1. When a TrackBack is received, the plugin retrieves the Web page located at the URL included in the TrackBack.
2. If the page contains a link to your weblog, the TrackBack is approved.
3. If the page does not link to your weblog, the TrackBack is flagged as spam and rejected.
Because TrackBack spammers do not set up custom Web pages linking to the weblogs they attack, this simple test will quickly reveal illegitimate Trackbacks.
WP-SpamFree and Trackback Validator
A very powerful anti plugin for WordPress that eradicates comment spam, have a good performance in eliminating trackback and pingback spam. It works invisibly without CAPTCHA’s, or other inconvenience to site visitors. The plugin includes spam-free contact form feature as well.
Features
1. It’s completely free for both commercial and personal use.
2. The beauty of this plugin is the methods of blocking spam. It takes a different approach than most and stops spam at the door.
3. Powerful trackback and pingback spam protection.
4. It works like a firewall to ensure that your commenters are in fact, human. Virtually eliminates comment spam from bots.
5. It has a counter on your dashboard to keep track of all the spam it’s blocking. The numbers will show how effective this plugin is.
6. Includes drop-in spam-free contact form. Easy to use ? no configuration necessary.
7. No false positives, which leads to fewer frustrated readers, and less work for you.
8. You won’t have to waste valuable time sifting through a spam queue anymore, because there won’t be much there, if anything.
9. Easy to install ? truly plug and play. Just upload and activate.
10. The code has an extremely low bandwidth overhead and won’t slow down your blog (very light database access), unlike some other anti-spam plugins.
11. Completely compatible with all cache plugins, including WP Cache and WP Super Cache. Not all anti-spam plugins can say that.
12. Display your blocked spam stats on your blog.
13. Helps keep your database slimmer and more efficient.
14. Works in WordPress MU as well.
Invisible Defender
wpsecurity1 This plugin specializes in protecting registration, login and comment forms from spambots by addin g two extra fields hidden by CSS. This approach gave me 100% anti-spam protection on one of my sites.
The idea behind this plugin is simple: SPAMBOTs either fill every form field they find (generic spambots) or fill WordPress-specific fields only (spambots which will recognise WP or are targeting WP only). Therefore it is sufficient to add two extra text fields to form (one empty and one with predefined value), and check their values after the form is submitted. 1st field (empty one) will be filled by generic spambots, and 2nd one will not be filled by spambots targeting WP only. With these two simple checks probably all spambots can be easily detected, so WP can return error “403 Forbidden” for them.
These two extra fields are hidden with CSS rule, so they will not be visible for most users. Only users with text-based browsers (and very old ones which not support CSS) will see them. Invisible Defender also shows number of blocked spammers in Dashboard, so you can see that it really works.
Akismet
Akismet is quite possibly the most important and useful plugin you will ever install. It has been developed by the actual team behind Wordpress, if that is not enough of a seal of of approval and a guarantee, I don’t know what is. In a nutshell, Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blog’s “Comments” admin screen.
Requires WP2.0 or higher and is compatible up to WP 2.8.4.
Maximum Security for Wordpress
Maximum Security for Wordpress is packed with strong protection that makes your site extremely secure. It guards against intrusion; tracks a plethora of events; blocks malicious content that could harm your readers and your search engine ranking; and includes a strong Web application firewall along with a full blown intrusion prevention system, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. No other security plugin for Wordpress comes anywhere close to matching the powerful features of this tool.
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Stace Zimmerman is an Internet Marketer who owns & maintains many websites online. Please visit this site for wordpress themes and other blogging information. He also runs a hoodia information site.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
6 Useful Wordpress Plugins to Prevent Spam
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