It has been about about two weeks since my last SEO journal entry. I continue to see significant progress on Alexa.
| Date | Alexa | Inlinks | Pages | PageRank |
| 12 Jan 08 | 5,475,095 | 1 | 3 | ~ |
| 17 Jan 08 | 2,007,314 | 1 | 15 | ~ |
| 31 Jan 08 | 1,608,671 | 3 | 16 | ~ |
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There are two ways you can try and build something that flies.
One way is to start putting things together without much thought, strap a huge rocket onto the brick you end up with, and watch it overshoot the runway as it burns up huge amounts of fuel in vain. The other way is to plan well, design better and build your airplane so that it actually takes off by efficiently converting a little energy into a lot of lift.
The same principle goes when it comes to building a website for your next business venture. It is easy to fall into the trap of coming up with a website that looks pretty but is not designed to be easy to market on the Internet. All you are left with is a good-looking brick that needs an expensive Internet marketing rocket to maybe get off the ground, let alone stay airborne.
If your website is to soar like a kite, there are a few things you are going to have to keep in mind in the web design stage, so you build an efficient website right from the very beginning.
If you want your clients to find your website when they search, you need to have the right keywords repeated enough within the text of your web pages. Find a web designer who knows how to properly research what search terms people would use to find your business, and use these keywords in your website’s copy. A good SEO copywriter should be able to weave in your keywords often enough into the text, and at the same time make your web copy compelling, interesting to read and efficient at selling your business.
What are you going to call your website? If you have a big and popular brand, it makes perfect sense to use your brand name as your domain name. On the other hand, if you are just starting out, you would do well to include your main keywords in your domain name, since this will give your website a considerable search ranking boost for those keywords. So, maybe you should put your vanity aside and opt for something like www.seattlepetminder.com instead of say www.robertwarrington.com. - at least until you’re famous!
Similarly, you should use relevant keywords that people will search for in the individual URLs (web addresses) of your web pages. For example, go for mybookstore.com/healthy-recipe-books/ as the address for a sub page of your website over the obscure and meaningless mybookstore.com/category21c/. As a little experiment, take a look the next time you search on Google and notice how many of the top-ranking websites in your search results have one or more of your search terms in their URL.
Google and the other search engines can be very picky when it comes to which parts of your website they actually index. Flash, for example, is great if used carefully to enhance your website’s graphics, but search engines cannot see any text you have inside the Flash parts of your website and will not index it.
Your headlines and body copy should be in normal HTML text format, with the appropriate header tags that the search engines recognize and value. Moreover, your headlines and the title of your web pages should use your keywords as often as possible. Then there are keyword tags, sitemaps, good linking… The list goes on. There is much more than meets the eye to designing a good search-engine-friendly website and this is where relying on a good web designer to guide you as to what you should and shouldn’t do really pays off.
Thinking of your website as a static brochure is missing the point entirely. The old marketing adage that it is cheaper to keep a client than to attract a new one holds true for website visitors too. Plan and design your website so that you can easily update it with new and interesting content that will encourage your potential clients to return again and again. (Starting a blog or using a content management system are two ways of achieving this).
Besides, as you gradually add relevant content to your website over weeks, months and years, you build up a very valuable collection of information related to your business. The search engines simply love this and also love to see that your website is regularly updated, and they will most likely reward you for your effort with better and better rankings as time goes by.
Everyone hates getting e-mail spam. Not only is sending it illegal, but it can potentially ruin your business’s reputation too. On the other hand, you should actively build an opt-in mailing list of people who are interested in what you have to offer and want to be informed when there is something new and interesting on your website.
Make sure your e-mail sign-up form is prominently displayed, and consider giving your visitors an extra incentive to join – maybe a free e-book or access to a regular newsletter with insider information. Do not abuse your mailing list, but use it wisely to provide valuable information (and, yes, a measured dose of self-promotion) to your existing and potential clients. Once again, it is much easier to get people to return than to attract new visitors from scratch.
Internet marketing is an ongoing process that should begin before your website even exists. If you take the time and invest the effort to build good Internet marketing principles into your website from the beginning, it will be so much easier to make it take off and to keep it flying high among the clouds of cyberspace in the long term too.
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95% of all Internet businesses fail sooner or later for many reasons but the main one may be a lack of site visitors or traffic. The simple law of averages means that you should be able to sell to a percentage of the people coming to your website. That said if no one knows you exist, how are they going to buy from you?
Effective Internet Marketing is essential for any website business and it can be a complex, statistical nightmare if you let it. This is where your offline promotional instincts, if they existed, can be quite helpful. You need to promote yourself online just as you would in a brick and mortar business to be successful.
P.T. Barnum would have loved the Internet. Having the nerve and chutzpah to promote online in unique ways, incorporating proven marketing methods with creative instinctual promotion can turn you into a genius overnight. Thinking outside the box is an overused cliché but it makes sense on the Internet because of the abundant opportunities to be creative with advertising and promotion.
Joint ventures with other like minded non- competitive Webpreneurs sharing profits earned. Find someone with a need for your service or products and make a deal to share THEIR traffic through great exposure on their website.
Depending on what you are marketing there are inexpensive, reputable paid traffic options available that will draw targeted traffic to your website. The objective here is branding your business and retaining visitors rather than actually selling first time traffic prospects. Remember that you want to increase your overall exposure to visitors and keep them coming back; allow the law of averages to work for you.
While you are shotgun marketing to build a retained visitor base you can be focusing on other forms of rifled marketing that will earn you revenue to pay the bills comfortable knowing that the law of averages will make you wealthy over time.
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Buying a website is a lot like buying a car. Once you decide on the make and model you start adding options and the before you know it your cost has exceeded your budget. This is referred to as feature creep in the website design world and happens to even the most disciplined business person if they aren’t careful.
A little knowledge can be dangerous to your bank account when you have a website. The more you learn about the Internet and all the cool things people are doing online, the more you may want to “cool up” your own website. Marketing a product or service online is tough enough and as you research your competitors and see what THEY are doing it can compel you to get in a no win, feature creep battle that will eat into your profits and time.
When you design your initial website be sure to ask your website developer to make it scalable so you can add features over time without a major structural revamp. This gets expensive, frustrating and will waylay your focus which should be about making money not spending it.
Instead of insisting on the next new whistle or bell, concentrate on your next marketing move. Learn about Internet marketing techniques that don’t require expensive website overhauls. There are numerous inexpensive software applications that can assist you in marketing your business to the masses.
Trust your developer’s instincts when suggesting new modifications to your website. A good website developer will be able to separate your website needs from your desires and won’t encourage you to spend money unnecessarily.
You probably wanted a business website to increase your business earnings or launch new revenue streams so focus on making money. That means honing your Internet marketing skills rather than adding new toys to an already professionally designed website.
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Your new online business idea is burning a hole in you and you’ve decided to take the plunge and make it a reality. This can be the best decision of your life or the most time consuming, financial resource disaster you can imagine. Make sure you mitigate your chances of failure by preparing in advance for success.
You first need to ask yourself some important questions and answer them honestly.
• Do I have the time to devote myself fully to the success I’m hoping for?
• Have I put together a business plan or at least structured my online presence on paper?
• How much money are you prepared to invest in this business? A good web designer is worth every cent you pay them and will likely give more effort than they get paid for. It’s the nature of the website designing beast. But the good ones cost money and you’ll need to pay for their top performance.
• How are you planning to advertise your online business? You’ll need eyes on your products and/ or services and with 100’s of millions of web pages out there how will they find you?
• Have you honestly asked yourself who will buy what you have to sell? Who is your target market?
• Are you prepared to tackle the intensive learning curve of Internet marketing and business website ownership?
I will assume you’ve answered these questions in the affirmative and you are ready to jump in feet first …straight into the deep end.
Based on your budget and assuming you’ve done your research you should know what a good website developer will charge you for a completed website or at least an estimate of hours to complete it. Will you need a shopping cart for your website for selling online? Are you just going to be promoting your offline services via the Internet?
There are two main types of websites that are most prevalent online today and they are brochure ware sites and interactive/dynamic websites. Make sure whoever you hire as your website developer understands the latter type, since the former will be simple for them. Which of these two types of website designs will work for you?
Also understand that moving forward with your online business your website will need to be maintained by someone. If your website designer also operates as a website maintenance company they will take care of your long term website maintenance needs or refer you to someone who can do this for you. Now let’s not get confused here.
Website maintenance companies can build a web structure or platform, add new applications and all the bells and whistles for you, even posting your new content for you, but someone needs to keep your overall website content fresh and unique. It’s a rare website designer who will understand your business enough to be able to write your page content for you.
Website developers can’t be all things to all people and every business is different in some respect. You’ll need to provide your website designer with page content as it relates to your business and your online objectives so they can post it live for you. You should ask your website developer about a CMS or Content Management System being a part of your overall website design.
CMS’s were designed to provide a relative novice Internet entrepreneur with a means of updating their online content themselves. These are generally something as simple as an online editor component built into your website system much like MS Word. It allows you to do basic maintenance to your web pages, loading new text copy, graphics and even multi media like photo slideshows, video and audio clips in some cases. Some CMS’s will let you modify your design template or logo/ header to keep your design fresh.
When shopping for a website, speak to a number of website design companies, specifically those that seem professional in their online demeanor. After all, their website design should make an impression on you. Ask to speak to several of their clients and don’t be afraid to ask the web designers ANY questions you have. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask.
Website maintenance companies you contact should be patient with you and tolerant of your website design naiveté. They should discuss your budget with you and deliver the most value for your financial situation. You should be looking at developing a relationship with your website developer so decide if the company you are considering is going to be a good fit.
It would behoove you to understand how hosting your website works. Your website designer should look after all these hosting details for you but you should also know what you’re paying for. Does your web developer have their own dedicated server? How well is the server maintained? Will there be any website downtime based on their inability to maintain the server themselves? Be sure that your website developer answers these questions confidently and explains them to you.
Finally, be careful about the “Seven dollar per month websites” you can build yourself in an hour. No doubt these websites will give you an online presence but what will you sacrifice in functionality and design and at what cost to your overall business? Your reputation is everything in business and on the Internet your website DEFINES your reputation. The adage “you get what you pay for” was apparently meant for website design.
Hiring a professional website developer to create a spectacular online business portal for your company is probably the best investment you’ll make. Your innovative Internet venture will now be taken seriously. You’ll be able to focus on growing your online business and have the confidence to leave the technical part of your business in the capable hands of your professional website designer.
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Starting a new business? Planning to market your existing business online? One question you should consider is whether to blog or not.
There’s no doubt that blogs are a very powerful Internet marketing tool. One huge advantage of blogging is that it is an easy way for you to add fresh, new content to your website on a regular basis – something that Google and Co. thrive on and will reward you for with better search engine rankings. Blogging is also an excellent means of communicating with your customers and prospects. Through your blog, you can give out the latest company news, information and advice to your audience, and even listen to their feedback. The list of blogging advantages goes on…
Or rather, are you fit to blog? Let’s face it: most blogs that start up are doomed to fail. You see, blogging is pretty much like training to be an athlete - it takes effort and perseverance, and the results you are looking for probably won’t happen right away.
Now, that last sentence is also true about starting and running a business, but you’re not letting it stop you, are you? And neither should you allow it to hinder you from blogging your way to online success!
So, without more ado…
An athlete needs stuff like good shoes, proper equipment, training facilities and an experienced coach to succeed. As a blogger, you will need eye-catching web design, a memorable blog name, RSS feeds, subscription lists and a few other things that our web designers at inQbation can set up for you. Let’s say you have all that and what’s left is the blogging itself. Here are 5 things about making your blog work that you can learn from an athlete.
An athlete trains to achieve specific performance targets. In the same way, always keep your goals in mind as you blog. Of course, one of the main aims of your business blog will most likely be to develop a growing number of regular readers who are interested in what you’ve got to say, so you can capture their attention and offer them your products or services.
As you start blogging, it is easy to wonder if anybody is reading at all. Don’t get bogged down with that! An athlete knows that the results that matter come with time. Make a commitment to your blogging, do it regularly, and your readership will grow day by day, just like faster lap times, lower heart rates and improved skills come to the athlete who perseveres. Similarly, the search engines will eventually start taking notice too.
Yes, you’re busy, but work out a blogging schedule and stick to it. Twice a week or more? Excellent! But if all you can afford is four times a month, that’s not a bad start as long as you go for it with the discipline of an athlete!
Athletes may come from varied sporting backgrounds, but the successful ones typically focus on one discipline and even find their niche as specialists within their sport – say as a quarterback or a long distance runner. If you try to make your blog all things to all people, its value will be diluted and your audience will lose interest because your message is all over the place.
Draw up a list of key topics you will be blogging about and decide on a focus for your blog. What are you knowledgeable about that will interest your audience? What sort of valuable information and advice can you offer your clients and prospects that will make them return to your blog again and again? Having a focus will help you find your voice quicker and even make it easier to write. Of course, you can deviate at times, but always try and tie your blog posts in with your core message.
If you find writing hard, or if you’re not sure whether your first few blog posts are any good, take heart! With a bit of practice, not only will the quality of your writing improve, but the whole process will become easier and quicker too, as you get used to putting your ideas into words. Remember that even the top athletes were once at a stage when running a mile would leave them short of breath.
Once you start blogging, stick to it. Your audience will notice if you’re slacking and they will start to lose interest. Just like an athlete falls behind after skipping a couple of training sessions, your blog will lose momentum if you go off the radar for too long.
At times when you cannot cope, rope in a colleague, invite a guest blogger, or even consider paying for a couple of blog posts to keep the wheel turning. Remember that you don’t have to blog alone. That’s one luxury the athlete simply doesn’t have!
This last point brings us full circle to the one main thing that distinguishes the blogs that become successful from the ones that don’t. Commitment! Be committed to your audience and they will be committed to you. Offer them quality information and they will reward you with their loyalty, turning your blog into one of the most powerful online marketing tools you can imagine.
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Every entrepreneur starts out with stars in the eyes, aiming for the sky and wanting the biggest slice of the pie. Positive thinking has its place – provided you have done your homework, figured out the lay of the land and most important of all, know which gap in the market to fill with your new business.
Wanting to be everything to everyone is a very common mistake that a lot of businesses make, prompting them to blur into the background, in a market that is awash with millions of others who also tout themselves as generic accountants, lawyers, website designers, medical groups, software solution providers, consultants, retail shops etc.,
Let’s picture this scenario: “We are your one stop shop for marketing solutions. We will help you brand your business, create marketing collateral, design advertisements, generate press releases and provide search engine optimized web content. We have worked with Fortune 500 corporations and small businesses, manufacturers and service providers. No job is too small.”
When I hear this, it brings to mind the room in my house which started out as a play room/library with book shelves and has now become a catch-all filled with all those things you accumulate that you never know what to do with, in addition to book shelves that we can barely access and toys crowded onto every surface.
The irony of being a ‘catch-all’ marketing firm, yet offering branding services to clients seems to be lost on this firm. The part that really makes me want to grab their shoulders and give them a good shake is that last sentence they tacked on – “no job is too small.”
If you were an executive with a major corporation, would you want to give your business to some one who creates marketing material for a one person firm yet has the gall to pitch a proposal to create a multi-million dollar marketing campaign?
A niche is an alcove or a ledge in a room where art is displayed to its advantage, rather than fading into the background by being a wallflower. ‘Niching’ is all about choosing that ‘sweet spot’ in the market, that gap that no one has filled, that offers a lot of potential, for which you know you have the capability.
Let’s look at some really famous examples of niche marketing. Meg Ryan is a top ranking Hollywood star. But when you think of her, you automatically associate the word ‘sweet’ with her. Sweet is her niche. Serious roles will be given to Jody Foster maybe (also a niche) but the soft, romantic ones which need a cute little pixie will go to Meg Ryan.
We associate FedEx with overnight couriers. Seven Up is the un-cola, the ‘cool’ drink in a market with two titans, Pepsi and Coke. The strong branding efforts of these companies focused on differentiating themselves from the rest of the pack and making a name within that niche. Does that mean that FedEx only ships overnight packages? In fact, as a result of creating such a strong niche that people don’t say the word courier any more, it’s always “let’s FedEx it”, the company gets plenty of business in ground shipping as well.
Creating a niche is the key to opening up a whole new world of business opportunities. Choose a niche, specialize in serving a specific industry – and watch as the reputation you create in that niche snowballs into opportunities in other areas.
Paul and Sarah Edwards, in their best selling book ‘Getting business to come to you’ talk about this Russian immigrant who spoke several languages. She started a translation service, offering multiple languages. Months later, she still had little business, despite signing up several other translators who spoke languages that she did not know and spending every free minute on marketing her umbrella of translation services.
The associates she had lined up were getting work from a competitor who specialized in Spanish. She shelved the idea of umbrella service and offered just Russian, her forte. Pretty soon, business was booming and she was referring clients to associates because she was too busy. The ironical post script to this story is that one of the first questions new clients ask her is whether she also does other languages, in addition to Russian. So she gets ‘spill-over’ opportunities in additional languages, while carving a niche as a Russian translator.
Creating a niche helps you stand apart, differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack and be at the top of people’s minds in terms of recall. Phone books are filled with CPAs offering pretty much the same service. But the savvy accountant whose byline says ‘serving medical practitioners’ is sure to stand apart and be easy to remember when tax time rolls around, because that is her niche.
With the boom in web content, the online marketplace is as crowded as the brick and mortar world. Every business, be it a consulting firm, a chocolate shop or realty service wants optimized web content that presents their best face on the world stage. A web designer who promises the world while being a generalist will hardly be able to deliver on that promise, as opposed to some one who specializes in a niche, such as creating web sites for online retailers or new businesses.
When you specialize in a specific market, you gain familiarity with that market. Inside knowledge leads to expertise in that area over time. This is why potential clients will come knocking – because of your implied expertise in that field.
So a rancher looking for an accountant to make sense out of his tangled paperwork would rather go to the CPA who specializes in accounting services for local ranchers as opposed to the newly minted CPA who pitches his service across the board to local retailers, law firms, restaurants and ranchers.
A web site designer who regularly works with start ups will be familiar with many issues confronting new entrepreneurs and bring familiarity with the kind of web templates that would work for specific businesses, as opposed to a design shop which may be good at graphics and design but know very little that is specific to the challenges facing small businesses.
Creating a niche for your business and tailoring your product or service for a specific market or industry will eventually bring you constant business as well as a strong reputation or brand image. To supplement revenue, rather than branching out and spreading yourself thin, offer complimentary services that add to the main niche product or service you offer.
As a writer, I specialize in writing business articles for clients and the media. But this alone will not provide a steady year round income. Rather than throw myself out there, offering to write children’s books and ad copy, I write business profiles, provide web content, draft press releases, and create sales literature for firms in specific industries. Since all of this is linked to my knowledge of their business and their target market, it is a logical extension of my business writing, rather than offering ‘any and every kind of writing’!!!
So perform a thorough survey of the market, choose your sweet spot, ensure that it is something you like, tailor your product or service and begin carving your very own niche.
Padma Nagappan is a business communications writer. Visit her web profile at http://www.ifreelance.com/pro/31377
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This post is to verify to Technorati that this blog belongs to me. Social bookmarking is an emerging concept and one that search engines like Google and Yahoo may be paying more attention to, in order to determine Page Rank.
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The results of an annual survey by the Center for the Digital Future were released today, and have some concerning news for e-tailers and web based businesses. According to the survey, 61% of respondents said they were very or extremely concerned about the privacy of personal data when buying online.
This is the highest level of concern since the first year of the survey. Over the last few years the overall concern about the security of online shopping has been decreasing, however publicized cases of data breeches resulting in identity theft has led many to reconsider that position.
Ironically, the facts of the data breech cases don’t jive with the concerns. Almost none of the headline grabbing stories about identity theft has involved online information. In fact, one of the largest security break downs happened through the brick and mortar retailers, TJ Maxx. Other cases have involved missing or stolen laptops, not information hacked into via e-commerce shopping sites.
Even if online shopping concerns are unfounded, they still are a factor. Online business owners need to address the fact that their customers are worried about digital security. If your company doesn’t have a digital security plan in place, you need to draft one and place it prominently on your site. Along with credit cards, you might consider taking other electronic forms of payment like PayPal, which give an extra level of security to shoppers. If it is possible, include a snail mail address, or phone number, so that people can arrange payment without having to transmit data through the computer.
There is some good news for online commerce in the new survey. 60% of adults said that they shopped online, spending under $100 each month. The number of online purchases are also increasing, up to an average
of 36 per year. The study also named the most popular items that were bought online, which included books, CD’s, clothes, travel arrangements, games, software, hobby products, and gifts. If your store doesn’t already stock items in these categories, it would be a good idea to add a few.
Overall, the study had some positive results for the future of online business. More people are shopping online and they are spending more money. Companies who are able to address the concerns over protected privacy data will have an edge over their competitors who neglect this important concern.
You can downloaded highlights of the survey or purchase a copy of the full report, which also looks at internet usage, connectivity, and social attitudes about the internet.
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When they get into a hot car, they wish there was something that would help keep it cool. After a pot of water boils over, they dream of an invention that would prevent it. How many times have you seen a new product, or service, and realized that you had come up with the idea years earlier? Ideas are a dime a dozen, but planning is what it takes to make things happen. That’s why every entrepreneur needs to have a written business plan in place.
I can already hear some people out there coming up with excuses. “I don’t need to write down my plan; it’s all in my head.” Unfortunately, you can’t show your head to the bank when applying for a small business loan, or to help woo potential investors. You can’t tell your partners and employees to look in your head to see if they are meeting their targets. Most importantly, the plan you have in your head is probably unrealistic. It’s only natural to focus on the positives of a business without looking at the pitfalls. Taking the time to write out a plan will force you to look at your ideas critically and realistically. Very few businesses are successful from day one, and you need to be prepared for that. If you start with an overly optimistic goal you’ll quickly become disappointed, and could abandon a great idea that just needed more time to be nurtured.
Still, the idea of sitting down and writing out a business plan can seem overwhelming. While it may be tempting to hire an outside company to write the plan for you, this is not a good idea. Your business plan will be the bible of your company, representing your personal hopes and dreams. Hiring someone else to write it would be like hiring someone else to write your wedding vows. It might be easier, but it misses the point of the exercise.
A business plan is made up of four main sections: business description, a marketing plan, finances, and management. Under each of these headings you should apply a SWOT analysis. SWOT, one of those crazy acronyms that MBA’s love to throw around, stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You need to be brutally honest as you are writing this plan. Entrepreneurs are positive minded people, and sometimes they struggle with having to focus on negatives.
If you find your Weaknesses and Threats, analysis to be skimpy, you need to work on beefing them up. Even the greatest business models have downsides. Multi-million dollar corporations, like Microsoft and Wal-Mart, have extensive lists of weaknesses and threats. It’s unrealistic to think that you have none.
There are a number of books that can help you write a business plan. The Small Business Administration (SBA) also offers a step-by-step guide to writing good business plans. You can also call your local Chamber of Commerce or other executive associations to see if they offer and classes or services to help entrepreneurs.
Remember when I said that you shouldn’t have someone else write your business plan? That doesn’t mean that you can’t hire people to help you write your own. It’s the difference between paying someone to take a test for you, and hiring a tutor to empower you to do your best. A business consultant will bring their experience and wisdom to your project. They not only understand technical details, like how to write a plan, but offer perspective. Sometimes, you’ve been living with an idea for so long that you are unable to see its full potential. Silly Putty started off life as a failed scientific endeavor to create synthetic rubber. It took 20 years until someone realized that it had potential in the toy world. Your idea might have potential you haven’t even imagined.
No matter what type of business you have, or want to have, the first step is creating a solid business plan. Even the best plans may need to be adapted or changed over time, but at least a written business plan will give you a starting point. Anyone can have a dream, but an entrepreneur knows how to make them become reality.
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