How To Find Good Keywords

How To Find Good Keywords

by: Trenton Moss

Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition). There are a number of tools out there that can help you find them.

Wordtracker

The best tool out there, Wordtracker is one of the most essential SEO tools. To use Wordtracker:

Go to the Wordtracker website (http://www.wordtracker.com)and pay $7 for 24 hours’ access

Enter a keyword phrase you’re thinking about targeting

Wordtracker will suggest hundreds of related phrases click on the ones you like

Once youกve clicked on all the phrases you like, run them through the program

Wordtracker will compile a score for each phrase, based on the number of users searching for it and the number of websites targeting it

The higher the score, the better the keyword phrase!

Wordtracker also offers a free service which works in the same way but only uses results generated from MSN.

Overture

Also useful, Overtureกs search term suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/), is free and much quicker to use than Wordtracker. It works in much the same way as Wordtracker but doesn’t tell you how many websites are targeting each keyword phrase.

Google

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox) tell you which keyword phrases are being targeted by other websites.

Guidebeam

Guidebeam (http://www.guidebeam.com) is an interesting resource. Type in a phrase and it will suggest a large number of related searches. The numbers provided for each phrase are Guidebeamกs estimation of how relevant that phrase is.

About The Author

This article was written by Trenton Moss. Heกs crazy about web usability and accessibility so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy (Webcredible http://www.webcredible.co.uk) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.

This article was posted on September 01, 2004

by Trenton Moss

Organic กNaturalก Search Engine Optimization versu

Organic กNaturalก Search Engine Optimization versus PayPerClick Search Engine Advertising

by: Matt Hockin

When you purchase visitors or ขclicksข from a search engine, this is called ขpayperclickข (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). PayPerClick Search Engine Advertising allows you to quickly get top search engine placement by ขbiddingข (paying) for keywords related to your product or service.

ขOrganicข or ขNaturalข search engine optimization (SEO) is accomplished by optimizing your web pages and by increasing your ขlink popularityข by acquiring or paying for links that point to your web site. This gives you high rankings at the Search Engines for your chosen search terms.

In this article, we will explore the strengths and weaknesses of both methods of search engine marketing.

ขNaturalข Search Engine Optimization

Today, there is a big myth that natural search engine optimization is inexpensive and easy. For example, if you wanted your web site to rank high for the keyword phrase ขlife insuranceข or ขdebt consolidationข you’re going to need to budget a minimum of $50,000100,000 a year!

Yet still, natural search engine optimization usually gives you a much higher return on investment than pay per click. This is true for two main reasons:

1. More searchers click the natural search engine results versus the pay per click ads, so you’ll get much more traffic for less.

2. One of the biggest factors to improving your rankings with natural search engine optimization is by boosting your ขLink Popularityข by acquiring or paying for links that point to your web site. These links give you lasting results by giving you top rankings and traffic from the search engines. Plus, the links themselves will provide a significant boost in long term traffic.

With that said, the biggest weakness of natural search engine optimization is the time required to generate links and ขtweakข your web pages and keywords to get those prized high rankings you so desire. It can literally take 3 months or more to finally enjoy the benefits of your search engine optimization campaign.

Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

The biggest benefit of pay per click is the fact that it will provide you with an immediate boost of qualified visitors, lead and sales giving you fast results within just hours or days. In fact, a pay per click advertising program is your best option if you seek fast results and a good return on investment while you are waiting for your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program to กramp up.ก

Depending on your traffic goals, you can budget $100 or $100,000. PPCSEs also give you the added benefits of being able to quickly test your web site and track your conversion rates (leads, optins, and sales) and turning keywords (visitors) on and off easily.

So, as a short term strategy pay per click gives you the clear advantage over SEO. But, the disadvantage is the cost involved. Depending on the market demand for your keywords and clicks, your PPCSE campaign can generate tons of traffic and can cost hundreds, even thousands per day. With various optimization strategies you can lower your costs, but over the long term natural search engine optimization will give you a higher return on your marketing dollar.

In Conclusion

The golden rule in marketing is that you should constantly strive for maximum results and ROI for your budget. In other words, if your marketing is making you a profit even if it’s a thin profit it’s worth it. By this model, pay per click is worth doing, but overall pay per click will leave you with thinner margins.

The reason for conducting a natural search engine optimization campaign is to significantly increase your margins over the long term.

By Matt Hockin

Interactive Marketing, Inc.

http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com

About The Author

Matt Hockin is President of Interactive Marketing, Inc., a small business marketing consulting company and the editor of the Interactive Marketing newsletter, one of the Internet’s leading free small business marketing newsletters. Subscribe now at http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com.

This article was posted on November 08, 2004

by Matt Hockin

SEO Success: Step One is Good Web Design

SEO Success: Step One is Good Web Design

by: Chesa Keane

Creating a welldesigned website is the first step in your internet marketing strategy. Once the website has been created and optimized, there are further techniques to employ that will drive traffic to your website for successful, longterm results. You wouldn’t consider opening a retail store in a major shopping mall without signage and you shouldn’t consider having a nice looking website designed without expanding your web presence in order to be found on the internet. But unless the website is designed correctly to begin with, followon SEO efforts will have limited results at best. The following strategy overview is designed to bring about productive SEO results:

Create an attractive website that is complementary to your company image and provides your targeted audience with information about you, your company and your products and/or services.

Design a website that has a calltoaction in the form of a purchase or providing you a contact, subscription or other commitment from your visitor.

Create a successful marketing arm for your overall business promotion and marketing campaign to promote your business, products and/or services with the many followon strategies that drive traffic to your website.

Become competitive in your industry and marketplace by meeting or exceeding the industry marketing standards and attracting a qualified audience for your products and/or services based on a strong reputation.

Generate and maintain or grow internet traffic to your website resulting in a conversion of traffic into sales of your products and/or services by evolving as your market demands.

This search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is composed of several processes in three stages: 1) Good web design, 2) Attracting attention from search engines and directories, and 3) Creating longterm popularity on the internet. However, it all starts with good web design. Website design is the foundation and beginning of a successful internet marketing strategy. It is true that there are websites on the internet that are unattractive but somehow seem to work. If there are aspects of these websites that work, imagine how well they could do if they simply followed basic design implementation tactics that resulted in a good image as well as simply pushed information out to the viewer.

These basics are essential for Tier 1 success:

Good web design will complement and enhance the company image and offline marketing campaign products creating a corporate branding if done well.

Easy, logical navigation that leads the viewer deeper and deeper into the web of information provided by the website will keep the visitor on your site longer and give you more time to sell your products or services.

Attractive but quickloading graphics that are pleasing to the eye and meaningful to the website will guide the viewer along the route you decide is important for explaining what you offer.

Keyword usage that is search enginefriendly depends on how the keywords are utilized, the placement of the keywords, the frequency of the most important keywords and their relevance to the website.

Website coding that is lean, clean and without errors will keep the search engines happy and your viewer seeing exactly what you intended to offer.

Relevance of content to the theme of the site is essential. Be concise, to the point and focus on your goals. If you have multiple themes and offerings, consider multiple websites to address the different markets, then tie each website back to the others by linking.

Changing content that changes frequently and stays fresh keeps your viewer returning and prevents the search engines from treating your website as if it were stale news. A stale site will be ranked lower by the search engines.

Content is king itกs all about content, content, content. But how that content is presented is what makes the difference.

(c)2005 TAO Consultants, Inc. All rights reserved.

About The Author

Chesa Keane of TAO Consultants has been involved with the internet for 10 years through internet consulting, web development and search engine optimization. Go to www.computergoddess.com for a free Search Engine Optimization Checklist.

This article was posted on September 14

by Chesa Keane

Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic

Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic

by: Elizabeth McGee

Weกve all seen and read product testimonials. They’re a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customerกs decision to buy. But testimonials offer another superb benefit. Itกs the benefit to you and your marketing strategy.

When Iกm on a site offering a product or service I like to click on customer testimonials because they are generally short and easy to read. People typically point out exactly what they like about a product and how they used it to their benefit. Testimonials come from real users, they’re not some ad written by the company.

Now, letกs take the testimonial concept and think about it as a marketing strategy for you and your business.

Website testimonials describe how buyers feel about the products they have purchased and used. If you, as a buyer, offer your testimonial with your name and website address this now becomes a very valuable marketing tool for you. It will expose you and your business to everyone looking at that merchantกs website. If the merchant site happens to be a wellknown site offering a high demand product, this could mean huge exposure for you.

Note that many merchant sites will display your website address but will not put an actual link to it. While itกs ideal to have a link to your site itกs not always necessary. I often investigate sites of testimonial givers whether there is a link attached or not. As long as your website address is displayed, that is good enough.

Testimonials can also double as a great linking strategy as well. If your testimonial includes your link and is displayed on the front page of four or five high ranking merchant sites this can increase your link popularity tremendously. By doing this you have also just eliminated the concern of linking to competitor sites and youกve avoided the hassle of reciprocal linking.

Testimonials don’t only need to be addressed to merchants you buy from. You should also send your testimonials to ezines or free online services that you use. Send them in the form of complimentary notes. Compliment their products or services and describe how you find them useful. Websites interested in boosting sales will often use them and you are much more likely to get printed if you are delivering a compliment.

About The Author

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can contact Elizabeth at [email protected] or visit her website at http://www.promarketingonline.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 20, 2004

by Elizabeth McGee

PPC Management: When To Give Up On A Loser

PPC Management: When To Give Up On A Loser

by: Dave Brown

Pay per click (PPC) advertising can be a dream come true. You can get traffic almost immediately from some PPC search engines. And it can be mighty cheap too. Next to joint ventures, PPC search engines have been responsible for most of my online income. Iกve gotten some great returns on PPC campaigns. And I know other people who have too.

Right now, I have one PPC campaign thatกs making me $56.69 for every $1 I spend. I know, thatกs pretty incredible. And itกs not typical. But I have another thatกs making me $8.84 for every $1 I spend. Yet another makes $7.73 for every $1.

But I have other campaigns that have lost me money. Making money, instead of losing it, with pay per click search engines involves wise management. There are many different factors that decide whether youกll be in the red or in the black. And you need to be aware of what these are.

In fact, there are times that even the best management of your PPC campaign won’t save it. Some of them will be losers and thereกs nothing you can do about it. But you need to know when to decide that you have a loser on your hands. At what point should you bury it and move on?

There are a number of different factors to consider. Thereกs no simple answer. I can’t tell you to simply abandon your PPC campaign after 200 clicks without a sale. Or to quit after youกve lost $50.

First of all, you need to know how much your profit will be on each sale (before advertising costs). For example, if you’re selling your own product for $47 through Clickbank, then youกll make $42.48 on each sale after Clickbank takes their fees.

But if you sell someone elseกs product for $47 through Clickbank, and you get a 50% commission on each sale, then youกd only get $21.24.

But you need to know even more than that. You also need to decide how much of that $42.48 (or $21.24) you’re willing to spend on advertising. In other words, whatกs the least you’re willing to earn on each sale? This will determine how much you can afford to spend on advertising.

Letกs assume you make $42.48 per sale. If you decide that youกd be happy with a $20 profit, then you can spend as much as $22.48 to make each sale.

So now you know what your advertising budget is. Next, estimate what your conversion rate will be. If this is a brand new product you’re promoting, then you may have no idea. In those cases, I tend to use 1% as a rule of thumb. That means that 1 out of every 100 people that visit the site will buy. Letกs use 1% for our example here.

So if you’re willing to spend $22.48 to make each sale, and you expect to make one sale out of every 100 visitors, then you can afford to spend 22 cents to get each visitor to the site. This means that you can afford to bid 22 cents on each keyword on the PPC search engines (max).

At this point, you can go ahead and set up your PPC campaigns. Find your keywords. Place bids. I won’t cover these issues right now because they’re off the topic. The purpose here is to know when to drop your campaign because itกs a loser.

Now, just because you *can* bid 22 cents on each keyword, it doesn’t mean you should. You should bid as low as you can to get good traffic (whatever you consider *good* to be).

In our example, letกs fast forward. Imagine youกve already gotten 150 clicks, and your average bid has been 22 cents a click. So youกve spent $33, and you haven’t made a sale yet. Should you ditch this campaign?

No. *On average* you can spend $22 per sale. But thatกs an average. Which means that sometimes youกll spend more, and sometimes less. And if your conversion rate is 1%, then thatกs also an *average*. So don’t freak out if you haven’t made a sale after 150 clicks.

When you decide to drop a campaign though, make the decision based on how much you’re spending on it. Not the conversion rate.

When I first start a campaign, Iกll often wait until I spend at least double my advertising budget with no sales before I consider dropping it. Maybe even triple my budget if Iกm emotionally attached to it. 😉

But if I haven’t made any sales by then, Iกll usually stop the campaign. However, you may want to wait longer if you’re willing to spend more money to see if it works. I think Iกm probably more of a conservative.

At any rate, I *rarely* end a campaign before I get 300 clicks. 300 is typically the minimum number of clicks before I feel I can judge whether a campaign will pay off. And I will generally only end it then if Iกve had *zero* sales.

Sometimes, though, youกll make a quick sale and get excited. But then you see few or no sales after that. If you find that you’re consistently spending more than your budget for the first few sales, then get ready to end it if you don’t figure out how to make it better.

I want you to realize, too, that when you bid less on your keywords, you can afford to live with a lower conversion rate. But when you bid more, your conversion rate has to be higher to provide you with the profit you want.

Iกve only talked about *starting* a PPC campaign so far. But sometimes, you may have a PPC campaign thatกs paying off, and then it starts choking and gasping for air after a while.

In that case, you need to decide when to pull the plug and retire it. Otherwise, it may eat up all the profits youกve already made.

Iกll usually be more lenient in this case. Since the campaign has made me money in the past, Iกm more likely to give it the benefit of the doubt and keep it running. I don’t know if thatกs a good idea or not. But sometimes, itกs just hard to say goodbye to an old friend. After all, maybe itกs just a temporary downturn.

But you still have to cut it off at some point. If I find myself breaking even (or even losing money) on each sale for any length of time, then Iกll start thinking about ending the campaign.

In our example here, if you notice that youกve been spending $45 per sale lately, then start thinking about the future of this campaign. Try to figure out whatกs changed and see if you can fix it.

How long should you wait before you abandon it? Two weeks? A month? Ten sales? A hundred sales?

Itกs completely dependent on your situation. If you make 20 sales a day, then obviously worrying after only 20 sales is unwarranted. On the other hand, if it takes you 4 months to make 20 sales, then maybe you shouldn’t wait quite that long. Listen to your gut.

In the end, be aware that PPC management is not a rigid science. You have to use a certain amount of judgment. But try not to be emotionally attached. If a little voice in the back of your head is telling you that you’re spending too much for too little, then listen to it.

What Iกve given you here are guidelines based on my own practices. Iกm sure there are other people who do it differently and are also successful. But these strategies work for me. And Iกm sure you can adapt them to work for you.

About The Author

Dave Brown is a selftaught marketer and software developer. He also publishes the uncommon and uniquely original newsletter on making the most of your life A Fresh Perspective. You can learn more at

http://www.davebrown.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 23, 2004

by Dave Brown

Blogs: Why, Where and How

Blogs: Why, Where and How

by: Amitabh Shukla

So you have heard about the blogs or you are sure you are now going through one of the blog. You might have seen blogs in the search results and would not have noticed it. Yes blogs are now making news but still a large number of people consider them as online diaries or a political mouthpiece. What about the business blogs that is lately surfacing on the web sphere? Top companies like GMกs Fastlane blog is there to prove the point that blog works. The problem is that regular media is not accepting it as one of the most promising medium, which could be as powerful as the newspapers, or tv channels in the future. Thanks to RSS, blog contents could be read via email as and when it is published.

Now the point is that why you should opt for a blog if you have a fullfledged website. How a blog will raise the profile of your business or could enhance brand of your organization. Lets look at the broader picture of the business blogs and why Internet marketers are so interested in this.

Search engine is still a mystery to most and blogs are ranking well in search engines without going into intricacies of the search engine optimization. You have a small business and no budget to make your companyกs online presence. No problem, signup for a free blog account at blogger.com without any prior knowledge and you are ready to go. This is the power of blog, inexpensive, fast and simple with minimum efforts on optimization.

You just created a blog and posted your first article. You want to optimize your blog. Just submit it to blog directories, which are very friendly and accept the submission within few days. Just remember to post 23 articles per week to get the search engine spiders to your blog regularly. If you write quality articles then you have to just wait for a month or so and free backlinks will start pouring in.

Major things you should remember for your blog success are:

23 articles per week

Write on only one specific Industry of your interest

Concentrate on one keyword per posting

Remember pinging your RSS feeds to major blog search engines and feed directories

Give quality to your visitors

Once your blog is famous, signup for adsense and earn for the time you spend on bloggging.

About The Author

Amitabh Shukla

Personal blog for the author is at http://seoexpertindia.tblog.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 25

by Amitabh Shukla

FFA/Reversed Marketing

FFA/Reversed Marketing

by: Thomas Grodem

Have you ever submitted your ad to an FFA page? most likely you have. Did you get any results from it or did you just get a ton of emails in your inbox?

FFA pages are gaining popularity popping like bombs everywhere!

What is an FFA page? It is a free for all page.

How it works is quite simple: you place a line of text on the FFA site for free…like thousands of other advertisers each day.

The problem with FFA pages is that everybody is submitting their ad to it. So each time a new ad is submitted, all the other ads roll down one rank and the oldest ad is dropped of. What originally gave an exposure of days per submission, today only gives you about 30 minutes. This means you have to submit at least 3 times a day. You can do this automatically by using an auto submitter, which claims to submit your ad to a zillion websites. You must understand that this is not regular websites, but search engines, Directories and FFA pages.Still it is a lot of ads, and someone might see it.

The lack of results from these ads is because:

your ad is mixed in with hundreds of other ads

Have you ever visited an FFA page and looked at the ads? Today most people use automated submission tools, so they never visits the site.

If someone does visit the page, your ad could be gone within a few hours or less.

Fore those of you that has submitted your ads to FFA pages, you must have noticed all the emails you receive back.

How would you like to be the one sending out those emails?

What i am saying is that you shouldn’t POST to FFA pages… You should HOST your own FFA page!

There is several ways to approach hosting your own FFA page.

You could create it yourself if you know how. Or, there is someone willing to help you for free. Go to http://ratesaver.com.au/lp.htm

The next step you have to do is notifying URL submission services.

The manual way: use search engines like google to find URL submission services and notify them of your links page

The automatic way: go to http://ratesaver.com.au/tsalintro.htm

Enter your links page title and address. Press submit and you will notify over 140 URL submission services about your page.

This service costs us$19.95.

Now you are the one sending out all those emails with your info in them. It’s called ‘reversed advertisingก. And it’s the most effective way to market yourself on the internet today!

About The Author

Thomas Grodem publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you’re looking for the best rated home business opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the business come by and grab a FREE subscription today at: http://prosperconnection.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on September 06, 2003

by Thomas Grodem

Learn How To Use These Six Explosive Marketing Tec

Learn How To Use These Six Explosive Marketing Techniques To Explode Your Website With Traffic

by: Reginald Turner

Learn How To Use These Six Explosive Marketing Techniques To Explode Your Website With Traffic

You could have the best opportunity, product, or service on the internet, but if you are not getting any traffic to your website, what does it matter? Getting massive traffic to your website is just the beginning of being successful over the internet. Nevertheless, itกs not the end.

Although getting traffic to your website should be your main focus, there is just more to it than just getting traffic to your website. In the next following section, we will talk about the six explosive marketing techniques that you would have to apply to your internet marketing efforts in order to become a successful internet marketer.

1.Testing When you are marketing over the internet, you are going to have to know what works and what doesn’t. Thatกs why you are going to have to experiment with different types of advertising to find that out. If you are experimenting with different types of advertising, how are you going to know what type of advertising is working? This what leads me to the next following marketing technique, Adtracking services.

2. Adtracking Services Ad tracking services are a great way to test which form of advertising is working and which is not. Some of these services are capable of keeping track of your hits, sales, etc. To find an ad tracking service, just go to a major search engine and type in กAd tracking servicesก and plenty ad tracking services will come up. After this happens, do some investigating and choose the one that is best for you.

3. Website Design You want to make sure that you have a decent looking website to promote your product or service. Don’t get to caught up in all the fancy graphics when it comes to designing a website. These fancy graphics that you see on other websites could cause your website to load real slow. You must remember when people are browsing on the internet, they like to get on a website to find what they are looking for and get right off. If your website takes a long time to load, you could loose a lot of sales. When you design your website, make sure you use gif or jpeg graphics because they load really quick. Remember, the amount of time it takes your website to load, could determine how many sales you are going to make, or lose.

4. Good Content Itกs very important to have good content on your website. The product or service that you are promoting should strongly state the benefits. You should talk about how the benefit of your product or service could improve the quality of their lives. Remember, people are not concerned about the features of your product or service, but they want to know what it can do for them.

5. Website Traffic If your internet business is going to survive over the internet, you are going to need a lot of traffic, but just not any kind of traffic. When you are marketing over the internet, you are going to need to get ‘targeted traffic.ก What do I mean by targeted traffic? For example, if you are promoting a service that deals with selling envelopes, you are not going to promote it to people interested in health care are you? Absolutely not. You want to make sure you market to an audience that is interested in your product, service, or business opportunity. For example, if you are promoting a service selling marketing software, make sure you find an audience of กinterested buyersก who are interested in marketing software. If you don’t target your audience, your career as an internet marketer will be short lived.

6. Time Management Again, going back to the adtracking service. If you use an adtracking service to track your marketing campaigns, you could use the statistics from the ad tracking service to tell where you should spend your time marketing. For example, lets say you use two different methods of marketing such as ezines, and submission software. Now you go to your ad tracking service to check the results of the two marketing methods that were just mentioned. You find out that your marketing in ezines bought you 1,000 hits, and your marketing using the submission software bought you 100 hits. I would not tell you to stop using the submission software because obviously itกs bringing you hits. It will make more since to spend most of your time marketing in ezines because it brought you more hits. Iกm definitely not saying what was mentioned in the above example will happen, but it just gives you an indication where you should spend most of your time marketing.

This article was not written to critique internet marketers in any way. It was written to help internet marketers become more efficient and smarter when it comes to marketing over the internet. Some internet marketers only focus on getting traffic, but some neglect things such as web design, testing, and good content which could make a big difference. Remember, getting traffic to your website is just half the battle won, but converting it into sales is a complete victory.

For more info about website marketing techniques, please visit: http://www.adalyzer.com/727/traffic_attack

About The Author

My name is Reginald Turner and my purpose in writing articles is not only to help internet marketers become more efficient and smarter when it comes to marketing over the internet, but to teach them how to quickly find out what type of marketing works and how to make more money over the internet in less time while exploding traffic to their website. If you would like more info about website marketing techniques, you could eithr visit: http://www.adalyzer.com/727/traffic_attack or just send a blank email to [email protected].

This article was posted on November 23, 2004

by Reginald Turner

Search Engine Submissions Made Easy!

Search Engine Submissions Made Easy!

by: Robin Nobles

One area of search engine marketing that has changed dramatically over the years is submissions. Submitting to the search engines used to be so complicated, with having to choose between manual versus software submissions; only being able to submit so many pages a day; having to be careful about oversubmitting; and the list goes on.

Submissions used to be the worst part of the search engine optimization process, at least for me.

Now, I can literally write this whole article in two words:

Pay Inclusion

Yep, there you have it. If you want to take the headache out of submissions and if you want to make things much easier for YOU, use pay inclusion!

It’s hard for someone like me to admit how powerful pay inclusion programs are, because I’ve been in this ขgameข long enough to remember when everything was free. So, moving into the pay realm has been a difficult thing to do.

However, the benefits of pay inclusion far outweigh the cost.

Benefits of Pay Inclusion

Your pages are indexed much faster than submitting through free add URL or waiting for the spiders to find the pages on their own.

By using pay inclusion, your pages are getting outside of the 95%+ spam that the engines say come through free add URL submissions.

With pay inclusion, your pages are respidered on a very regular basis, depending on the engine. For example, Inktomi and Fast respider their pay inclusion pages every 48 hours.

With pay inclusion, you never have to submit your pages again! As long as you continue to use pay inclusion, your pages will continue to get respidered based on each engine’s schedule.

Because your pages are respidered on a regular basis without your doing one single thing to initiate this action, you can make changes to your pages today and begin to see the results of those changes within a week. If you didn’t use pay inclusion, you may not see the results of the changes for a month or two.

If you use pay inclusion, you’re forming a ขpartnershipข with the search engines, which I personally feel is important and very beneficial. You’re now outside of the realm of the millions of spammers, and that’s exactly where you want to be.

Most of the pay inclusion programs offer some sort of submission reports.

Pay inclusion programs are ideal for dynamically generated sites.

Now that we’ve looked at the benefits of pay inclusion, letกs create an example to see how inexpensive it really is. Let’s say we have a brand new Web site, and we have three main pages that we want to submit through pay inclusion.

Pay Inclusion Programs

Inktomi (Provides secondary search results to engines such as MSN and HotBot) http://www.positiontech.com/directSubmit.htm

Benefits:

Upon submission, your pages will make it into the Inktomi index within 72 hours, as a general rule.

Your pages are respidered every 48 hours.

The term of the pay inclusion program is 12 months.

Reporting services are included, such as verification of page acceptance; refresh reports; URL validation; and account management.

Here’s the audience reach of some of the engines that use Inktomi’s secondary results, according to Nielsen NetRatings in October 2002: MSN: 28.1%; Overture: 5.4%; LookSmart: 3.0%; (also provides results to the ขnewข HotBot) (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

Cost? $39 for the first URL, and $25 each for additional URL’s up to 1000. So, the total cost for our three pages would be $89. (See Special Note at the bottom of this article on how you can save 20% off the price of Inktomi and Fast pay inclusion – for a limited time only.)

Fast (Provides search results to AlltheWeb, Lycos, and HotBot) http://www.positiontech.com/directSubmit.htm

You can use Position Tech to submit your Fast pages too, so be sure to enroll in both pay inclusion programs at the same time.

Benefits:

Upon submission, your pages will make it into the Fast index within 48 hours, as a general rule.

Your pages are respidered every 48 hours.

The term of the pay inclusion program is 12 months.

Reporting services are included, such as verification of page acceptance; refresh reports; URL validation; and account management.

With Fast, you can choose between several different programs, including some that include a free onsite search engine, bulk inclusion, etc.

The audience reach of Fast, according to Nielsen NetRatings in October 2002, was: Lycos: 4.4%; (also provides results to the ขnewข HotBot) (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

Cost? $34 for the first URL, and $16 each for additional URL’s up to 1000. So, the total cost for our three pages would be $66. (See Special Note at the bottom of this article on how you can save 20% off the price of Inktomi and Fast pay inclusion – for a limited time only.)

Teoma and Ask Jeeves (Provides results to Teoma, Ask Jeeves, and HotBot) http://ask.ineedhits.com/

The only way to get in the Teoma index is through pay inclusion. This is one engine that doesn’t have a free add URL page.

Benefits:

Upon submission, your pages will make it into the Teoma and Ask Jeeves indices within 7 days.

Your pages are respidered every 7 days.

The term of the pay inclusion program is 12 months.

Reporting services are included, such as clickthrough reporting.

The audience reach of Teoma/Ask Jeeves, according to Nielsen NetRatings in October 2002, was: Ask Jeeves: 10.3% (also provides results to the ขnewข HotBot) (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

Cost? $30 for the first URL, and $18 each for additional URL’s up to 1000. So, the total cost for our three pages would be $66.

AltaVista (Provides results to AltaVista) http://addurl.altavista.com/

Benefits:

Upon submission, your pages will make it into the AltaVista index within 2 business days.

Your pages are respidered every 24 hours.

The term of the pay inclusion program is 6 months.

Reporting services are included, such as tracking submissions and transactions through their online Account Management Center.

The audience reach of AltaVista, according to Nielsen NetRatings in October 2002, was: AltaVista: 4.4% (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

Cost? $39 for the first URL, and $29 each for 210 URL’s, then $19 each for 11 to 500 URLs. So, the total cost for our three pages for **six months** would be $97. The cost per year would be $194.

Downside:

AltaVista’s pay inclusion is more expensive than the others, and AV doesn’t have the coverage that some of the other engines have. Plus, their pay inclusion program is only for six months, as compared to a full year with the other programs.

So, you’ll have to decide whether you feel it’s worth the cost.

AltaVista is the one engine where you can still use their free add URL without being placed into the same category as the huge group of ขfree add URL spammers,ข because AltaVista’s free add URL process doesn’t allow mass submissions. Instead, their unique ขpuzzle submissionข process requires you to enter a submission code into the submission box, and you can only submit five URLs at no cost. So, if you want to use free add URL for one of the engines, AltaVista’s is the one to use. http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

Total Costs so Far

With our example, considering that this is a brand new Web site with zero visibility, we’ll figure out the cost for our three pages based on using AltaVista’s pay inclusion program and on not using their program.

Subtotal of Yearly Pay Inclusion Costs Without AltaVista: $221 (for 3 pages) (Includes the Inktomi engines, the Fast engines, Teoma, and Ask Jeeves. This does NOT include AltaVista.)

Subtotal of Yearly Pay Inclusion Costs With AltaVista: $415 (for 3 pages) (Includes the Inktomi engines, the Fast engines, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, and AltaVista.)

Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com

You might be wondering why I haven’t listed the Yahoo! directory in this listing of pay inclusion programs. With the way that Yahoo! now displays results, which are almost a duplication of Google results, the importance of submitting to the Yahoo! directory at a yearly cost of $299 has diminished. Depending on where things go from here, with Yahoo! having purchased the Inktomi engine, this is subject to immediate change. But, at this point in time, paying to be included in the Yahoo! directory isn’t anywhere near as important as it once was. If you have good visibility in Google, you should have good visibility in Yahoo!.

But, our site is brand new, and the advantage to Yahoo!’s pay inclusion program is that your site will be reviewed for possible inclusion within 7 working days. So, depending on our finances, we may want to add Yahoo!’s pay inclusion costs, just so we can get fast visibility for our new site.

(According to Nielson NetRankings in October 2002, the audience reach of Yahoo! was 28.5%. http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

Total of Yearly Pay Inclusion Costs Including Yahoo!, but not AltaVista: $520 (Includes the Inktomi engines, the Fast engines, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo!. This does NOT include AltaVista.)

Total of Yearly Pay Inclusion Costs Including both Yahoo! and AltaVista: $714 (Includes the Inktomi engines, the Fast engines, Teoma, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo!, and AltaVista.)

What about Google?

Google http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Google is the only major engine that doesn’t have a pay inclusion program. So, the only way to get your pages into the index is to let the spider find the pages on its own through links on other pages or to submit through Google’s free add URL.

Personally, I always let the spider find the pages on its own and never submit to Google manually. By going this route, while your site is busy being spidered by the other engines and you’re busy building link popularity, by the time that Google ขfindsข your pages, you should have had time to build some link popularity, which we all know is so important with Google.

According to Nielson NetRankings in October 2002, the audience reach of Google alone was 29.2%. Add to that AOL at 19.7%, Yahoo! at 28.5%, and Netscape at 5.5%, and it’s quite easy to see the power behind Google. (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html)

In Conclusion

Rather than worrying with submitting your pages manually to each of the major engines, take advantage of the tremendous benefits of using pay inclusion.

Then, let Google find your pages on its own, and hold off submitting to the Yahoo! directory for a while.

Based on our example here, if we were submitting three pages, our total yearly cost would be either $221 and $415, depending on whether or not we chose to use AltaVista’s pay inclusion program.

So, as you can see, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Repeating what I said earlier in this article, the ขkeyข to successful submissions these days can be summed up in two words: pay inclusion.

Special Note:

After writing this article, I found that Lycos is offering a discount on both Fast and Inktomi pay inclusion programs for a limited time. If you submit to both engines, you can receive a 20% discount! I don’t know how long this will last, but here’s the URL:

http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/select/select_overview.asp?co=undefined

About The Author

Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for GRSeo software (http://www.seoptimizer.com). She also teaches 2, 3, and 5day handson search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 09, 2003

by Robin Nobles

Why Search Engine Traffic Should be Your Top Prior

Why Search Engine Traffic Should be Your Top Priority

by: Richard Zwicky

Most Internet marketing methods are risky and many will not have any affect on traffic to a web site. Some online marketers will sell you anything from banner impressions, to mass email campaigns (spam), to popup ads. All these marketing tools can work, but they are also extremely risky. Some people I know find popups and spam so annoying that they will never purchase anything from a business that uses them. These plans are probably not the best customer acquisition strategies, and more likely they are a total waste of money. So why would anyone bother risking money on marketing strategies that probably will not increase traffic to your website? Why not concentrate on what does work? The search engines.

Have you ever been contacted by online marketers who promise to deliver a ‘ton of trafficก to your websiteก ? I get these emails every day. Hereกs a quote from one I used to get 10 times a day (until I automatically filtered it to trash):

กHi I visited www.metamend.com, and noticed that you’re not listed on some search engines! I think we can offer you a service which can help you increase traffic and the number of visitors to your website.

I would like to introduce you to thispromotioncompany.com. We offer a unique technology that will submit your website to over 300,000 search engines and directories every month.

Youกll be surprised by the low cost, and by how effective this website promotion method can be.

To find out more about thispromotioncompany and the cost for submitting your website to over 300,000 search engines and directories, visit www.thispromotioncompany.com. (…)ก

Have you ever received one, and wondered why they were contacting you? First off, how did they find your web site? What search engines are they referring to? If they really could deliver on their promise, then they would have so much repeat, and word of mouth business, that they wouldn’t have time to be calling or emailing you. Lastly, how many people actually believe that there are 300,000 search engines?

While itกs true you need traffic from the search engines, you don’t need to use spam techniques to get it. You need real results, and not false hope.

Increase Web Site Traffic,.. Naturally

It is true that the best way to obtain lots of targeted traffic (customers) is to acquire it based on relevance, via the search engines. Various studies show that anywhere from 83% to 92% of first time visitors to a web site find it through the search engines. Thatกs an incredible statistic. If you are not acquiring those customers as a result of a relevant query, then they will be disappointed. They may be disappointed with the search result, but more likely, they will be disappointed with your web site.

In the online world thatกs your first impression. We all know how important a first impression is. You can never get a bad one back, and a good one will carry you a long way. You have to make sure that the search engines are sending you visitors that are looking for your products or services. If your web site matches their interests, they will remember it, and come back, even if they do not make a purchase on that visit. If they find it irrelevant, they may have subconsciously formed a negative opinion of your online business, through no fault of your own.

Search engines provide a continuous stream of targeted visitors to your website, and for the most part, itกs free of charge. Some engines do charge a listing fee, but most do not. The only thing the search engine asks is that each web site operator makes an effort to provide relevant and good information to web surfers for a particular search phrase. If a web site does so, the search engines will reward the site with increased good quality traffic.

Search engine traffic is a winwin situation for any online business. It doesn’t take much to improve on most web siteกs search engine traffic it just takes optimization. Did you know that as of January 1 2002, there were 160,000,000 domain hosts in use worldwide? Did you know that 88% of the web pages worldwide are not indexed by the largest search engines? 88% of web pages are not optimized. How can any business survive on the Internet if it is not optimized for the search engines, and thus can never be found? How can they exist if over 83% of first time visitors never find their web site? How much more money could a web site operator earn if they ensured their web site was even partially visible?

If you have an informative web site, the search engines want to send you lots of customers. Thatกs because the more web surfers find what they want, the more theyกll use a particular search engine and recommend it to their friends. The search engine also benefits, as it becomes known as a resource that gets its clients the searchers to their destinations quickly and efficiently. The more people recognize how well the engine works as a resource, the more it gets recommended, and used. As the popularity increases, so do the engineกs revenues from advertising.

What Does Your Web Site Need To Receive Traffic From The Search Engines?

Small web sites with only 1 or 2 pages set themselves up for failure, simply because they usually don’t have enough content of interest. There are of course exceptions, where the 1 or 2 pages are each as long as a book. But these are awfully frustrating to read, and no one will be satisfied with them. Most often 1 or 2 page sites are simply too short to provide any useful information, so the search engines don’t take them seriously. Among other factors, the search engines examine how deep a site is. The more meaningful content present, the more weighty the site is viewed as, and the more importance it is given.

If you are wondering about whether to bother, ask yourself this: Why does your company have a web site? What does the company do with it? Think about it. Most companies today have web sites, and most market the web sites to facilitate customer acquisition, to increase their customer base, and to improve customer retention rates.

There are a number of reasons for having web sites. Many companies use theirs to enhance their customer service. Using a web site as a marketing vehicle is a great way for a company ‘to put the word outก about products, services, or offerings.

Most importantly, remember that your web site is an online resource that your clients can use to find answers to frequently asked questions, กhow toก tips, and to educate themselves. When including content on a web site, always remember that the knowledge shared may be common to you, but itกs likely that you are an expert in the eyes of your clients. People visit your web site for your product or service, but also for information. If they find useful, relevant, information, they will keep coming back, and will likely make purchases. People like to buy from experts.

Instead of thinking of your web site as nothing more than an online billboard or business card, think of it as an online menu, that lets people get an idea of what it is you do, and how you do it. Develop a content rich website, optimize it, and let the search engines increase your website traffic, naturally. If you optimize each major web page within your site, you will increase the rankings in the search engine results and therefore receive targeted traffic for each of those pages.

Doing each of the above ensuring relevant content is present, and optimizing the pages will ensure that the search engines have what they need so they can do their work. It will also ensure that they can send you targeted traffic (customers), so that you can get that 83% of first time visitors your online business needs to survive.

About The Author

Richard Zwicky is a founder and the CEO of Metamend Software, www.metamend.com, a Victoria B.C. based firm whose cutting edge Search Engine Optimization software is recognized as the world leader in its field. Employing a staff of 10, the firmกs business comes from around the world, with clients from every continent. Most recently the company was recognized for their geolocational, or GIS, and phraseology and context search technologies.

[email protected]

This article was posted on November 20, 2003

by Richard Zwicky

Website Marketing 101

Website Marketing 101

by: Scott กGearsก

When it comes to website marketing and promotions, you need to start here…

Every website, whether new, old, or just a thought needs to consider the marketing that will be put that website in front of itกs targeted audience. Sounds easy huh? It just takes time, perseverance, and the will to succeed! A budget will help too!

The hardest part is sorting through all the crap thatกs available to (supposedly) help you. Yes, I said crap.

There is a mountain of businesses out there making incredible claims about FREE traffic generation, FREE hits, Mega sales, $20,000 in 3 hours, or worse, for a small fee of $29.95 we can… blah, blah, blah.

Save your money! I have spent enough for all of us.

Following through with our suggestions offers you the most lucrative, ethical, and professional ways to achieve substantial results and still sleep at night. No, you don’t have to go for your wallet, I will tell you about these programs in this article (for no charge). A good education will assist you the most.

If you already have a site, we recommend a Website Analysis.

Before You Build

#1 Have a plan Not just a good idea. Take your idea and formulate a complete plan around your goals. Highlight any USPกs you may have.

#2 Build Metatags into every category page! This is crucial to targeted traffic success with the Directories and Search Engines. You need to be found, not by your company name (only) but by กkeywordsก that the general public would use to find your type of business or service. DO NOT just pick any words, this is critical!

#3 Use those keyword phrases throughout your site or particular page. Reinforce what topic you are addressing within that page (content).

#4 Publish an article or newsletter that shows you are an authority on the topics you cover (or try to sell). Just a spiffy sales letter is not enough. This is also critical in acquiring the email addresses of prospective customers.

#5 Create some banner ads with impact for future partnership advertising. You will use these on your site as well as banner partners you can swap impressions with.

#6 Begin considering what types of businesses or partners would or could compliment your offerings. Start a list.

#7 Important: Create a budget for marketing your website. Yes, there are many things that you can implement for free, however, successful websites HAVE spent money wisely to get them to where they are. Don’t be fooled, you WILL spend money on marketing your website it could be potentially more than what your website costs you to build. The verse goes like this… กBuild it and they won’t comeก. You may have already learned this, and that is why you’re here.

Good luck with your promotions!

Copyright © 19962003

SS and Hyperformance Media

http://www.hyperformancemedia.com

[email protected]

About The Author

Scott is the Founder and Sr. Project Manager for Hyperformance Media.com, a Technology Marketing Company serving online businesses since 1996. His 23+ years of experience in the computer industry will help you succeed. Their website offers free education & resources that will assist any business in successfully marketing their company online.

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 03, 2003

by Scott กGearsก

กInternet Marketing Simplified! 2 Pillars For Achi

กInternet Marketing Simplified! 2 Pillars For Achieving Massive Resultsก

by: Jeff Smith

Are you confused by the flood of information on how to improve your internet marketing results?

Mastering the search engines, payperclick advertising, affiliate marketing, website design, writing articles, and on it goes.

Doesn’t it seem more and more complicated to focus in on what really works and what doesn’t?

After working to build many businesses from the ground up over the last 10 years, itกs more clear than ever that there are 2 main principles that will largely dictate your success in any business. All of the other techniques build on these first two principles.

Think of these two main principles as the cement pillars that hold up a bridge without them, no matter how well you construct the bridge, it will still fall down.

Focus your energies, time and resources around meeting these two key principles you will immediately see a big difference in your results.

PRINCIPLE #1

You must have a well positioned product, fulfilling a hot desire within a clearly identifiable and accessible target market.

Letกs break this down.

Making a profit in business is really quite a simple concept, you have to earn more revenue than your cost. Revenue minus cost is your profit.

So where does that cost come from?

The two big sources of costs are: costs associated with creating or finding your product to sell and cost of reaching your market to sell your product

It only makes sense then that identifying a hot desire within a market you know how to reach will mean much lower costs for your businss. Ultimately, this means more profit for you.

Have you ever run against the wind? Tried to swim upstream in a river? Walk one way in a crowd when everyone else was walking the other way?

Itกs a very tough lesson to learn.

Iกve been brought it to consult with companies that have burned through millions of dollars before learning this lesson.

You cannot FORCE a lowdemand product on a market no matter how much money you spend on marketing.

You cannot hope to reach enough buyers in the entire marketplace even with a very highdemand product in one segment.

In fact, Iกve seen situations where unknown entrepreneurs enter a market, quickly identify a hot desire, address it with a less than perfect product and in a very short time have created wealth 100X higher than anyone else in that market.

An old mentor of mine used to tell me all the time, กfocus on the low lying fruit thereกs far more than enough to go aroundก

PRINCIPLE #2

You must reach your market with a clear, empathetic message that instantly catches your readers attention, interest, desire and moves them to see your product as THE answer to their deepest desires.

If you were reading closely, youกll recognize Principle #2 as the same principles that underly great copywriting.

How do you become a great copywriter and master Principle #2?

1. Research, research and research. I make sure I have a pulse on my target marketกs desires, needs, emotional triggers. Focus in on WHY they want a solution to a particular problem. Research takes many forms…

speak with them

survey them

read what they read

talk to others who do business with your market

test using articles and special reports to guage the response

do what they do

By doing this you should have content for 2030 (at least) different benefits for your product.

Then….

2. Polish your benefit statements. This is where you can use books of action verbs, swap files (samples of great ads, letters and webpages), the services of a copywriter. This is the technical aspect of copywriting which can be learned by reading other great material.

Far too many people go right to #2, as a result their benefit statements seem bland, miss the mark or seem the same as everyone else.

Next time you get distracted by the latest and greatest tip, technique or strategy know that focusing on these 2 fundamental principles: Indemand product ideas and effective copywriting, will make the most difference to your pocketbook in both today and in the future.

About The Author

Discover how to create your own bestselling eBooks, Special reports or books to sell online …AND keep 100% of the profits. Limited time complimentary access to 7Part Minicourse will get you started quickly and easily. Visit: http://www.highertrustmarketing.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on March 17, 2004

by Jeff Smith