Archive for December, 2009

December
23

Using RSS Feeds

So … what in the hell is an RSS feed and how can you use to to make an impact on your online business? Fair question…

“An RSS feed is an XML file that summaries content, including links to them and other metadata, that a user can subscribe to using an RSS aggregator.”

RSS stand for “Real Simple Syndication”, and it is really simple and easy to use. Simply put, you add some code to your site, people subscribe to your feed and using RSS you can send your message to those individuals quickly. When your website is updated, the modifications and updates are published and emailed to those subscribing to your RSS feed.

A great place to start is FeedZilla.

Posted in Webmaster | 1 Comment »

December
20

Why Search Engines are Important

If your business is internet based and you have a website, then you understand what the importance of attracting targeted visitors/customers. Once they land on your website it is important that they purchase your services. That’s why you have a website, correct?

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways you can promote your website online by targeting your customers direct through their search queries. It is important that you know the basic SEO marketing techniques as described below:

1) Optimize your website for your customers and not for Search Engines

2) Use some specific keyword phrases / keywords that you will bring conversion for you. Study your industry and competitors and then test with PPC before starting your SEO campaign.

3) Your website content must include “Call to Action” words so that your visitor is forced to click links present on your website.

4) Use less images and more text. The only images that should be used are those that will entice the visitor to buy.

5) Linking structure for your site must be user friendly.

6) Add an XML Sitemap on your website that includes information for all pages.

7) Label your images via ALT text, but don’t keyword stuff.

8) Keep your website source code simple for search engine crawlers.

9) Move JavaScript to external file.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help you to achieve good rankings for your website in different search engines. It is important that your site gets listed in first seven listings. If your website ranks down the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) then you will hardly get any views and few, if any, clicks.

Along with optimization for your website it is important that you do web marketing for you business. You will find number of free and paid tools that helps you to get your website noticed in search engine. You can consider social bookmarking services, blog postings and submissions, article submissions and press release submissions for your business.

Posted in SEM/SEO | 2 Comments »

December
18

How to Use Article Marketing Effectively

By submitting well-written and relevant articles in good and free article directories you can obtain more traffic and better ranking for your website. This is referred to as Article Marketing and is considered an effective way to increase website visibility. Write your article after researching the particular topic on internet, so that it covers all useful information. Do remember if your article is well written, it will provide good impression for your website.

??Distribute your article through article directories instead of adding it to your own website or blog. Many article directories allow you to pass links to your website and thus this increase the backlinks for your site too. Article directories also provide “Contextual links” that not only helps in increase of backlinks but also helps in increasing your website rankings n major search engines like Google, MSN (Bing) & Yahoo!.??

While writing your article do take care of following points:

  • Article must be relevant to your website theme or your services.
  • Article must is error free, no grammar or spelling mistakes.
  • It must be unique and no duplicate content must be included in it i.e. no content must be copied from other online write-ups.
  • Headline or Title of the article must be Strong and catchy
  • Proper introduction or summary must be there
  • Article must be informative and not related to sale for your product or services.

By submitting good article on regular basis you may also develop authority & recognition for your website. So don’t wait any more and start with article marketing and see the difference.

Posted in Webmaster | 3 Comments »

December
16

Targeting Proper Keywords

Target Proper Keywords and Improve you Search Engine Rankings

If you want your website to gain visibility in the search engines and want to gain most important positions then you have to focus correctly on your keyword research. Before you start optimization your website, the most important step is “Keyword Research”.

Try these tips:

1) Your rankings depend on the competitiveness of the keyword you choose, it is important for you to have an idea for your keywords and competitors who are ranking top for that particular keyword.

2) While doing keyword research focus on keywords that are frequently searched by users on internet. Think from normal user point of view to find one of the best keyword for your website. It is meaningless to have top ranking for the keyword that hardly gets searched.

3) Don’t forget to check your competitor once you find keyword for your website that isn’t too competitive but highly searched. The best way to find the feasibility of the particular keyword is by searching backlinks for the top five websites in Google. The more number of backlinks point the websites for the particular keyword makes it more difficult for the optimization process. You have to do aggressive link building to achieve top rankings and drop your competitors.

4) Once you have finalized your keyword don’t forget to modify meta tags, title, web content using the particular keyword for your website. By targeting and placing one keyword in your page content and meta tags, you will help search engines to understand your web-page theme.

5) Along with on-page factors Search Engines also weighs off-page factors for the websites. These include link building, blog postings, article submissions, press release distributions, social bookmarking, directory submissions as well as some other resources where you can post link for your website. Getting links from authority websites are counted as more valuable by search engines. Make your link anchor text keyword oriented.

6) Do remember “if you target wrong keyword for your website all your efforts will be in vein” so do keywords research for your website carefully and smartly.

Posted in SEM/SEO | No Comments »

December
12

Google Adense “Estimated” Change

A few days ago Google AdSense made a “slight” change by adding the word “estimated” to the line for earnings. So, instead of seeing how much you have earned today, you see how much you have “estimated” earning.

According to Google:

In order to be more transparent about how our system calculates earnings, we’ve added the words “Estimated” and “Finalized” next to “Earnings” throughout your account. Rest assured these terminology changes don’t reflect a change to the way your finalized earnings are calculated. It’s simply intended to give you a clearer idea of what’s our estimation of your earnings and what’s finalized.

My personal issue on this is it doesn’t matter. Earnings are earnings and it is just “legalese”.

Posted in AdSense | No Comments »

December
9

Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Optimization

Summary from SES Chicago …

Sin #1 – Unclear Call to Action
Obvious Standard: If the Call to Action is not clear or “missing” it is costing you a lot of money.
Suggestion: Use AttentionWizard.com as an Landing Page Predicting Tool.

Sin #2 – Too Many Choices
Suggestion: Don’t overload the visitor with a myriad of choices. Think “multiple choice test” in college. Anything more than five and your brain shuts down.
Example: NewYorkBarBells.com
Slam: Omniture’s Download Option is a perfect example of what not to do. For whatever reason, Omniture has been given a label as one of the best analytical companies. What most people don’t know is Omniture was built on the platform of MyComputer.com, a $30 a month web stats program. Don’t waste your money on expensive and unused analytics reports and instead hire quality people that will put into play those things which should be tested for your site.

Sin #3 -Asking for Too Much Information
Suggestion: Use a short form when requesting information vs. a long form initially. The information you request should only be needed if it is required for the current transaction.

Sin #4 – Too Much Text
The less text, the better. Too many people online have the attention span of a lit match!

Sin #5 – Not Keeping Your Promises

Sin #6 – Visual Distractions
Leave your creativity at home when it comes to landing page design – less is more. Landing pages should be built to convert not to show off your design skills.

Sin #7 – Lack of Trust
Move Your Symbols of Trust up on the page. PetSmart has their trust symbol ABOVE their brand.

Posted in Webmaster | 2 Comments »

December
8

SEOs Blood Pressure Rises Over Google Personal Search

It seems to happen often, a change occurs and SEOs feel the “sky is falling”. It happens again. Google has been serving personalized searches for a couple of years now, but SEOs really didn’t care because a person had to be logged into their Google account. This didn’t happen often, so it didn’t stress SEOs out.

And then it happens … Google announces they are going to serve personalized results whether the user is logged in or not. SEOs are freaking out because “optimization” now takes on a whole new definition because nothing was consistent. Well, nothing was consistent before … due to the fact that depending on where you lived, you were served different results from different data centers. Why no complaints then?

I agree with Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable – I’m not worried about this. SEO is the same as it always has been. You can’t concentrate on ranking alone, as rankings fluctuate. You have to concentrate on click-through rates, time on page, and conversion rate. Focusing just on ranking is a waste of time. You have to ensure once they get to the page, their process is as easy as possible so conversion can occur.

Google doesn’t owe anything to you, it isn’t a service you pay for and they have the right to change it to make it better for them. They have no responsibility to make it better for you. It is their business, their money making the organic listings work. Deal with change. Don’t whine and don’t bitch. Instead, find a solution that meets your needs. It is out there – go find it.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

December
7

Deal Closer: Yahoo! & Microsoft

In the “news that makes you yawn” department, more info on the forever pending Yahoo!/Microsoft deal … and it seems the deal now just needs to the right people approve the deal and it will be done. And hopefully then, Yahoo! Search goes away.

Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corporation today announced that the companies have finalized and executed the definitive Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement in accordance with the letter agreement announced in July.

The companies released the following joint statement:

“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”


Design Premium CS4

Posted in Yahoo | No Comments »

December
3

Site Speed Graph Added to Google Webmaster Tools

There was a lot of talk at Webmaster World last month regarding Google beginning to use “Site Speed” as part of their algorithm. Could having a section in Google Webmaster Tools be ensure to convince even the hardest critics (including me) that Google is going to factor site speed?

Time will tell. For now, see my article on installing and implementing YSlow functions.

Posted in Webmaster | No Comments »