How Much Face-Time Does Your Website Need?

By Jerry Bader (c) 2009

Episodic Memory

Think of an event that has stayed with you for years and will probably stay with you forever. Perhaps it's a life altering experience like the birth of your daughter, or maybe it's an inconsequential incident that refuses to disappear from your memory. These kinds of experiences, or episodes, create what psychologists call Episodic Memory, memories that are associated with a specific experience. By delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, informative video presentation you create the episodic memory that is the essence of product or brand positioning.

Semantic Memory

Now think of a strongly held opinion. Chances are that opinion was formed by some long forgotten experience. This is called Semantic Memory, a memory induced point-of-view formed by the brain's processing of an experience where it retains the significance but buries the memory of the specific event. Consistent, continuous, ongoing marketing campaigns that focus on what makes you special have the long-term psychological effect of creating product preference even after the specific campaign details are forgotten.

Putting It All Together

From a marketing perspective, the opinions we hold and many of the products we purchase are the result of both episodic and semantic memory induced experiences. If your website doesn't generate these kinds of memories, it is not fulfilling its potential as a marketing presentation vehicle.

5 Ways To Connect To A Web Audience

In order for your website to reach its maximum marketing potential, it must make an impression on your audience, and it must connect to those potential clients on multiple levels, emotional, psychological and rational. In order to communicate to website viewers on all three levels you must effectively employ all the presentation options available: layout, text, images, audio, and video.

Some people learn best by reading, some by listening, and others by viewing. Each presentation element targets a different aspect of recognition and connects to the audience in different ways. By combining all five elements into a coherent presentation you relate to your viewers on multiple levels, each re-enforcing the other, creating a memorable experience. For an example of how all these elements work together to form an effective and efficient marketing presentation visit www.136words.com.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Episodic Memory

Think of an event that has stayed with you for years and will probably stay with you forever. Perhaps it's a life altering experience like the birth of your daughter, or maybe it's an inconsequential incident that refuses to disappear from your memory. These kinds of experiences, or episodes, create what psychologists call Episodic Memory, memories that are associated with a specific experience. By delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, informative video presentation you create the episodic memory that is the essence of product or brand positioning.

Semantic Memory

Now think of a strongly held opinion. Chances are that opinion was formed by some long forgotten experience. This is called Semantic Memory, a memory induced point-of-view formed by the brain's processing of an experience where it retains the significance but buries the memory of the specific event. Consistent, continuous, ongoing marketing campaigns that focus on what makes you special have the long-term psychological effect of creating product preference even after the specific campaign details are forgotten.

Putting It All Together

From a marketing perspective, the opinions we hold and many of the products we purchase are the result of both episodic and semantic memory induced experiences. If your website doesn't generate these kinds of memories, it is not fulfilling its potential as a marketing presentation vehicle.

5 Ways To Connect To A Web Audience

In order for your website to reach its maximum marketing potential, it must make an impression on your audience, and it must connect to those potential clients on multiple levels, emotional, psychological and rational. In order to communicate to website viewers on all three levels you must effectively employ all the presentation options available: layout, text, images, audio, and video.

Some people learn best by reading, some by listening, and others by viewing. Each presentation element targets a different aspect of recognition and connects to the audience in different ways. By combining all five elements into a coherent presentation you relate to your viewers on multiple levels, each re-enforcing the other, creating a memorable experience. For an example of how all these elements work together to form an effective and efficient marketing presentation visit www.136words.com.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

How much time does it take your website to deliver your marketing message? Assuming the site traffic you generate is the least bit interested in what you have to say, how much of what you're saying do they remember, or more to the point, how much do they need to remember?

Have you ever thought about, or even considered, how much face-time your website needs to be effective? It is probably the last thing many business website operators ever think about, let alone do anything about.

The notion of 'stickiness' has been around for as long as the Web has been used as a commercial vehicle, and stickiness is a vital website ingredient. Developers, designers, and marketing experts are continuously coming up with ways to keep people on their clients' websites. Many of these sticky methods do work and keep people on sites for hours, but are they effective; just because someone stays on your site for hours doesn't necessarily mean they have any intention of doing business with you, especially if these so called sticky ingredients are implemented without any commercial purpose.
Sticky Doesn't Necessarily Mean Effective

Many sticky concepts were developed for sites whose financial model was based on advertising, which makes sense; the longer people stay on a site the more chance they will see the ads presented, and the more likely they will click on one of them. But for sites that are in business to sell something and are not just advertising vehicles, stickiness takes on a whole different purpose.

The challenge is to make what you have to say engaging so that it attracts attention, informative so that it explains the offering, AND entertaining so that it is retained in memory. We have a goal for each website or campaign we create, and that is to turn advertising into content, and content into an experience, a challenge for sure, but one that needs to be achieved if the client wants their site to be effective.

Provide A Memorable Experience In An Appropriate Amount of Time

Think of website face-time like a restaurant thinks of the dining experience. A restaurant has only so many tables and can only accommodate so many quests at one tíme; so in order to maximize profíts, restaurants try to turnover the tables as many times as possible. The trick is to provide guests with a delicious meal, great service, and a memorable experience without rushing them, but also in a way that turns the table over in an appropriate amount of time; allowing the restaurant to maximize it's seating capacity.

Websites for the most part, don't have the capacity problem, but the discipline of providing value, quality, and a memorable experience, in an appropriate amount of time is just as valid. Many complicated sticky site implementations take too long to unfold, and lack the purposeful payoff that makes them commercially effective.

People have other things to do, and will only invest so much time on your site; therefore you better say what you have to say as efficiently and effectively as possible. Site information presented as bulleted points may seem efficient, but it sure isn't effective due to its abbreviated nature and lack of psychological context; and sites with thousands of words of search engine optimized text may provide copious details, but if no one reads it, it isn't very effective or efficient.
So how much time is appropriate? How much time do you need to deliver your marketing message in a way that website visitors will remember it, and hopefully contact you? And what presentation method does the job both efficiently and effectively in that appropriate time frame?

One Message One Minute

It takes, discipline to focus on what makes you special, confidence in what you sell, and an understanding of how to deliver an effective website presentation.

Every presentation you make on your website should only take about a minute or two to deliver. If you have six points to make create six separate presentations, each concentrating on one message. That way visitors can choose which specific concern they need clarified without boring them, or loosing their interest by covering things they aren't interested in hearing.

With a series of focused, entertaining presentations, you maintain interest, establish memory, and get them hooked on what you can do for them. As a result they will delve deeper by investigating the other presentations; and with each viewing they become more comfortable with what you do, more aware of what makes you special, and more confident in your ability to deliver what you promise.

It's all about establishing a memorable experience in an easy to understand, fast-paced digestible format that will be memorable and effective.

Why Creating An Experience Is Important

If your visitors do not remember your website, than it won't ever achieve its full marketing potential. Over and over we talk about the importance of making your site a memorable experience. To fully appreciate why making your site a memorable experience is so important, you have to understand a little of how the brain retains memories.

Episodic Memory

Think of an event that has stayed with you for years and will probably stay with you forever. Perhaps it's a life altering experience like the birth of your daughter, or maybe it's an inconsequential incident that refuses to disappear from your memory. These kinds of experiences, or episodes, create what psychologists call Episodic Memory, memories that are associated with a specific experience. By delivering your marketing message in an entertaining, informative video presentation you create the episodic memory that is the essence of product or brand positioning.

Semantic Memory

Now think of a strongly held opinion. Chances are that opinion was formed by some long forgotten experience. This is called Semantic Memory, a memory induced point-of-view formed by the brain's processing of an experience where it retains the significance but buries the memory of the specific event. Consistent, continuous, ongoing marketing campaigns that focus on what makes you special have the long-term psychological effect of creating product preference even after the specific campaign details are forgotten.

Putting It All Together

From a marketing perspective, the opinions we hold and many of the products we purchase are the result of both episodic and semantic memory induced experiences. If your website doesn't generate these kinds of memories, it is not fulfilling its potential as a marketing presentation vehicle.

5 Ways To Connect To A Web Audience

In order for your website to reach its maximum marketing potential, it must make an impression on your audience, and it must connect to those potential clients on multiple levels, emotional, psychological and rational. In order to communicate to website viewers on all three levels you must effectively employ all the presentation options available: layout, text, images, audio, and video.

Some people learn best by reading, some by listening, and others by viewing. Each presentation element targets a different aspect of recognition and connects to the audience in different ways. By combining all five elements into a coherent presentation you relate to your viewers on multiple levels, each re-enforcing the other, creating a memorable experience. For an example of how all these elements work together to form an effective and efficient marketing presentation visit www.136words.com.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

7 Basics of Good Web Design

By George Peirson (c) 2009

Whether you are just starting a web design project, looking at revamping an existing site, or just wanting to double check the usability of your current web site you should consider these 7 Basics of Good Web Design.

These basics are aimed at new visitors/customers; your repeat customers will be judging your web site on different values. Just like wearing the appropriate clothes for a job interview, these basics will help you pick out the "look" of your web site so that you make a good first impression.

1. Fast Loading Web Site - Any way you look at it, a fast loading page should be your number 1 concern. The web is all about speed, fast searches, fast purchases, fast information. You can't have any of that with a slow loading page. Ask yourself this question - have you ever been on Google doing a search for something important and a link you clicked on didn't open up immediately? What did you do? Patiently wait for the page to open or move onto the next link on the page? My favorite sites open almost immediately.

So, a few suggestions: Make sure that your images are properly optimized. Don't use very many large images, save those for a different page. Keep any auto-running multimedia to a minimum, provide links to run media instead. Check your code for anything else that could affect your page loading times. Since text loads almost instantly go ahead and use all the text you want, just keep everything else under control.

2. No Meaningless Splash Page - Do you appreciate a fancy animation page that doesn't tell you anything and you have to wait for before the web site will open? Neither do I. The last thing I want once I find an interesting site is to wait through some animation before getting to the first page. This doesn't mean that I don't want multimedia on a site, I do. I just don't want an animation before the first page that forces me to wait for it to finish before getting onto the site. It's like having to wait for a salesperson to finish their memorized speech before you can ask them a question. No thanks! I like animation, just in the right place and at the right time. Plus, if I am a returning customer, I will have already seen that animation and don't need to see it again.

My suggestion is to use a smaller animation contained in your main landing page which also includes your main message and links to the rest of your site. It will make for a faster loading page (smaller file) and your visitors can go ahead with accessing your site without having to wait for the animation to finish.

One final note, don't ever put your logo as the only content on your landing page with a link that says "Enter Site". This just screams Unprofessional and will drive away potential visitors in droves. The last thing I want to do is to click on another link just to get into the site. This is a total waste of my time. I usually will skip a site if I see this.

3. No Annoying Web Gimmicks - Now that you have your visitor on your site quickly the one thing you don't want to do is to drive them away just as quickly. So, don't put anything annoying on that first page. No loud background music that makes them quickly hit the volume control or the back button on their browser. No flashing animations while they are trying to read your content. No popup, flyout, expanding ads that cover your home page. Basically, leave the gimmicks alone until you are sure that your visitor will stay on your site. Most casual visitors will leave your site in just a few seconds, no sense on driving them away more quickly.

Multimedia is great on a web site, just don't bombard your visitor with it first thing. If you want audio, then put in a nice picture with a link, like a picture of yourself with text saying something like "Let me tell you how to make fifty thousand this month!" If they are interested, they will click on the link and listen to your message; if they are not interested in audio, then you should be using a different pitch anyway.

Also, monitor what advertisers are putting on your site if you sell ad space. I am sure you have seen those ads with the animated dancing figure, cute the first time you see it. But after seeing it 10,000 times with every imaginable character I have added the company to a líst I keep of companies I won't do business with. So their animation has gone from "look at me" to "you annoy me" in my mind. Ads like these will impact your visitor's experience. So even if your site is perfectly designed, one misplaced ad can ruin all of your hard work.

4. Have a Clear Message - Too many web sites are a mish-mash of content. This is especially true of blog pages. Certain types of sites lend themselves to stream of consciousness content, but most don't. Make it easy for your viewer to understand what your web site is about, don't make them guess. Have a clear topic headline, followed by clear and concise text. This is also where a picture is worth a thousand words, but only if the picture directly pertains to your message.

You want your visitor to quickly understand what your message is. If they like your message, they will take the time to read the rest of your page and look around your web site. If they don't like your page, then it won't do you any good having them stay on your site anyway. So, don't make your visitors guess, let them know what you are about quickly and cleanly and you will have happy visitors. And when thinking about a sales page, a happy customer is a buying customer.

5. Coordinated Design - This one should be self evident, but it is surprising how many sites change their design for every page. You want your visitor to be comfortable in your site and one way to achieve that is by having a coordinated web design. Having a consistent logo, using a consistent color scheme, keeping your navigation in the same place. All of these help to create a coordinated design. This does not mean that you can't change colors or the "Look" on different segments of your site, but if you do, the changes should not be so drastic that it feels like you have moved on to a different site.

If you select one place for your logo, one place for your navigation, one look for your buttons or other common graphic elements and stick with those then you will be well on your way to a coordinated design. If you change colors for a different section, but keep the same logo location, the same navigation location, the same button shape, then your visitors will not become lost as they move from page to page.

6. Easy Navigation - Once you have grabbed your visitors attention you want them to be able to easily move around the different areas of your web site. This is done with easy to use navigation. There are three standard, accepted locations for navigation elements on a web page: along the top, on the left side, and at the bottom. I will usually put my main navigation either along the top or along the left side. I will then put text based navigation at the bottom of the page, this text based navigation is more for the search engines than anything else, but it also makes it easy for your visitors to move to the next page when they have reached the bottom of the current page.

Most people start reading a page from the top left and then read towards the bottom right. So navigation at the left or top will be seen as soon as someone enters your page. Also navigation at the left or top will not move or change position if the browser window is adjusted in size. The worst thing you can do is to put your main navigation on the right side of the page and have your page set for a large screen size. Let's say that your page is set for 1024 across with the navigation on the right, and someone views your page at 800 across, they will not see your navigation at all. The left side of your page will show perfectly, but the right side will be hidden outside of their viewing area. Of course by using floating or popup menus you can overcome some of these design limitations and keep your navigation visible at all times.

Unless you know that your audience will enjoy it, don't use Mystery Navigation. This is where your navigation is hidden within images, or spaced around the web page in some mysterious random order. This can be fun on gaming sites, or social networking sites, but in most cases the navigation should be easy to see and easy to use. If you do want to use Mystery Navigation, I would recommend keeping the text based navigation at the bottom of the page, just in case.

7. Have a "Complete" web site - And finally, no one wants to go to a web site only to find that the site is "Under Construction" and the content they are looking for is not there. These are words that you shouldn't ever use. If a section of your web site is not ready for prime time yet, then simply don't show it yet. It is better to have your site look complete and professional, then to have it look like a work in progress that should not be up on the web yet.

You can easily tell your visitors that you will be having more content in the future without having your site look like it is unfinished. Just use phrases like "Content Updated Weekly" or "New Products Added Monthly". Both of these will tell your visitors that it would be worth their time to come back and visit later, but neither one will make your site look unfinished. So no matter how small your web site is, give the impression that you have taken the time to complete the site before putting it up on the internet, this makes for a more professional presentation and a better visitor experience.

In Closing - By following these simple 7 Basics of Good Web Design you will be well on your way to having an easy to use and successful web presence. Just keep in mind what you look for when you first land on a web page after doing a web search in Google or Yahoo, or other search engine. If you want fast loading pages, make sure your pages load fast. If you want to be able to find what you are looking for quickly and easily, then make sure you have easy navigation. Just keep your first time visitor in mind, put yourself in their web shoes and make your web site an enjoyable place to visit and success should follow.

About The Author
George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur and Internet Trainer. He is the author of over 40 multimedia based tutorial training titles covering such topics as Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver. To see his training sets visit www.howtogurus.com . Article copyright 2009 George Peirson

How to Get Free Press

By Kim Roach (c) 2008

Free press is one of the best ways to spread the word about your website, your product, and your brand. However, most people don't know where to start. Fortunately, it's really not as hard as you might think.

There are thousands of articles being published every single day on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Bloggers, writers, and journalists have pages to fill and all of them are actively looking for interesting topics to write about.

Many people forget that PR is about public relations. It's not just about writing a press release. It's about getting to know the journalists. Find out what kind of stories they're working on and see what you can do to help them. PR is really about listening and engaging key influencer's.

You need to connect. Connect with journalists who are writing about stories in your industry. Send them a quick note to tell them what you like about their writing. Provide them with story ideas within your industry. Provide them with value and they will have open ears whenever you want to pitch your story.

But remember, a journalist is extremely busy. You must respect their time. Keep everything short and sweet. Get to the point quickly and concisely.

Most journalists can be easily contacted through email, which can be found on their website, in their byline, or within the publication they write for. However, many writers and journalists can also be found on a number of different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media platforms are another great way to connect with bloggers and mainstream media journalists.

However, what if you could get reporters and writers for major publications like the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal to actually come to you for their information for articles?

This is exactly what you'll get with PR Leads, a service which connects experts with reporters. At $99 per month, this is one of the best publicity bargains around without actually hiring a full time PR agency.

This is one of the easiest ways to get your name in print. PR Leads connects you with journalists in your area of expertise. They put you in direct contact with reporters who are actively looking for quotes. In fact, you'll get 3-5 emails per day sent directly to your inbox.

However, if $99 is a bit too high for you, there's also a free service called Help a Reporter Out that offers a similar service. It's run by a New York PR guy named Peter Shankman.

Much like PR leads, they connect you with PR people and journalists who are looking for sources.

Each day, they will send you up to 3 emails containing anywhere from 2-10 queries per email. You can then respond to any queries that are targeted within your niche.

This free service actually started out as a group on Facebook called "If I can help a reporter out, I will." However, it got so big that Peter decided to start sending the enquiries by email. They now have over 10,000 members getting free PR leads.

You can sign up now at www.helpareporter.com .

Have you ever wanted to be a featured guest on National Television?

If you're looking to get on national TV shows, there's a specialized directory that will provide you with all the contact info you'll need to apear on top TV shows, including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN Fox News, CNBC, Nightline, Bloomberg TV, and many more.

This incredible service is known as "Harrison's Guide" and will give you 927 key contacts for 259 top national TV and cable shows that interview guests.

You'll find out exactly who to contact at each show and what to say to get them to put you on the air.

Find out more at http://www.freepublicity.com/getontoptv/ .

Participation is the key to good press. Get to know the influencers. But most importantly, get to know your readers. In today's world of social media, word of mouth can spread faster than ever. Everyone is now a content creator, a blogger, a social bookmarker, and an evangelist. These are the people you want to connect with.

People used to say that you had to get out there and knock on doors, but today you need to leave blog comments, interact on social networks, and above all: provide value. Contribute to the conversation.

Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Ning, Google Groups, and many others can bring massive amounts of traffic, links, and attention. However, many people miss out on one of the biggest benefits of social media...

Feedback

Your customers are having conversations at this very moment in forums, social networks, blogs, and other media outlets. Connect with them and you'll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you'll get back.

This feedback can then be used to improve your products, your content, and your customer experience.

Building good PR is a process of building relationships with key influencers, building relationships with your community of readers and customers, and most importantly: creating insanely valuable content.

By being remarkable, you'll naturally be noticed by bloggers, reporters, journalists, and talk show hosts. Build a business that's worth talking about and people will start talking.

About The Author
Article by Kim Roach. Grab Front Page Rankings in 24 hours - Free Google Domination Videos show you how.

10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools

By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Happy Birthday Google!

One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.

It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.

Google Has Already Impacted Many People

Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...

Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.

It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.

And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.

With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.

You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.

For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.

10. Google Docs

A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: BizwareMagic.com . If you liked the SEO tips above, why not try this Free 7 Day Traffic Course .
2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

How to Use Forums to Drive Laser Targeted Traffíc to Your Site in 7 Steps

By Iyabo Oyawale (c) 2008

There is no doubt about the fact that Forum posting works when it comes to driving traffic to a site. On many occasions, I have successfully used posting to forums to gain exposure to my affiliate landing page, squeeze page, sales page, etc.

I tell you, if you're really smart, the goal of every forum post you make is to get as many people to subscribe to your líst! Posting to forums is a very fast and powerful way to build your base of subscribers in as little as 30 minutes. Below is a step-by-step guide:

Step 1 - Find Forums About Your Niche Very Easily

Just Google the following:

+"your niche" +forum
or
+"your niche" +"discussion board"

For instance, if I am looking for Forums in the Internet Marketing field, I type +"Internet Marketing" +forum. The results show the top Internet marketing Forums such as:

www.im4newbies.com/forum
www.warriorforum.com
www.forums.digitalpoint.com

Step 2 - Join the Forums and Set Up Your Signature

Remember to include your website address in your signature. Signature is another name for your resource box. Your resource box is just like an 'about the author info'. This appears at the end of every post you make and drives traffic to your website.

Step 3 - Read the Rules and Regulations of the Forum Before Posting

This ensures that your posts are not deleted by the Administrators of the Forum. Now, don't go about spamming all members of the Forum with your website advert. In fact, I will advise you not to post an obvious ad. It's a pure waste of time because it will be deleted.

So, what's next?

Step 4 - Ask for Input

Approach from a weak man's position. Assuming you've written an article on your site entitled "13 Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Site." You could make a post asking folks to check out the article and see if you missed anything. Or you can ask for additional points to add to your article. Of course you'll have your opt ín box at the end of the article with a compelling offering.

Let's say you've written an article on meeting the right partner. You could post a message like this: "If you had a chance to learn how to meet your right partner now, what would you do?"

It's a great way to get the attention of forum members to your article. You also get them engaged in the article by asking for their input. And who knows, you may also get other publishers who would use your content in their ezines, thereby getting more exposure for your site.

Step 5 - Ask for a Critical Assessment

If you are the type that is not easily hurt by honest feedback even when it hurts, you can go to a forum and ask for a honest critique. You may think this will not make people sign up for your líst, but I tell you, many people will end up subscribing to it. It's a more indirect and acceptable way to ask people to check out your site without blatant advertising.

Plus, the feedback they give you may help to make your squeeze page even more compelling. Ask them if it would persuade them to give it a try, assuming they were in your target market (of course, you already know they are by the forum you selected). And, if they say no, ask them why. You can get valuable information on what they want (and don't want) this way.

There are two types of forums where you should ask for critiques: the niche forum itself and a marketing forum. You'll likely get more sign-ups from the niche forum and good advice to test out from the marketing forum (although you'll get some opt-ins there as well).

Step 6 - Ask Your Target Market What They Want

Unknown to most people, this is one of the best ways to develop products and services. And most times, Forum members are ready to tell you what they'll buy and give you ideas for articles, auto-responder content, your blog posts, whatever you need. People guess the products their target market will want and create them only to discover no one is interested in the product, but with this approach, you have real people telling you what product they want, how they want it and how much they are prepared to pay for it.

The way you would use this technique to get them to subscribe is to post something like, "what's your biggest question about loosing weight?" Or "what's the single most important thing you'd like to know about building a business?"

Don't forget to ask if they're willing to pay for solutions to their problems and have them give you an indication of how much they would be willing to pay. Powerful stuff!

Let them know you've already answered 10 questions (your 10 step mini-course loaded in your auto-responder), for example. Then they'll be more likely to sign-up. Make sure you point out that you'll add to your mini-course with the answers to the questions they've provided, and that they'll get answers to the existing questions in your mini-course PLUS the new ones when they subscribe. Everybody wins!

Step 7 - Provide a Step-By-Step Guide or Video Tutorial

If someone asks how to create an ebook, give them a progression of steps they can take. Or, make a Camtasia tutorial video showing them how. Now that you've got them to your site, you'll want to "make them a proposal they can't refuse."

Provide a Líst of Resources and Websites

In addition to checklists, resource lists with website URLs make a great site for them to bookmark! Make sure you supply more than just links. Make it a huge info-page of information. A collection of resources, links to everything you have - articles, video, audio, your blog, other useful sites, tools, you name it.

Solve a Problem for People

If someone asks for help or asks a question, provide your experience and try to help them. But to maximize your odds of getting both the asker of the question and everyone else who reads the post to subscribe to your líst, try to phrase your answer in one of the following two ways:

1. Give them tips, techniques, shortcuts, secrets, or anything that offers both the promise of exclusive information and fast results. A shortcut to success.

2. Whenever possible, supply them with specific results. Think about it. When you want to learn how to make income online, you go to someone who is making revenue online to guide you. This quickly establishes you as an authority in that area.

And by helping them, maybe - just maybe - they'll click on the link in your signature to check out your website. If you direct them to a blog post or article you wrote to answer their question, they'll be even more likely to investigate.

That's all there is to it but at the end of the day, it's a failure-proof way to drive serious traffic to your website using Forum Posts. Apply it and see your traffic soar through the roof. Don't say I didn't warn you!

About The Author
Iyabo Oyawale is an established Internet Entrepreneur. Discover The Top 10 Ways to Make 100 Dollars Daily from the Internet from her FREE ebook! Visit http://askiyabooyawale.com for instant download!

These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily

By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008

No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms... SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.

Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the líst.

Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.

1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses that supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must provide quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.

2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.

3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, make sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing of all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... optimized (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters).

Remember, your title and description should be keyword targeted and are the first contact/impression anyone will have of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.

4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.

5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.

6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffíc and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution, including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sell your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to improve your rankings and traffic.

7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain, but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls, but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.

8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you haven't any knowledge of installing server-side scripts. Besides, search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.

9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming, but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in. I like using the simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.

10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.

First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines. They give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.

Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.

Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffíc into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketíng, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.

Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffíc you're seeking. Just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: http://www.bizwaremagic.com . If you liked the SEO tips above, why not try this Free 7 Day Traffic Course: http://www.marketingtoolguide.com .
2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

10 Quick Tips For Making Your Large Graphics Load Faster

By Heather Colman (c) 2008

There's nothing worse then having to sit and wait while the images are loading on your webpages. We've become a society of convenience with microwaves, instant soup and lightening fast servers. We want things in the blink of an eye.

Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!

Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.

1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.

Example: width="144" height="259"

Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.

This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.

If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.

Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.

2. Size Your Image Correctly

Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.

To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.

You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.

Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.

Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.

3. Animations

Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.

Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.

4. Use the Correct Image Format

If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.

A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.

The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.

The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)

5. Slice Those Images

Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.

I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.

Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.

6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.

If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.

7. Use Thumbnails

Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.

I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.

I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.

8. Browser Cache

Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.

To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.

9. Optimize Your Images

Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.

I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.

10. Progressive Optimization

A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.

This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.

Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.

In Conclusion

As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.

But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.

About The Author
Graphic Designer Heather Colman helps virtual assistants, coaches, and other professionals online bring visual impact and depth to their products with custom 3d images and website graphics. Visit her site at: CustomDesignGraphics.com .

Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy!

Does dominating Google rankings quick and easy sound too good to be true? It really isn't. Following are a bunch of surefire SEO tips that have kept hundreds of my clients' sites on top of Google for years, with new ones every month.

There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.

Domain Names

Age:Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:

http://www.AllWhoIs.com

Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.
LD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.

Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.

Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.

Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...

Keywords:

Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.

Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.

Competition:

Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...

Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.

Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.

Content:

The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...

Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.

Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.

Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.

Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)

Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)

Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:

Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.

I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.
Anyway, here are my results for both...

SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)

Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."

WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)

Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic

Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!

By Michael Small (c) 2008

Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You

If I was to ask you right now "Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?", what would you say?

What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?"

If you would answer "No" or "I don't know" to any of these questions, you would be amongst the 60% of web site owners whose web sites are missing out on traffic because they are not designed for search engine compatibility. Has your web designer optimized YOUR site for your target keywords? Have they made sure it is visible in Google and the other major search engines? More than likely, you don't know because they haven't told you. Ask them today!
But what exactly is search engine optimization? Simply explained, it is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code to make it more search engine compatible.

In my experience, web designers keep a lot of secrets. One of the biggest ones is that they have no clue about what makes a web site compatible with search engines. Another is that they like to build expensive, flashy sites and so convince their clients that an attractive web site never uses a lot of text.

So your web designer may have included target keywords and phrases in your Title tag and META tags (in the HTML code of your site). They may even have explained to you that these are very important references that search engines use when ranking web sites for search relevancy. I've met many a web designer who claimed that this was all it took to optimize a web site.

But did you know that you need to tailor your Title and META tags for each page of your site? Did you know that optimizing your site meta tags is only a tiny fraction of the job? Did you know that search engines actually need to find target keywords within the visible body text on your site pages in order to find it a relevant match for related search queries? Did you know that they also need to find those same keywords and phrases used within the text links that help people navigate your pages?

It's true. For search engines to rank your site highly for particular words or phrases that you would expect potential visitors to type in, each individual page of your site MUST be built with those words and phrases in mind.

For example, if you are a Miami florist, you should have logical search phrases such as "flowers", "Miami florists", "bouquets Miami" and even target search terms such as "Miami weddings", "Valentine's Day gifts" etc integrated in your title and meta tags, as well as in the visible text of your site. Better still, build and optimize a page for each product or service that you offer. That way, if anyone types in those phrases in a search engine, your site is more likely to appear higher in the search results.

Can you honestly say your web designer has built your site with your target search terms in mind? If not, it might be time to schedule an appointment with them.
So why wasn't your site optimized for search engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site and how it was built, you'll find a million different reasons for this. Many web developers believe it is the site marketer's job to ensure the site is found in search engines and vice versa. Most don't bother checking that your site is found in the important search engines, assuming you or your marketing department will do it. Or perhaps it wasn't discussed in your original development budget.

Not many web design firms know how or have time to optimize a site successfully, no matter what they tell you. They might feel it is outside their core business, or they might believe it is not part of the "design process". Consequently, your site can be launched for many months without the search engines having any idea it exists.

Some web development firms don't include even the most basic META tags in your site code when building it. Or those that do include META tags without close consultation with you, resulting in the wrong search terms used and poor performance. This is quite typical! Remember that search engine optimization requires both client interaction and constant monitoring to be successful.

The bottom line? If your designer can't show you substantial search engine traffic they've achieved for other clients, chances are they won't be able to optimize your site properly. Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists have sprung up to fill the need for these services. Many SEO's will work either directly with you or with your web site designer to ensure your site gets the exposure it deserves in the most popular search engines and directories. My suggestion is to pay a little more for a specialist with a good track record and reap the rewards.

Remember, search engine users generally only explore the first 10 or 20 search results. If you site isn't in the top 20, you won't be found, it's as simple as that. Always include search engine optimization into your marketing budget or your site could be as effective as a billboard at the end of a dead end street.

By Kalena Jordan (c) 2008