Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 8)

This article is about getting free, organic traffic from the
Search Engines. Most people know that there are three major
Search Engines, namely Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN). 
Each Search Engine's algorithm is different but their core
structure is the same. That's why if a site is ranked well in
one Search Engine, it would probably be quite close to the top in
the other ones, too. 

 So the question is, how does one get a website to the top of
Google, Yahoo or Bing? No one, except those select few working
in these Search Engine companies knows the exact algorithm they
use to determine the rankings of websites. But through
experience, webmasters can make fairly intelligent guesses. 
That's how the whole science of Search Engine Optimization (or
SEO) came about. 

 Generally, there are two parts to SEO. Firstly, there is on-page
SEO and secondly, there is off-page SEO. Search Engines rank
each individual web page, not just a website. Therefore, on-page
SEO refers to what is on the web page that will cause the Search
Engine algorithm to rank it highly. Likewise, off-page SEO
refers to the factors outside of that web page that cause it to
rank well in the Search Engines. 

 This article will focus on on-page SEO. 

 As far as on-page SEO is concerned, the two most important things
the Search Engines look for are firstly, the title tag and
secondly, the content on the web page. Title tags are also
called h1 tags in HTML or computer language. The text that you
type within the opening h1 tag and the closing h1 tag is the
title for the article. This is the primary thing the Search
Engines look at to determine what a web page is about. Thus, if
a web page is about sports cars, a title might be 'The Top Ten
Selling Sports Cars in 2009'. 

 Good on-page SEO is where the title matches what many people are
searching for in that niche. Therefore, in the title above, if
there are many people searching for 'top ten selling sports cars
2009' or 'top selling sports car' or 'best selling sports car' or
'top ten sports cars' and the like, the web page above would rank
highly in the Search Engines. This is why keyword research (that
was explained in part 2 of this series of articles) is so
important. Accurate keyword research will dig out the search
terms most people are using in any particular niche. 

 Besides the title tag, there are two other tags which are less
important. They are the description tag and the keyword tag. 
The description tag refers to what the web page is about and the
keyword tag comprises of the main keywords that characterize the
content on the web page. These two are not as important as the
title tag, so as long as you ensure the main keywords that are in
the title are also in the description and keyword tags, it would
be fine. In the example above, the main keywords would be 'top',
'selling', 'sports cars' and '2009'. 

 Naturally, what follows the title would be the content of the
article. Search Engine algorithms have become more sophisticated
today compared to the past. In the past, webmasters could get
away with illogical stuffing of the main keyword into the article
and the Search Engines would rank them highly simply because the
main keyword appeared many times (whether the article made much
sense or not). But these days, Search Engines use Latent
Semantic Indexing (LSI) and other techniques to ensure that the
content of the article does make sense and provides information
of value to the reader before it ranks it highly. 

 Therefore, the best way to ensure the Search Engines rank your
web page highly is to provide good content in line with the title
of the article. As long as the content is relevant and provides
value, the Search Engines will rank it favorably. 

 The next article will be all about off-page SEO, which is a much
wider topic.


No comments:

Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 7)

It is said that traffic is the lifeblood of your business in
Internet Marketing. And that is true. Every Internet marketer
could do with more traffic. As covered in the last two parts of
this series, there are paid methods and there are free methods to
generate traffic. The basic difference between them is that paid
methods generally produce faster and more targeted results
whereas free methods tend to produce slower results and sometimes
less targeted ones. So the key to using free methods effectively
is to make them as targeted as possible. 

 That is where your keyword research comes in. Remember the long
tail keywords you have compiled in the previous parts of this
series? These long tail keywords ensure that only people
searching for those particular things are going to click on your
links. That brings up the most important essence of all free
traffic generations methods - Links. 

 All free generation methods can be boiled down to one basic
activity - putting links in strategic websites. The more links
you have in these strategic websites pointing back to your
website, the better it is. This is what Internet marketers call
'link juice' or 'link love'. When the search engines find a link
on another website pointing to yours, it counts it as a 'vote'
for your website, indicating that your website is important in
the eyes of the other website. The more links (or 'votes') you
get from other websites, the more important your website is and
the higher it ranks in the search engines. The ultimate aim of
all free traffic generation methods is to get your website ranked
number one (the first listed website on page One of the SERP) or
at least be listed on the first page of the SERP for any
particular keyword. 

 But there is a word of caution. The search engines frown upon a
website that gets a huge surge of links pointing to itself all of
a sudden (like a hundred in a day). The reason is that it does
not appear natural. There are certain legitimate occasions when
this might happen, for example a big media event that highlights
one website and every news portal, fan's website and social media
site points to it all on the same day. In such a case, the
search engines will push that website on to page One for a few
days and then when the buzz over that website dies down (and no
new links are pointing to it), then it is removed from page One. 
That is not what you'd like to see happening to your website. 

 To avoid that, you need to build up the number of links pointing
to your website naturally. 'Naturally' to the search engines
means two things - a gradual buildup of links over time and links
using different anchor texts pointing to your site. Of course it
is still important to use your long tail keyword as the anchor
text but you should also drop links with other related terms
about 30% of the time. For instance, if your long tail keyword
is 'fast treatment for head lice', then related terms may be
'head lice cure', 'treating head lice' or 'head lice remedy'. 
You may even use very general terms like 'click here' or the raw
URL of your website. 

 In terms of how to drop links, there are literally hundreds of
ways. And that will be the topic of the next article.



No comments:

How To Get Started The Right Way In Internet Marketing (pt 6)

This article will touch on ways to generate traffic. If you
recall, part 2 of this series was about finding long tail
keywords keywords related to your niche. Using the methods
outlined there, you would have a list of such keywords. Now is
the time to use them. Also, if you had done paid traffic
generation methods in the last part (part 5) of this series, you
would also know which keywords made you money. These are also
the keywords to use in today's traffic generation methods. 

 This article will focus on the free traffic generation methods. 
Everyone likes free stuff but as mentioned in the last article,
there are pros and cons to free traffic generation methods. The
most important and crucial part about using free traffic
generation methods is getting the right keywords. If you target
wrong keywords, you are dead in the water even before starting. 
It's that important. 

 So please review part 2 of this series to make sure you get your
keywords right. In essence, right (or good) keywords are those
which fulfill these criteria: 

 1. They are used by people (searchers in search engines) who
want to buy something in your niche. Obviously, a keyword phrase
with the word 'free' in it is not what you want to target. 
2. They are precise in meaning. That's why Internet Marketers
go for long tail keywords (those that have at least three words
in the phrase). Long tail keywords are very precise. You know
exactly what the searcher is looking for and therefore can
provide it to him. 
3. They must be words that are connected to a compelling need. 
Everyone has needs but not every need is compelling. Compelling
needs are those which have to do with relieving pain or enhancing
pleasure. For example, 'get rid of head lice' is a good keyword
phrase that is about a compelling need. 
4. They must have a high search count and low SERP count
(defined in part 2). How high and how low is a matter of choice.
Obviously, the higher the search count and the lower the SERP
count, the better the keyword. 
5. Page 1 of Google for the keyword phrase must not have too
many exact matches or be full of websites with a high page rank
(PR). There are 10 results on page 1. If a majority of these
are websites with exact matches in their descriptions or titles,
that is a bad sign. Likewise, if a majority of the page 1
websites have a PR of 4 or higher, that's a bad sign, too. 

 You can find out the page rank of any webpage by using Firefox's
page rank plugin. 

 Once you have a list of keywords that fulfill these 5 criteria,
then it is possible to generate some massive traffic (depending
on the niche). And the good thing is that all the traffic is
free. 

 The next article will focus on the actual free traffic generation
methods to use. 


No comments:

Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing pt 5

Now that you have your product ready and your website set up, it
gets more exciting because it is time to promote your website. 
In other words, it is time for traffic generation. There are
literally tons of ways to drive traffic to your website. But
broadly, they can be divided into two main kinds of traffic
generation. You can either pay for it or get it free. 

 There are pros and cons to both ways. Obviously, the paid
traffic generation methods cost money but on the positive side,
they get you fast and often targeted results. On the other hand,
the free traffic generation methods do not cost money but on the
negative side, they are generally slower and may not produce much
targeted traffic. 

 There is no silver bullet when it comes to traffic generation. 
Every method works to some extent, so you need to choose which
ones suit you the best. But generally, traffic generation is a
numbers game. This means the more you do it, the better results
you get in the long run. 

 If you can afford it, it's better to start promoting your website
with paid traffic methods. This includes Google Adwords, Yahoo
Search and MSN Adcenter. These three major search engines work
roughly the same way. You design your advertisement according to
the search engine's specifications and specify certain parameters
like the countries you want to advertise in and the dollar limit
on advertising you want to spend in one day. Generally, you are
billed for the number of clicks on your advertisement. Each
click brings the searcher to your website where they are
presented with your product. Some will buy and then you profit. 

 As you can tell, there is a danger of losing a lot of money in
these paid advertising methods when lots of people click but no
one buys. To reduce the possibility of this happening, there are
two things to do. Firstly, put your long tail keywords into your
advertisement. This ensures targeted visitors going to your
website. A targeted visitor is one who has been looking for a
solution to his problem that your product gives. Such a visitor
to your website is much more likely to buy your product than a
less targeted visitor. 

 Secondly, avoid advertising in certain countries known to have
lots of browsers but not many buyers. Two of such countries are
India and the Philippines. Chances are, you will get lots of
clicks from these countries but few sales. 

 Besides text ads, you can also make image ads on the paid
advertising networks of the search engines. Image advertisements
consist of banners of certain sizes specified by the search
engines. Image ads are not as popular as text ads so that makes
it generally cheaper. But they work fine and are certainly worth
a try. 

 The reason it is better to go for paid traffic generation methods
first is because with paid advertising, you can get quick
results. You also can determine which keywords produce good ROI.
Once you have carried out paid advertising for a few weeks, you
can switch to free advertising using the same keywords that have
produced good results for you. 

 Free traffic generation methods will be the topic for the next
article.


No comments:

Getting Started in Internet Marketing (part 4)

Now that you have got a product, the next logical step would be
to sell it. Here's where many newbie Internet marketers get it
wrong. 

 The biggest mistake you can make is to set up a website, write
about your ebook on the website and expect people to visit your
website in droves and buy your ebook. It does not work that way.
In other words, if you think you can 'create it and they will
come', you are mistaken. Even with targeted keywords, great
website design and a killer product, hardly anyone will find your
website if you do not promote it. 

 So there are a few more steps to take before you will see your
first sale. 

 Firstly, you need to design your website. In the past, you could
get by with a simple two page website - a sales letter and a
thank you or download page. As recently as 4 years ago, such
simple websites would still get ranked by Google. Actually 4
years is a long time in Internet marketing and a lot has happened
since then. The most significant development was the Google
Slap. 

 The Google Slap is the term used to mean that Google now wants
your website to contain quality content and not just a sales
pitch. These days, if you just put up a 2 page website without
good content, Google will not rank it well. In other words, you
will find your website in page 1,245 in Google's search results
or something like that. 

 So when you design your website, you have to make sure that it
has more than just a sales page. There are many ways to design a
website and each person has his or her own preference. A good
practice would be to make your website have at least 8 pages - a
home page, a sales page, a blog, a thank you or download page, a
privacy policy, a disclaimer (especially if your product is
connected with making money), a contact page and an about us
page. 

 Briefly, a home page would contain a welcome message and an
introduction to your website. It should also contain an opt-in
box where you collect the names and emails of visitors so that
you can build your list. To incentivize visitors to give you
their names and emails, you need to provide a freebie like a
short report, video, audio or a newsletter. Make your freebie
connected to your niche topic. 

 A blog would contain the latest news in your niche, interesting
articles or your personal teaching on your niche. Many Internet
marketers and webmasters put their blog in a separate directory
on their website. That means the blog URL would be
http://www.mydomain.com/blog. Alternatively, you could purchase
another domain with the same domain name but different extension
as your blog. Then you could link your blog to your main
website. This gives your main website added 'link juice' in
Google's eyes. 

 'Link juice' is the term referring to how many links are pointing
to your website. The more links you have, the better it is for
your website. You need both external and internal links for your
website. External links are other websites linking to yours and
internal links are internal pages of your website that link to
each other. 

 All the other pages of your website are self-explanatory. Once
you have your website up, the next thing you want to do is
promote it. That will be covered in the next article.

No comments:

Getting Started the Right Way in Internet Marketing (part 3)

Now that you have identified your target market and gathered your
10 or so long tail keywords, it's time to create your product. 
Product creation may take you anywhere from one day to two weeks
so during this period, it is wise to put some other steps into
action also. Here are 2 things you should do simultaneously with
product creation. 

 First, you should register a domain name. Go to namecheap.com or
godaddy.com. Choose one with your long tail keyword inside. If
the exact long tail keyword has already been taken, try adding
another word that makes it attractive, such as 'best', 'tips',
'online', 'center' etc. For example 'organic farming' can become
'organicfarmingtips'. 

 As for the extension to choose, go for a .com if possible. If
that has been taken for the domain name you want, take either a
.net or .org. The next best option other than these three would
be a .biz or .info. These are the common ones considered to be
search engine friendly. 

 The reason why you should register a domain name now is that it
takes 24-48 hours to propagate, and you will only be able to
upload content into that domain after it has propagated. So by
registering a domain name while you work on product creation, you
save time. 

 The second thing you should do while creating your product is
join relevant forums in your niche. Every niche has forums where
people interested in their niche hang out. To find these forums,
type the name of your niche followed by the word 'forum' (without
quotes) at the end into Google's search engine. So, for organic
farming, it would be 'organic farming forums'. Join at least 4
forums. 

 Joining a forum is easy. Just go to the sign up page and fill up
the required fields. Every forum allows you to insert a
signature. Here's where you should put your website URL with
some catchy statement. If your website has not been set up yet,
you can add your signature later. 

 One feature to utilize in your signature is BB Codes. BB Codes
is like html. For your signature you only need to know 2 BB
Codes - the one for hyperlinking and the one for making your
words bold. To hyperlink your words to your website URL, the
opening BB Code is [url=http://www.yourdomain.com] and the
closing BB Code is [/url]. For example, if you want to hyperlink
the sentence, 'Secret Tips to Organic Farming for Good Health',
type [url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic
Farming for Good Health[/url] in your signature column. Now
anyone who clicks on that sentence will be directed to your
website. 

 And if you want to bold your words, just add the bold BB Codes
which are [b] and [/b] at the beginning and the end of the string
of code above. So it would appear like this -
[b][url=http://www.yourdomain.com]Secret Tips to Organic Farming
for Good Health[/url][/b]. Most forums have BB Code on by
default. But check just in case. 

 For more BB Codes, just Google it. 

 It's important to join forums as soon as possible because it
takes time to build relationships. So post anything you want
into these forums everyday (take 30 minutes a day). If you
aren't very knowledgeable in that niche, just post intelligent
questions. The more posts you make, the better your standing in
the forum. The relationships you make in these forums will be
very valuable to you when your product is ready. 

 Another important thing to do while at forums is to look for the
most frequently asked questions and most common problems faced by
the members in the forums. Take note of these because you want
to include these into your product. 

 Now for product creation. The easiest way to create your product
is to go to Amazon and type in the main keyword for your niche. 
Amazon will probably produce a list of books on that topic. Find
one you like and look into the contents page. Copy the contents
page and re-write the chapter titles the best you can. Also
include the questions and problems that you found in the forums
into the chapters. 

 The fastest way to produce your product is to outsource it. Go
to elance.com or guru.com and post a job for a researcher to
research the list of chapters you have compiled. This person
only has to cut and paste information from various sources
according to the chapters you give him. It should not take more
than 2 or 3 days. 

 Once you get the research back, look for a writer to re-write the
research materials into an ebook of 80 to 100 pages in length. 
This should take no longer than a week. You can find good
writers from the Philippines who work at cheap rates. Be
prepared to pay about $100 for the researcher and $200 for the
writer. 

 So in about 10 days you should have your product ready. Now you
need a designer to design your ebook cover and website. What to
do from here onwards will be covered in the next article.

No comments:

Getting Started in Internet Marketing (part 2) - Market Research

There are many ways to make a living online. But no matter which
route you choose, it all begins with market research. You have
to find a group of buyers who have a common problem or need. 
Then all you need to do is sell them things that solve the
problem or meet the need. 

 Market research can be divided into two parts - finding a
profitable niche and finding long tail keywords within that
niche. The good news is that there are many free tools available
to do this. Some of the best tools are provided by Google
itself. So the first thing to do is sign up for an account with
Google. Once you have done that, go to Google's search-based
keyword tool at www.google.com/sktool. Type in the words 'buy,
purchase, order, get' (without quotation marks) into the search
field. The sktool will list out 800 words or terms that contain
these buying keywords together with other useful data like level
of competition, searches per month etc. All you have to do is
choose the term that you feel is most suitable for yourself,
preferably one that has at least 2,500 searches per month. 

 Next, click on the icon that looks like a magnifying glass next
to the search term that you have chosen. This will take you to
Google Insights for Search, another free tool from Google at
www.google.com/insights. It will automatically search the term
that you have chosen and produce the relevant data at Google
insights. Scroll down to the bottom part of the page and you
will see other related search terms. Take note of all the
related search terms that you find. 

 Now you would have about 10 buying keyword terms in a particular
niche. This basically indicates that there are people searching
for information to solve a problem or meet a need in this niche. 
Next, you should investigate further into how big a market this
niche is and get more keyword ideas. 

 Go to amazon.com, ebay.com, magazines.com and clickbank.com. Put
the main keyword of the niche into the search field and see if
there are products that are listed in these websites within this
niche. Chances are you will find products in all these websites
pertaining to your niche. Briefly review some of the products
for ideas - both keyword ideas and product ideas. The next step
is to find long tail keywords. 

 To do this, go to Google's external keyword tool at
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Type in
your 10 keywords and it will generate a list of related keywords.
Take note of the keyword phrases with at least 3 words in them
(long tail keywords) and that produce at least 2,500 searches per
month. 

 Now go to the Google search engine at www.google.com and type in
the main keyword in quotation marks. As you are typing, Google
will give you related search terms. Take note of the long tail
keywords. Once you hit the search button, Google will list out
all the websites related to your keyword (this is called the SERP
or Search Engine Results Page). Take note of the number of
websites listed (it is listed at the top right hand corner of the
page). You are aiming for keywords with a maximum of 1,000,000
websites. If it is significantly higher than 1 million, then the
keyword is too competitive. Do the same thing with each of the
keywords that you have and choose those which have less than 1
million competing websites. 

 For each of the keywords you type into Google, look at the bottom
of the SERP and you will find more suggested related keywords. 
Click on them and you will find even more keywords. Drill down
into the keywords as deeply as you can until you find long tail
keywords with less than 1 million competing websites. 

 If you have done your market research well enough, you will now
have identified a niche with ready buyers and the long tail
keywords (about 10 will do) they use to search in the search
engine for information on a product to buy. The next step would
be Product Research and Creation which will be covered in the
next article. 

No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Credit Card Debt Facts

Credit Card Debt Facts To Consider There are multiple facets to credit card debt. There are multiple myths surrounding these multiple aspect...