Archive for ◊ 2010 ◊

Increase Site Count With Great Content
Monday, December 13th, 2010 | Author:
Increase Site Count 216x300 Increase Site Count With Great Content

Increase Site Count

Increasing your site count with content that really speaks to people is how you keep you site count high. It all starts with your site achieving top search engine results using the best SEO Tips. Now that your ranking well in search engines you need to focus on increasing your site count.

Site Count And Copy

I know your thinking if my site is well-ranked in search engines then my products will sell them selves and I wish this were the case, lol but it’s not. Copy or website content needs to jumped off the screen, lodging itself in the mind of each site visitor and unconsciously cause every one of them to take the action YOU want them to take, this is “call to action”.

To increase site count you need to start writing for site visitors or writing for search engines as certainly not the same thing at all. Your site count will rely on search engine SEO and once you have visitors you will want to keep visitors on your site to make a sale.

To achieve this your copy needs to have a few key components or you will have a high bounce rate. First your meta needs to be keyword specific for proper SEO but also it needs to get the readers attention so they know they have found what they were looking for.

First, let’s briefly consider the layout of your copy for the purposes of increasing site count. If you want people to stay on your site, read your copy and take an action, the copy has to be very easy to read on a computer screen.

It’s simple really. Just use lots of white space. See how so far my ‘paragraphs’ are very, very short? Sometimes it’s just a few words. You ought to do the same. You can further break up your writing using sub-headings, bold words, lists, bullets and boxes. See how I made the box above? Anything in a box will get read, and it’s a great way to create white space.

Avoid Big Paragraphs of Text Or Your Site Count Will Go Down

The key to successfully formatting your Web copy writing is to make it as easy as possible for people to scan and skim through your text. People skim online copy, so the more you break it up and make the important stuff stand out, the better. No pictures and one huge paragraph will decrease site count.

Next, always remember who you are writing for. Hold a vision of your reader in your head as you write. Choose and combine your words in a way that speaks directly to each reader as if you’re just having a conversation with them alone. Write like you talk and don’t write just for the search engines.

0470009799 Increase Site Count With Great Content

Hypnotic Writing To Increase Site Count

Here are my other top copy writing guidelines the increase site count:

• Use the word ‘You’. Don’t write about yourself or your organization. No one cares.
• Use an active voice, not passive. Use action verbs often and well.
• Appeal to people’s emotions.
• Appeal to as many of the senses as possible. Paint a picture.
• As your grammar school English teacher constantly preached, “Show, not tell.”
• Use stories to illustrate your theme. People relate to and remember stories.
• Describe how you can make your reader’s life easier or better.
• Actually ask them to purchase (or fíll out the form) in your sales copy.
• Always describe the benefits and not the features (features tend to bore people to tears).
• Edit your work at the end to ensure it says what you want in the simplest and briefest way.
• Get ‘Hypnotic Writing Increase Site Count With Great Content‘ by Joe Vitale. I used some of his ideas in this article. Great book, thanks Joe!  Increase Site Count With Great Content

The search engine algorithms today, especially Google’s, are now getting so sophisticated that the line that separates good search engine copy and good people copy is becoming very blurred. In other words, the better you write in general, the better that writing will get ranked in the search engines anyway, all other things being equal and will increase your site count.

Keep in mind that a large part of what makes a page rank well is made up of off-page factors, meaning the links and anchor text that point to your website have a big part in determining your site’s rank. But on-page factors such as your copy writing for example play an important role too.

So you’re writing to get ranked well, to convert visitors into customers or list members and to attract inbound links. As you write, keep these three important goals in mind.

On-Page Writing that Pleases Search Engines Will Increase Site Count

Think of each page of your website as its own one-page school essay. If you remember back to English class your teacher would ask you to write an essay and be sure to determine in advance what the theme, or thesis, of the essay was going to be. One theme per essay and that’s what the essay was “about”.

When it comes to Web pages, think in terms of themes too, but condensed down to a keyword phrase. Each page on your site should have one main keyword phrase that sums up the entire page. This is the phrase for which you want the page to rank well.

When you sit down to write copy for a particular page, first determine what its theme is going to be and then reduce that down to a descriptive and succinct keyword phrase that you feel people are looking for. This will increases site count automatically.

For example, if you determine that the theme for the page is ‘all the chairs we sell in our furniture store are listed on this page with prices and descriptions’. The keyword phrase for this could be ‘wooden chairs with prices’.

Author: Jason O’Connor is a Web marketing consultant, writes for The Net Gazette, a Web business e-zine, and for Oak Web Works, LLC, a Web writing and marketing company. Jason specializes in increasing site count.

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Using Facebook To Promote Your Website
Thursday, November 25th, 2010 | Author:

Facebook To Promote Your Website

facebook traffic Using Facebook To Promote Your Website

Facebook To Promote Your Website

Facebook has taken social networking by storm over the past three years so using Facebook To Promote Your Website is the nest step in online marketing you need to learn. Its growing to become one of the most used sites on the Internet with a half of billion users, both new an returning visitor rates as well.

Facebook To Promote Your Website is a great idea because it already brings together many millions of people who all connect, share information, photos, events and pretty much everything about their lives, whether they mean to or not.

In the same way you can connect to friends, you can also use Facebook To Promote Your Website or business because the power that Facebook can offer you in terms of exposure is almost second to none when it comes to the potential that this site can offer to you.

Below, we look at our top five ways of utilizing Facebook To Promote Your Website.

Set Up Facebook To Promote Your Website

Facebook pages can be an amazing tool if you utilize them correctly. You can start to build up a “fan” base of people who are interested in your product who will like your page and therefore get information instantly when you add any new posts, photos, discussions or events to your page.

This means that not only does your post go onto the people who like your page walls, but then any of their friends could also see this, allowing you to spread the word to thousands more people just by growing your like list.

Tell Your Friends, Colleagues, Loved Ones To Join Facebook To Promote Your Website

As mentioned above, its time to tell all of your trusted and not so trusted friends and contacts on Facebook about your page.

The more people you tell, the more people will start seeing your posts every time you add them, meaning that you can really get some excellent exposure from just a small pool of friends, as long as they have many more friends on their lists. You see how using Facebook To Promote Your Website can work very well for you.

Build Up Your Likes

The more likes you have, the more your business page or general page will get exposure, as the things that you post and promote will start to get spread across many peoples Facebook walls and profiles.

This means its important to really only add good content to your Facebook page, things like adding your blog RSS feed and adding solid articles and noteworthy information.

Join Related Groups In Facebook To Promote Your Website

On the same line as pages, groups are a great way to find other people who are interested in the same things that you are.

For example, if you enjoy playing Fifa 11, you simply type into your search box “Fifa 11″ and then take a look at all the groups and pages. You can then join these groups and join in the discussions which can then lead to you promoting your related product.

Don’t just go storming in and start making loads of posts about what you are offering, as this will simply lead to either being blocked or becoming known as a spammer!

Use Facebook Advertising

Although we find the Facebook Advertising slightly more expensive than other cost per click models, the demographics you can place on your advertising is second to none.

For example, if you wanted to appeal to 30 – 50 year olds who live within 20 miles of your postcode and were interested in dancing, Facebook allows you to do this. Because of the data they collect about you as you are using Facebook, they can then really make sure that you can target any advertising very close to your perfect audience, which is not really rivaled elsewhere as of yet.

It is true to say that using Facebook to promote anything is hard work. You have to really work at your page, improve it on a daily basis and keep adding good content to keep not only the people who like your page happy but to also attract new ones.

If you are prepared to do the leg work, there is no doubt that this social networking site can drive extra traffic and sales to any business or website.

About the Author: Ian Spencer works for Clear Web Services, an SEO Web Optimization and Web Design company that uses Facebook To Promote Your Website.

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Google vs Facebook The War Begins
Thursday, November 25th, 2010 | Author:

Big News? Google vs Facebook

google vs facebook Google vs Facebook The War Begins

Google vs Facebook

We are all waiting for the big blow out with Google vs Facebook. With the new features coming out in Facebook like Bing and Facebook mail, this will really change the way we use the internet. With 1/2 Billion people using Facebook these days, who will come out of Facebook to use Google for searching the net if you can do it all within Facebook.

I know when I hop on the computer the first thing I click on is my default home page and for those using Facebook all the time…if this is not your default home page already, it probably will be soon. Right now it’s probably Google or Yahoo or Bing but if I you can do everything in Facebook than why go anywhere else?

Right now as the Google vs Facebook stand off begins, new has it that Facebook is getting ready to market getting users to switch their home page. Right now they are testing different copy to get users to make this happen. Stats show that already there is a high percentage of the current half a billion Facebook users continually logged in at all times. An now with them enhancing users experiences by integrating, search and email, it only makes sense that many of these users will take Facebook up on its offer to make their site their starting point.

Why Is The Google vs Facebook Such A Big Deal?

People are already spending a great deal of their time on Facebook so what the big deal? Currently users check their Facebook inbox, wall, or news feed before they check their email anyway. Now with Facebooks new messaging system and email addresses, even more people will go to Facebook first. Do you see the impact this will have on the Google revenues? More people will be using Bing and less people will be using Gmail. With other integrations such as Facebook payments which will allow users a standard way of making payments around the web, who needs to go anywhere else. Also see Facebook for Business.

Right now who doesn’t have their home page set to Google? I’m guessing not many. Fact is most of us do but the number is about to get smaller. This is why people are calling this a Google vs Facebook war as Facebook is only going to give people more and more reasons to move into the site for everything.

The Google vs Facebook Battle Plan

Google is already pushing iGoogle as a customizable homepage so it can stay in the forefront of users. You will notice that they’re already doing more to promote Google Chrome these days which is looking like this could be a key component of their overall strategy.

Just imagine if Facebook launched its own browser within the site? This could actually cripple Google and Bing as well.

Right now Facebook doesn’t need to own their own browser because its presence is felt just about everywhere on the net anyway, but if Facebook were able to phase Bing and Google Chrome out of online users experiences, that’ would be one less weapon in the Google vs Facebook battle.

There are no plans for Facebook to launch it’s own browser, so they are saying, but they are encouraging users to set Facebook as their home page, and Bing is the default web search…right now. Bing will certainly benefit in search market share from this because users will be able to search from their browser tool bars and this will decreases the need to have a search engine as a home page.

Note: Google has counter attacked with a new product for Google Docs that may play an indirect  but significant role in its Google vs Facebook battle.It has also rolled out Google Instant Preview and Google instant to try to keep users as well.

I will keep you posted on more updates in the Google vs Facebook battle as new things develop.

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SEO Articles Do We Need Them Still?
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010 | Author:

SEO Articles

SEO Articles SEO Articles Do We Need Them Still?

SEO articles

I thought this post about SEO articles was a bit over the top. Basically SEO articles are not required and I’m not sure I agree. What I do agree with is that the focus needs to be on great quality content first. Let me know what you think after reading this about SEO articles from Jill.

Jill says…Last week I was speaking with a potential client in need of SEO consulting who told me that they had been working on their product part e-commerce website over the past few months by adding “SEO articles” to it on a regular basis. “SEO articles?” I thought. “Why would an e-commerce site that sells product parts need articles about SEO ?”

Of course, I knew they weren’t talking about writing articles about SEO, but writing articles for design SEO. Which is often just as silly. Unfortunately, I hear this on a regular basis because so many believe that writing keyword-stuffed articles is somehow an SEO articles requirement. They don’t know why they might need these articles — only that, for whatever reason, the Google Gods want them. And so they write articles that no one would be interested in reading, but which are stuffed chock-full of the keywords for which they would like Google to show their site.

And then they wonder why it’s not happening for them.

“Did we not provide Google with the SEO articles they require?” they ask incredulously.

“Why does Google not show our ‘History of Product Part A’ article when someone is searching to buy one of them?”

“Let me explain,” I say, and ask them to put themselves in the shoes of the potential buyer.

“If you were looking to buy Product Part A, which page would you rather find in Google? The one with the product part information, the price, choice of color/size, information on how to purchase it, and an ‘add to shopping cart’ button? Or the one that tells you the history of said product part?”

The choice, of course, is easy when presented that way. And suddenly – BAM! It all starts to make sense.

“That was exactly MY thought before we embarked on this crazy SEO scheme!” they reply. “It just didn’t make any sense to me, but I figured that Google was just weird and had its own reasons for liking stuff like that. So why do so many SEOs recommend this?” is their next logical question and will SEO articles be the ticket?

I wanted to tell them that most SEO services don’t have the slightest clue what Google really wants. But instead I told them that it’s usually because many SEO consultants don’t have a good grasp of why they do what they do. Once upon a time, some of them probably stumbled upon some websites that provided a lot of valuable industry information via a blog or resource center, and noticed that the site also did well in Google. So they put 2 and 2 together and came up with the not-so-brilliant idea of writing articles created solely for SEO purposes — and then they spread the information to the many places online where SEO myths are propagated.

And the SEO articles creation industry was spawned.

Let’s step back for a moment and look at the difference between “SEO articles” and information provided on a site that is there without regard to SEO.

When your goal is to create SEO articles, you’ll almost always make the wrong decision on what to write about or how to write it because you’ll be thinking about search engines rather than your target audience. Anything and everything you write or post to your website needs to have a reason for being there.

And that reason is not SEO Articles

What you add to your site should always enhance it in the eyes of your target audience. If an article about the history of Product Part A is truly something your target audience would be interested in — that is, it helps those people who might purchase the product make their decision — then by all means, write that article. But don’t lie to yourself. Your gut will let you know if you really do believe it will be helpful, or if you are just looking for an easy way out!

Your goal is to get into the mind of your potential buyers and figure out what their pain points might be. What might hinder them from buying a particular product? What might prevent them from buying it from you? Maybe they’re not sure if the part will fit the gizmo that they were buying it for. Maybe they don’t understand why the latest version of Product Part A (rev.2.56) is worth so much more than the previous version (rev.2.0). So write an article pointing out the differences, and why the manufacturer decided to rev it up, and how the extra money it costs will be well worth paying because it will likely last twice as long.

That is useful information for your target audience.

It’s also an article that others interested in Product Part A might link to. And it sets you up as an expert on those types of products. You don’t need to think about SEO when you write such an article, because that’s not why you’re writing it. And yet, by the very act of *not* thinking about SEO articles, you’ll have created a potential SEO boon for your site. Also see how SEO is affected by Google Instant Previews.

The article itself will likely show up for long-tail searches relating to Product Part A (perhaps when people are seeking out the differences between the two revs). And if it naturally garners links, that link juice will spread to the rest of your site, providing your sales pages with a better chance at ranking for your money terms — i.e., pages that bring in people who are ready to purchase now.

So banish the notion of “SEO articles” from your vocabulary. Optimize the actual pages of your site that are there to do business, and provide as much additional information as you can that will set your business apart from the others. Get into the head of your potential customers and give them exactly what they need to become informed buyers who want to purchase only from you.
About The Author
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Consulting company in the Boston, MA area. An expert in SEO articles.

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Google Instant Preview In The News
Friday, November 19th, 2010 | Author:

How Google Instant Preview Affects SEO

Google Instant and SEO 300x148 Google Instant Preview In The News

Google Instant Preview

Google Instant preview is a new addition to Google’s Instant Search. People can now browse a large instant preview of a site’s content by placing the cursor over the small magnifying glass displayed beside each listing.

The instant preview is large and Google sometimes highlights a major paragraph or quote from each displayed site which means we have to re-think our on page SEO.

See a sample of Google Instant Preview Here.

Understanding Google Instant Preview Basics

Now searchers can get a instant preview of the look, layout and design of a sites on page graphics and bold headlines right away before visiting the site. This means that the small print and the general content of the page can’t be read in the instant preview, so searchers will have to click through to your site if they want to read your information which means we have to change a few things to grab their attention. This means we will have to give them what they are looking for in the headlines or in bold print right up front.

Now we also have to take into count that many people may not even use Google Instant especially the older generation, they may not even know what the small Google Instant icon even means.  Still the instant preview could have some ramifications on who gets the “click through” to their site and who doesn’t. Not to mention that now getting the top spots in search engine rankings may not be as important as searchers can quickly preview all of the top 10 listings and then make their decision. Meaning they might not click the top listing, but decide one lower down the rankings is more worth clicking. Google Instant could make all the listings on the first page of search results more valuable and not just the top one.

SEO and Google Instant Preview

This doesn’t really affect any of your on page SEO strategies because you still need to be optimizing for the search engines rankings. After all, getting those top rankings for people to use the new Google instant preview is always going to be your first priority.

With that being said, Google’s Instant Preview does change the whole nature of Search Engine Page Results because website owners will have to grab the attention of the searcher within the instant preview if they want the click through. It’s realistic to think that searchers may just click on the instant preview for the top ranking listing and decide the page is not up to standard or it’s not what they’re looking for, and can quickly try out the other listings instead.

Why Did Google Come Up With Instant Preview Anyway?

From Google’s perspective the Instant preview will improve the overall quality of their search results. Now searchers can quickly see if they found the information they were looking for without wasting their time clicking on a search result hey didn’t really want. Now they can easily find the right results more quickly and efficiently. Let’s face it Google has to start scrabbling because Bing is becoming a strong competitor and Google is hoping that Instant preview is going to make them more user friendly.

Utilizing Instant Preview In Your Favor

To start using Instant preview to help your website all us webmasters and online marketer will have to change a few things to start grabbing targeted traffic from other sites with higher search engine result listings. We will have to start building our web pages with Google instant preview in mind, and here is how,

1. Improve Your Images – Pictures will play a more important role in instant preview because it will be the first thing searchers will focus on at first glance. It’s vital to have eye-popping graphics right next to your important information.

2. Headline Tags Should Stand Out – Your page heading will quickly capture the searcher’s attention and draw them to your site if you make them big and bold enough to be seen in Google’s instant preview.

3. Write An Informative Summary – Place your important information in a short summary which also captures the viewer’s attention. Entice these viewers to visit your site or page.

4. Utilize Other Traffic Methods – You shouldn’t just focus on getting traffic through the free organic search results. Include other sites such as stumbleupon, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps and YouTube as these can get you onto Google’s first page also.

5. Finally, PPC Advertising – I’m not big on PPC as I always focus on free traffic but if you know how to do it right you can get web traffic cheaply. The thing is more and more major companies are throwing tons of cash into SEO and Keyword Link Buying making organic search not really free anyway. For us small-time webmasters and marketers, paid listings in search engines may be our only option because SEO is becoming too hard.

Keep in mind that Instant Preview is very new and not many people know what the magnifying glass means in the search results. Also will many people even use this added feature in their daily searches anyway?

Google instant preview is an added feature that can help us but we have to learn to roll with the changes online these days.

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Category: Traffic Tools  | Tags:  | One Comment
Facebook Email Is In The News
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 | Author:

My Own Facebook Email Account

Facebook email 300x129 Facebook Email Is In The News

Facebook Email

The rumors are over, Facebook email is the real deal. Facebook announced that it will offering users their own @facebook.com email address.” It’s not all about email, however, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained. It’s about “seamless” integration across email, IM, SMS, and all these ways of communication. It’s also about “conversation history”, meaning you can keep a running dialogue with everybody you communicate with in a continuous thread for each person or each group of people.

“Five years from now, you’re just going to have this full, rich history,” Zuckerberg says of the conversation history feature. Facebook’s Andrew Bosworth compared Facebook Email to having a box full of letters between boyfriend and girlfriend from the beginning of the relationship to the present. Facebook users do have the ability to delete full conversations if they choose to.

The Facebook Email Is A Social Inbox

The new “social inbox”, will prioritize messages based on the information it knows about who your friends are (based on the user’s friends list and their friends’ friends list) to prioritize the messages based on you most common friends. This does two things, first it will help eliminate spam and secondly let you know your more important facebook email messages.

Zuckerberg continued to say that “There are a lot of different classes of junk” suggesting that there are a lot of legitimate messages that you’ll won’t actually care what’s in them.

The Three Levels Of Facebook Email

Now you can place priority on friends but also there will then be an “other folder” that will allow you to keep facebook emails that contain different subjects like, bills, pages liked, etc. It’s not spam, but not stuff you care about as much as the friends’ messages (although, I’d suggest bills might deserve higher priority than some of the stuff your friends [or especially friends of friends] are saying). Then there’s the junk folder for spam emails.

Of course you may want to still keep your other online email accounts, the Facebook email integration will just be more convenient if your in Facebook all the time.

There is still a big hurdle to get over and it’s “trust”. We all know that Facebook doesn’t exactly have the best reputation when it comes to privacy and user data, but that hasn’t stopped users from continuing to share massive amounts of information with the service, so that may not be as big a hurdle as it would seem and the Facebook Email my just off set those who don’t like it.

For those that use Facebook for business the Facebook email will be even more handy.

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Category: Traffic Tools  | Tags:  | One Comment
Using Facebook For Business
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 | Author:
Facebook for business 300x300 Using Facebook For Business

Facebook For Business

Facebook for business, what an opportunity! Business owners can simply no longer ignore the fact that using Facebook for business is a smart way of getting a following and targeted traffic.  We all know that it started out as an opportunity for  socializing and game playing but now it has evolved into a Mammoth of opportunity. In fact, in September 2010, Facebook surpassed Google with regards to the amount of time users spent on the site. To give you a better idea, Facebook itself stated that users spend over 700 billion minutes per month on the site!

Facebook For Business

Impact On Google

Google is shaking in their shoes and for good reason. There are currently just over 500 million active users on Facebook and it is now dominating net. With its popularity across diverse age groups, integrated email application, and with the new Bing search integration, a Facebook user may simply no longer need to visit Google for Web searches or log off to use an email application.

Now people can experience the Web fully all from inside Facebook and this has Google shaking in their shoes. With more than 50% of the active users logging into Facebook every day, using Facebook for business only makes sense after all this is where your potential customers are hanging out on a daily basis.

How To Use Facebook For Business

If your going to start to use Facebook for business then you will need to setup a Business Page, NOT a personal profile as these are two very separate entities and provide different options and ways to interact with friends and colleagues.

Facebook used to call the Business Pages, “Fan Pages” and additionally, it used to be that someone “fanned you.” Now they “like you.”

To get started using Facebook for business you will need to follow these steps,

  1. Create an account with the focus on your business so keep this in mind when you setup your personal Facebook profile. That’s right, a personal profile! You can’t just jump to Business Page set up you will need a professional profile first.
  2. Set up your email address with a name and not a catchall email like info@mydomain.com. This makes it more personal and helps build your brand. Always create a new email address specifically for Facebook.
  3. Don’t take time to add information like education and other details in your business account unless you plan on using it for your personal use. You are just setting up this account to have a platform to launch and access your new Facebook Business Page.
  4. Create your business page – Once logged in to your new personal account, visit this link: www.facebook.com/pages/create.php as it will take you to the Facebook for Business Page creation tool to actually create your new page.
  5. Next, on the right side of the creation page under the heading of “Official Page” look for “Create a Page for a:” and then select “local business.” Enter your page name and then tick the box next to the statement that says you are a legal business representative and allowed to own the page. It is important to understand that the name you choose for the title of your Facebook For Business Page will appear at the top of your finished page.
  6. Once you click create, the next page you see will be your brand new Facebook for Business Page. It is that simple.

Now that you have set up your Facebook for Business Page, you can update your personal profile that was used to launch your Business Page. Also take a look at these 13 Facebook applications that can help your pages.

Why Use Facebook For Business Page and Not Just Use a Personal Profile?

There are several reasons to have a Facebook for Business Page rather than a personal profile page. First you will have the ability to contact all people who “Like” or who “Fan” you with one click newsletter type notes. Secondly, you will be able to interact with discussion questions like a forum, also set up events and invite fans to attend, and even create specialized welcome and shopping pages. Your Facebook for Business Page can almost be a mini website!

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Category: Traffic Tools  | Tags:  | 6 Comments