Archive for the “Marketing” Category
Posted by: Glenn Bolton in Internet, Online, tags: Advertising, Backlink, Black Hat, Content, Dedicated, Indexing, IP Address, Keyword, Query, Referrals, Search, Search Engine, SEO, Server, Traffic
Source: Superb Internet
Part One
It’s a well-known fact that great content and presentation are vital to a successful website; however, in a crowded and increasingly competitive marketplace it has become more and more difficult to stand out and be noticed. Even with a reasonable advertising budget and programs to increase word-of-mouth referrals, finding the right target audience and getting their attention is a struggle many businesses have trouble with.
One of the largest (and least expensive) means of attracting traffic is through search engine referrals. While advertising and other forms of marketing actively seek to reach out and capture people, search engines allow people to find you when they are most likely to have interest which leads to a higher chance you can convert that interest into a sale, or whatever other need your site was created to satisfy.
However, no matter how narrow your niche, you can guarantee that there are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of other websites that will be vying for the same click you are. Depending on a number of different factors, you may very well not appear on the first page of search results for key search terms that describe your website—perhaps not even in the first ten—and that could be a critical factor that determines whether or not your site will succeed or fail.
In this series, we’ll explore strategies to optimize your website’s visibility in the increasingly crowded online landscape, as well as understanding the logic behind the world of Search.
Why is SEO so important?
Increasingly, search traffic has become more focused on the top ten results of a particular query, to such a degree that approximately 90% of all clicks are from results listed on the first page. Over 40% are given to the first result alone, with the click-throughs dwindling steadily thereafter. Clearly, it is vital that you try to rank as highly as possible if you want a chance of attracting traffic. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a key part in your success.
The first step in SEO planning is to identify the important keywords and search terms that you want to use to direct traffic to your website. Put yourself in the shoes of prospective visitors and consider what interests, questions, or needs they might have and how you can fulfill them. The best way to do this is to make yourself a definitive source of content and information in your field. Writing articles about any and all topics related to your field will draw traffic and help to raise your ranking, as well as help to show you are an authoritative and knowledgeable source, thereby increasing trust with your audience.
Say no to Black Hat Techniques
It is also important to keep in mind that unlike in the earlier days of search technology, search engines have become very adept at recognizing “spam,” i.e. many pages with the same content, or random repeating terms used to try to increase your ranking. Further, the rules used to determine what constitutes spam are always changing in order to prevent abuse. For instance, Google uses an artificial intelligence algorithm which updates every thirteen hours. So while it may be tempting to take shortcuts and in some cases you may even see a short-term spike in rank, over the long term such a strategy will fail.
Keyword Universes and Latent Semantic Indexing
Rankings are also based on keyword populations, which all have different characteristics that are based on the individual environments for each keyword or phrase. The density of a particular word or phrase on your site may actually drop your ranking or cause it to be removed as “spam” if used too often, and the point at which this happens can vary. For example, there may not be any problem if the term “dedicated servers” has a density of 5%, but for “managed hosting” this could cause your site to be banned from searches using that term.
In order to counter this damaging possibility, it is vital to review your competitors’ results for each keyword/phrase you are targeting to ensure that you make the appropriate adjustments to improve your visibility instead of harming it. The so-called “universes” that contain each keyword or phrase are based on distribution curves with varying slopes, and your ranking depends on how close to the top of the curve you are scored. Your goal will be to match, and hopefully surpass, your top five (ideally)competitors by figuring out what is working for them and do a better job of it.
You will also want to take care to ensure you use all natural forms and variations of your keywords when writing your content. Despite the fact that you may be targeting the term “dedicated servers,” Google’s spam detection algorithm will likely dismiss the page as spam and not include it at all if it sees no other forms of that term (i.e. the singular “dedicated server”).
Associated Words
Use words that are associated with your top keywords by your competitors. This is known as the proximity factor or latent semantic indexing (LSI). LSI uses a technique called singular value decomposition (SVD) that extracts the conceptual content of a body of text by establishing associations between words that appear in similar contexts. LSI is much more effective than Boolean keyword queries used in the past, which yielded irrelevant results. Implications for search are that we can craft our content and links in ways that are consistent with the way the top performers do, and also create links that are surrounded with these related terms. Whereas in the past purely Boolean searches were often plagued by keywords with multiple meanings that caused irrelevant results to be returned, LSI is able to determine more accurately what the end user is searching for, and by creating your content using these alternate terms to link them to your content, and therefore your site. A great —and little-known—tool for determining associated keywords is to enter a tilde (~) in front of a query, which will pull the associated keywords, and can then be used on pages and links.
Content is KING
Webmasters who put in the effort to develop real, useful content will see their work pay off. The search engines are merely trying to deliver what people want to see, and by keeping webmasters honest they also help you to make a genuine and mutually beneficial connection that will more likely result in you achieving the goals your website was meant to achieve in the first place.
While targeting keywords is certainly a major form of SEO, there are other factors that should not be overlooked. One that some may find surprising is the performance of your website itself. Google has hinted that it “may” consider the speed in which pages load when it indexes websites as part of its page rank algorithm, which would make sense as it aims to deliver a fast and reliable searching experience.
What about Dedicated IPs?
Some have stated that having a dedicated IP (one that is not shared with other sites) can increase rank, but it may instead be due to the fact that websites that have their own IP address are more likely to be on a dedicated server as opposed to sharing a server with many other sites that may be more prone to reliability issues. Also, if your site is not loading properly, it is possible it will not be indexed in the first place. For this reason, it is important to ensure that your site is as fast as possible and always online, which in most cases suggests that you strongly consider dedicated server hosting. Of course, the success or failure of your site depends on the ability for people to reach it, so your choice in hosting has ramifications far beyond the scope of this topic.
Coming up…
In our next installment in this series, we will be discussing how search has evolved through the use of artificial intelligence algorithms to include customized results for each user based on their past search history, what their intents are, and their current location (proximity). We will also look more into how spidering (page indexing) works, how you can optimize your site to make the best use of it, and common issues that can affect the spidering process and interfere with your SEO efforts. Stay tuned for more tips and suggestions from our helpful experts on optimizing the effectiveness of your online presence.
Dale Bunten is Director of Marketing at Superb Internet and has 11 years of experience in Search Engine Optimization and PPC marketing for highly competitive keyword terms. Dale is a frequent speaker on SEO as well as various other Internet marketing topics and issues.
 6 Comments »
There is a Welcome to YouTube (confirmation) email going around that sends people to a bogus site (http:// sonda. co. kr / index2.html - do not click it if you are unprotected) which has nothing to do with YouTube.
Everything else on the email LOOKS like it is legit… but it is NOT!
If you did NOT subscribe then DELETE THE EMAIL IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT click on ANY links
I have service@youtube.com in my whitelist so that’s why it got through to me.
Here is what it looks like (image only)
You have been warned!
Here’s the header sent to ME (Sean Riminez is not me! but info@gosoho.net does get thru to me though.)
Subject : Welcome to YouTube
Date : Thu, 1 Jul 2010 10:43:00 +1000
Linked to : YouTube Service
From : YouTube Service
To : Sean Ramirez
MIME Version : 1.0
MIME Type : text/html; charset=”iso-8859-1″
Message-id : <20100630234324.F18F84802F@youtube.com>
From scalpingj1@rondele.com Wed Jun 30 19 : 43:31 2010
Received : from [95.181.4.162] (helo=95-181-4-162.goodline.info) by freedom.gosoho.net with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OU6wF-0004kE-9V for info@gosoho.net; Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:43:31 -0400
Received : from sjl-smtp9.sjl.youtube.com (sjl-smtp9.sjl.youtube.com [208.65.153.13]) by mail.rondele.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7z6759491 for ; Thu, 1 Jul 2010 03:43:24 +0300
X-BoxTrapper-Match : white: 1108: service\@youtube\.com
Comments Off
We spoke about how people seem to have the attention span of a Gnat these days in the post titled The Attention Span Of A Gnat…How To Overcome It.
But that isn’t really a fair indictment on all people (including me) who might resent being associated with a Gnat. What really happens is that we get so many messages on a daily basis that it becomes impossible to view them all and we become very precious with our time. Hence we scan, we skim and we try to sort the “wheat from the chaff” as quickly as we can.
If something doesn’t jump out at us as being of importance…we move on very quickly. Hence the Gnat story.
So how do we attract attention and break through the clutter to get our message to more people?
AICDA – The Copy Writers Magic Formula
A good sales pitch, whether in person, print, website, letter, email, TV, video, radio… wherever, needs to do 5 things.
It must attract Attention, be Interesting, have Credibility, create Desire and prompt an Action …. AICDA.
Attention
On a web page or direct mail letter, that is what the headline does. On the radio its the load opening noise, sound or music that breaks the listens thoughts to get attention. Without attention, all is lost. The reader will not go deeper into the message to get to the heart of the sales pitch.
On your website, your landing pages are your key attention grabbers and must induce the reader to click through to another page or take some action such as signing up to receive a report or a newsletter subscription. Ideally the outcome is someone putting their hand up and saying “Hey, I’m interested…”. But be patient. Build a relationship. Digital marketing allows you to walk steadily to this point over time with minimal effort on your part.
Interest
Once you have their attention, you must give something that arouses interest. This could be many different things; a fantastic price, an offer of something free or a hint of an opportunity that will be revealed further on in the copy…an incentive to keep going.
Credibility
Creating credibility is very important; a must. Provide testimonials, a case study or some reputable statistics that PROVE that what you are talking about is the truth. Third party testimonials will always be seen as carrying greater weight of course because of the perceived independence.
Desire
You must make the reader desire or want what you are offering. It could be a product or service that you want the prospect to desire or want to buy. You can achieve this by appealing to emotions, hint at how a problem will be solved or how life will be made better.
Action
The reader must be prompted, urged, asked and convinced to take action. It is amazing how many otherwise fine sales pitches fumble at this crucial point. If you don’t give a prospect a reason to act, clear instructions on how to act and even ask them to act, they probably won’t.
One of the best ways is to put a strict time limit on your offer. Make them understand that they must act quickly to get your good deal, or lose out for ever.
AICDA And Digital Marketing
How did you find this article? Did you click on a link from an email marketing piece? Was it a link from another website page? Did it appear in a Google search and you clicked on the link?
All of these sources used the principles of getting your Attention and building Interest to the point where you wanted to read more. There is nothing really new here, but it is pitched in a slightly different way towards how to improve your digital marketing…your website, emails, social media; so you can produce better outcomes.
It is a fact that to achieve the full objective requires more words. And in this respect Long Copy out-sells Short Copy. So the big learning here is how to achieve the out comes of Long Copy but recognising that you must overcome the short attention spans that we all seem to suffer from these days.
Our objective here is to get you thinking and looking at how you could improve the results and hence you return on investment (ROI) form your digital marketing. When you need help, contact us who can show you how to implement these strategies into your business.
Source: X2 World
Comments Off
Give your business a powerful competitive advantage which can shoot you up the search rankings and achieve more leads than your non-blogging competitors.
When suggesting a Blog to clients we usually get asked “What exactly is a blog?”, which gets followed by, “I don’t have time to play around with one of those” or “Where would I get the time and what would I write about?”
The first stop in deciding to create a company blog (after understanding exactly what it is of course) is to decide that it is a worthwhile strategy and that means understanding the WIIFM (what’s in it for me?). What’s the pay-off?
What Is A Blog?
Simply, it is just a tool that allows you to quickly and easily create and publish new content. Plus, it allows readers to leave feedback on that content and interact with the feedback from other readers.
We have talked about Web 2.0 in the past Newsletter articles which, incidently can be found on our Blog at X2 World Blog, and a Blog is a Web 2.0 strategy. The 2.0 is just about the ability to engage and interact with people, compared with the original web concept which was an online brochure…you have moved on haven’t you?
The Pay-Off
1. Google Search – Google, in fact all search engines, places more emphasis on websites that have a growing and relevant content. Therefore you have a better chance of getting more web visitors if you add more content to your website…that is what a blog does.
2. Create Better Relationships – People do business with people they know and trust. A blog is a great way to achieve those outcomes on the web. Let people get to know you and your company. Offer value and people will return regularly. Over time, more and more people will contact you and become a lead or prospect. Then you have a chance of doing business with them.
3. Increased Online Lead Generation – businesses that have a blog and regularly publish new content will generate more new business leads than businesses that don’t blog. But don’t take my word for it, the following research by HubSpot shows an 88% and 67% increase in new leads for company’s that have a Blog.
The good news is that the statistics show that lead generation is substantially higher for both B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business) company’s, making it a universal best practice strategy for internet or web marketing.
4. Improved Search Engine Results – The search engines apply ratings to websites and they favour certain elements over others. If your website can have more of the favourable elements, then it stands a better chance of appearing on the coveted “Page 1 of Google”. A blog helps in 2 key areas:
That’s a massive benefit! A website that is rarely ever updated and has no new content being added gives no reason for any search engines to come back and index pages. Your competitors who do Blog will get an advantage in the search rankings.
Another big factor in search engine rankings is links from other websites and blogs to your website. As the above chart shows, businesses that blog get much higher results.
What’s The Point Again?
Marketing is a science. It is measurable and you can try things, find out what works, tweak, improve and do more of what gets results.
The charts above from HubSpot’s research provide compelling evidence that you should be thinking seriously about a Blog for your business. If you have one, then think about how you can improve it and get better results.
It should be integrated with your website so that it adds value to your web domain name and in some cases could be a standalone website.
Why not get in touch with us and find out how your marketing could be boosted by adding a Blog or improving your current Blog?
One of our professional digital marketing Partners would love to talk you through the process and identify how it would work for your particular business.
Source: X2 World
Comments Off
May 6th, 2010, Katarzyna Grochowska – GetResponse
Do you think of disengaged subscribers as an unavoidable loss – or a business opportunity? Do you try to find the causes and perhaps offer ways of re-engaging your subscribers? Or does the whole process depress and annoy you?!
If you keep getting the same poor responses from certain subscribers, you can either write them off − or take a couple of easy steps to see if you can reel them back in. Now we’re not talking about the non-responders, but only about the “on the fence” folks that are clearly not thrilled with something about your email marketing strategy!
So let’s look at the unsubscribe scenario from a “cause and effect” perspective to see if there’s any room for intervention – without annoying subscribers to the point that they flag your messages as SPAM.
Why do people unsubscribe?
According to recent email study (1), the top 5 reasons people unsubscribe are:
1. 67% – Irrelevant content
2. 64% – Receive too frequently
3. 50% – Think their email address is being shared or sold
4. 48% – Don’t recall signing up
5. 32% – Privacy concerns
The top 2 reasons are irrelevant content and frequency issues. We’ve discussed the importance of relevance many times on our blog, and we know you’re working hard to improve in this area. But have you ever thought about addressing these issues before the “disengaged” actually unsubscribe?
Would you help them re-engage if we told you it would only take a few minutes of your time?
Read the rest of this post on the GetResponse Blog
Comments Off
By Renai LeMay, Delimiter.com.au on April 7th, 2010
Microsoft appears to have accidentally deleted six years of blog archives hosted on its free Windows Live Spaces platform belonging to Australian mobile technology evangelist Shane Williamson.
“About 3 weeks ago my Windows Live Spaces blog was deleted by Microsoft for no reason,” Williamson wrote on his site over the weekend. “That is over six years of blogging on mobile, technology and convergence gone … Microsoft claims they cannot reclaim any part of the data lost, or will they give a reason why it was lost.”
“This should be a major concern to anyone who is, or thinking of, using Windows Live SPaces as a serious blog or any other type of cloud computing services from Microsoft.” Delimiter couldn’t reach Williamson for a comment today.
When contacted about the issue today, Microsoft Australia’s public relations agency punted the question to ninemsn, which operates the Windows Live brands in Australia courtesy of its joint venture relationship with the software giant.
A spokesperson for the company said it was investigating the issue back in Microsoft headquarters in the US — as that was where the Windows Live Spaces blogs were administered from, although it hoped to provide further information on Williamson’s case in due course.
Previously known as MSN Spaces, Windows Live Spaces was initially released in 2004, and is broadly seen as competitor to other free hosted blogging platforms such as Wordpress.com and Google’s Blogger offering.
Williamson himself is seen as one of Australia’s foremost experts on the mobile technology space. In the past he’s held senior roles focused on the mobile space at a number of companies such as Microsoft, Optus and Hutchison Australia (before the merger with Vodafone). He is also the co-founder of the Mobile Monday Sydney chapter, which attempts to bring mobile industry professionals together.
Read the blog post on Zdnet
Comments Off
By now, you’ve probably heard that Facebook has made some big changes that affect your privacy. However, you might not know what they are.
So far, the changes have been explained in the language of the people that they benefit: companies and app developers. What about us, the end users?
Here’s a handy collection of the best tips that we could find for protecting your privacy on Facebook’s wild new frontier.
Read More on Download Squad
Comments Off
In its rush to take on Facebook and Google Buzz, Microsoft is now collecting and displaying personal information on your Hotmail page — information you may never have wanted to broadcast.
Exactly how it’s mining this information is something of a mystery, but if you use Hotmail or Windows Live, it’s time to review your privacy settings — lest something you said or did comes back to haunt you.
One user signed in to her Hotmail account recently and was greeted with Microsoft’s new, improved social networking splash page.
What’s wrong with this picture? All three What’s new with your network entries contain potentially embarrassing information that the authors never dreamed would appear on someone else’s Hotmail sign-in page.
Read More on Windows Secrets: http://windowssecrets.com/comp/100422#story1
Comments Off
Do you Facebook?? – You MUST watch this if you are a facebook user. Know all the facts before blindly continuing in being a user.. for you are a user being used. learn how.
Comments Off
So what are you doing with social media?
http://www.yourbusinesschan… brings you social marketing and Facebook insights from Thomas Power of ecademy.com
Now take a(nother) look at the Did You Know video on our blog
No Comments »
|
