Archive for January, 2010
4 Ways to Supplement Your Main Business Income With Your Website
Jan 29th
The internet is split along a line … I hesitate to say “roughly equal lines”, because I’ve no idea if that is true! On one side of the line are the businesses who simply use the web as another marketing and promotion avenue for a business that already existed pre-WWW. On the other side are the businesses that would not exist without WWW and internet marketing – businesses like online freelancing, sole-purpose ad revenue sites and affiliate marketing sites, etc.
What many traditional businesses don’t realize is that there are plenty of way to combine the two approaches to making money online – we explore 4 of those today. Of note, we are only looking at methods that detract little from the actual corporate identity of a site.
1. Hosting banner advertising
The suitability of this strategy depends on the setup of your site. If you have substantial information sections, then it makes sense to offer links to other sites that people might find useful. If your site is purely marketing copy, it makes less sense to dilute your message. Still, consider that a site that hosts a banner ad with a $1CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and gets 100,000 page views a month will generate $100 monthly …pretty decent!
2. Affiliate marketing
Find a business that is complementary to your own,, and also has an affiliate program. Mention them and link to them in your own copy (only where appropriate), and you have the potential to be earning commissions from your website, without changing the perceived quality.
3. Sponsored reviews
If you are able to, or already have, built up some kudos in your industry community, people may ask you to do paid reviews – either of their site, a book, a product, etc. If they don’t ask, send out a letter to let them know! Alternatively, use sites like Pay Per Post.
4. Host Premium Content
As a business, you have lots and lots of expert knowledge. Given the quality of most content on the net (!), anything that comes from the expert’s mouth is highly regarded! Have some content on your site as free, and some paid. Offer a range of payment options – subscription, per-per-article, etc.
4 Mega SEO Mistakes!
Jan 28th
SEO is one of the most popular subjects on the internet … alongside that other ubiquitous three-letter word that starts with ‘se…’! This prevalence of information often leads people to believe that SEO is quite a simple task – one that they can do effectively themselves if they read a few blogs. While you are often in a good position to do much of the legwork (writing press releases and website copy, helping with keyword research, etc), there are some common DIY SEO mistakes that really do NOT help your web marketing campaign! We look at the top 4 today.
Using Black Hat Techniques
You don’t have to be an evil Google manipulating monster to fall for what seems like an easier way to get search engine rankings … and which might anger the giant of web search! A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing when DIY-ers use what looks like an easy way out. These quick-fixes are almost always considered black hat, and will get your site banned or penalized in Google when caught.
Meaningless Meta Tags
Many, many people that write their own meta tags don’t realize that this is the only piece of text that search engines display alongside your main website title. It should contain your keywords – if only to tell searchers that the page is relevant to what they were looking for.
Correlating Content
Aside from on-page SEO, including your keyphrases in your site copy helps reassure visitors they have come to the right place, and helps tone down bounce rates (percentage of visitors that leave within a few seconds).
Ignoring the Power of the Address
Your URL is one of the most powerful weapons in your SEO arsenal – use it! You should spend at least as much time brainstorming and refining your URL ideas as you do on your entire site content.
How Long Should a Blog Post Be for Best Internet Marketing?
Jan 27th
Travelling around the far corners of the world wide web, you’ll find as many different lengths of blog posts as there are numbers between 1 and 20,000 
. Unfortunately, there is no optimal length for a blog post … but there is definitely value in having some consistency in your corporate blog. If you have started a blog for SEO, there are a few things to think about when creating a strategy for maintaining and marketing it. Length is one of the most basic, and most important. So, how do you tell how long to make your posts?
Consider … Google’s preferences
Considering that the reason your blog exists is as an SEO tool for your website, and you can see why somebody’s idea of perfection other than yours and your customers star to creep in. It seems that pages under around 250 words, and over about 1000 words, aren’t ranked as highly in Google. If you want people to come to your site through natural search, keep this in mind.
How often will you be posting?
If you want to gain a regular readership, your readers need to feel that you care about the blog. This is one of the major reasons (alongside SEO) that you should post regularly. However, if you only put up a 250 word post every fortnight, your readers don’t get the impression that you care about the blog. Also, there is less good content for them to pore over! If you will be posting infrequently, make your posts longer. If you are posting daily or multiple times daily, make them shorter.
Note on short posts and frequency
Some people believe that the enormous amount of regularly updated content is what has allowed sites like Engadget and Gizmodo to get to the top of the blog list and stay there. However, your readers and their preferences should really be in the forefront of your mind.
Be comprehensive
Blog posts that skim the surface of a topic are usually of little value to readers – they are a dime a dozen on the net. If you want to write shorter posts, choose ‘narrower’ topics, which you can cover comprehensively in fewer words.
4 Extra SEO Keyword Research Tips
Jan 26th
Keyword research is one of the most important bases of your internet marketing campaign – it is one of the pillars that helps decide whether your campaign will succeed or fail, and it is critical to get it right the first time! We looked yesterday at 4 of the essential activities that you should engage in when deciding on the keywords you’ll use in your internet marketing – today we give you four bonuses.
1. Think about vertical search terms to use
In your keyword research brainstorming session, you probably whittled your list down to fifteen or twenty general terms that describe your entire business (for example, bathroom fittings, public restroom furnishings, etc). However, there are a number of ‘vertical’ searches that are common within every industry, that you can often capitalize on. These can be broken down into categories:
- Local terms (so add your city, your state, or your country to one of your general keyphrases. If your keyphrase is ‘search engine optimisation’, your vertical alternatives could be ‘search engine optimisation Melbourne’, ‘search engine optimisation Victoria’, or ‘search engine optimisation Australia’
- Products that you stock, including brand names and even model numbers, in some cases
2. How does querent intent relate to each keyword?
What phase of the decision-making process is a person searching for a particular term likely to be in? What phase of the decision-making process does that part of your site serve? You need to think about this to determine how much return you’ll get from particular keywords.
3. Check out the PPC data, even for your organic search terms
Even if you aren’t interested in doing PPC advertising at this stage of your SEO campaign, it is always helpful to know which keywords show the heaviest competition in the PPC arena. These trends certainly cross over into natural search.
4. Check out the related searches
Most major search engines have their own version of the related searches tool. If you just want a few ideas, check out Google’s. Simply type your term into the search box, click the ‘Show Options’ link up the top, and then hit ‘Related Searches’ down the page a bit.
4 Top SEO Keyword Research Tips
Jan 25th
Keyword research is one of the first concrete activities that you complete in an SEO campaign, and one of the most important. Trying to move too quickly here, or acting on assumptions rather than research, can taint your whole campaign and remove the value of all of those dollars you put in. Keyword research tips are many, says Yoda – today we look only at the top 4.
Keyword Research - not a precise science
1. Relative Search Volume
When you first startedt on the process of determining the keyphrases that will best serve your SEO and web marketing needs, you probably got out a big piece of paper, called everyone into the same room, put on the coffee and fluffed up the sofa cushions, and said ‘Troops – Brainstorm!’. You’ll have a heap of different phrases relating to your business – the nest step is to determine which of these consumers are searching for the most. The top phrases are not necessarily the ideal ones to go for if they don’t represent your business as well as others – but you need the information.
So, check the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, the MSN Keyword Research Tool, and Wordtracker.
2. Keywords in season
Check when your keywords are in season. This won’t be the only deciding factor on whether you should use a particular word for your web marketing, but it will help guide which ones are more important. For example, if the term with the highest average yearly volume shows an enormous peak in November and December, but is flat the rest of the year (and you don’t like competing at Christmas time!), it won’t be as high on the list.
3. Examine the competition
Look at the domains that rank in the top five spots for the terms you are targeting – perhaps for your top five keywords. Check out their Pagerank, and number of inbound links.
4. Think about emerging trends
Knowing the lexicon of current events and trends is one of the easiest ways to get traffic to your site. Find out exactly what people are talking about with site-specific tools like Google News Trends, Blogscape and Twist for Trends in Twitter. This may add to your brainstorming list, or it might indicate which keywords would make your SEO campaign more likely to succeed.
How to Decide on a Keyphrase with Multiple Word Order Options
Jan 24th
One of the great practical conundrums of SEO, and often the first one people run up against, is the keyphrase word order problem. Does your business do ‘search engine optimisation Melbourne’ or ‘Melbourne search engine optimisation’? Do you have a ‘Bangkok hotel’ or a ‘hotel in Bangkok’? Today we help you decide!
The all important word order
Go by the numbers
The first (but certainly not the only) decision making tool you can use here is Google’s Keyword Traffic Estimator Tool, available at https://adwords.google.com.au/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox . Type in each of your alternate phrases, with quote marks around each, to tell the engine you want data for an exact match. List how many searches are performed for a certain time period for each phrase … but don’t just decide to use the most popular one!
Popular first
You will be making the highest search volume phrase the first priority – but realize that you’ll also be using the alternatives later on. Yes, the top search volume phrase will have the most competition. More importantly, though, it represents the language and word order your consumers and potential site visitors think in.
URL Tips
There will often be one phrase that sticks out as not making much sense – you can tell it will be difficult to incorporate in the copy, probably because people are simply being a bit lazy about typing the phrase in! Use this phrase in the URL – that way you can still optimize for it without your copy sounding odd.
On page copy
Focus on the main, highest traffic keyphrase in your site copy. Try to use it 3 or 4 times in your body copy for relevant pages only … and remember to keep it natural!
Anchor text
Then, use your two or three alternative word order keyphrase in your link building campaigns. This should give you a good mix of the alternative keyphrases, weighted in favor of the one which will sound most natural to your readers being in the site copy, and help with your mix of internet marketing strategies.
Applying The Immutable Laws of Marketing in SEO, part 3
Jan 23rd
Phew! 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is actually quite a few . Ries and Trout have done quite a good job explaining what happens in a marketing context overall, but only a segment of the laws apply closely to internet marketing, and to SEO in particular. Today we continue our look at how Ries and Trout’s observations relate to the world of marketing on the web.
Marketing styles - different for every business, but all follow the same rules!
Time, time, time – see what’s become of me
One of the most relevant laws in an SEO context is number 11 – “Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time”. This is absolutely true in SEO – there is no business, anywhere in the world, that can launch a website one day, and be first on Google the next. Not only is the phenomenon not overnight, it often takes much longer than you expect. However, it is an ongoing practice with ongoing, very real rewards.
Negative thinking
This highly counter-intuitive rule is practiced almost nowhere on the web, and almost nowhere in traditional marketing – the rule states that ” When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive”. The examples given are Avis, which ran a successful marketing campaign after admitting they were the number 2 car rental brand; Volkswagen, which admitted the Beetle was ugly; and Listerine, who admitted the mouthwash tastes like petrol. The fact is, it takes courage, honesty and confidence in your product to admit something negative about your brand … and those are aspects everybody wants to have in companies they partner with. Make use of it in your website copywriting, your PPC ads, your social media marketing, and any communication your have with your customers.
Success, arrogance, and failure
The 18th law of marketing is that ” Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure”. In an SEO context, we see this most often when companies believe that a number one Google position is absolute. They get to #1 … and then believe they can stop spending on SEO. If you want to remain successful, you have to keep trying to be successful!
Applying The Immutable Laws of Marketing in SEO, part 2
Jan 22nd
Marketing and SEO go hand in hand – SEO is simply a new tool to achieve the same position that you used to have to get by taking out ads in the Yellow Pages, and by creating crazy jingles for radio and TV . Today we are continuing our partial look at the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (as defined by Al Ries and Jack Trout), as they apply to your internet marketing activities. Check out our web-based analysis of the first four laws as a starter, if you like.
Owning a Word
Laws 5 and 6, which state respectively that “The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind”, and “Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind”. These realte to the entire discipline of SEO … only you have to own a word in Google’s mind, but not necessarily in your prospects. Nice parallel … but we did know that anyway!
Strategy Determination
Ries and Trout observe in the seventh law that the strategy you should use depends on what rung you occupy on the ladder. The ladder is generally understood to mean the hierarchy of products within a category that exist in a consumer’s mind … and the main difference is what you do when you are number one, versus number 2, 3, 4 or lower. This gets a little complicated when you start thinking about details though – a web marketing firm will be an essential partner for implementing this one!
Follow the leader?
The ninth law comes next in our partial review of Ries and Trout’s genius – and it states that if you are shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader. That is, if you are competing with a very strong brand in your category, and can realistically expect to get to the number 2 spot on the strength of your company and product … you should do the opposite of what the #1 company does. People want an alternative, not an imitator … and there are plenty of ways to give yourself that label through your web marketing activities.
Applying The Immutable Laws of Marketing in SEO, part 1
Jan 21st
People have written classic books as recently as 1993 – amazing, eh? I thought the only worthwhile thing created that year was hypercolour t-shirts . The classic I’m referring to is a book called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, written by Al Ries and Jack Trout. It is aimed at marketers in general, but all of the concepts contained within are applicable to internet marketing. Today we are taking a selected look at the laws in a web marketing context.
The ‘First’ Laws
Ironically, the first laws in the book are all about ‘firstness’. Laws 1 through 3 are:
1. It is better to be first than it is to be better.
2. If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.
3. It is better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.
In an SEO and web marketing context, one of the most important of this set is number 3 – it is better to be first in the mind than first in the marketplace. As concrete business advice, you can take this to mean “If your competitors are lagging behind in their SEO efforts, you’d better hop on your horse quick to take advantage of that!”. You can have competitors, not be the first in your niche and still succeed – if you see that little opening.
And if you take it a little more literally, you could say that it is better to be first (in the Google rankings) than it is to be better … and you’d have a highly profitable view of business on the web!
Battle of Perceptions
The law we are talking about here, number 4, is : Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions.
In the real world, it refers to the importance of brand-building. You should have a brand that is both recognizable and respected. In web marketing this is less important, because consumers are more apt to research and choose, than blindly brand-follow.
Yet, you should always focus on maintaining good perceptions of your business, as well as maintaining good products. If your website looks a little shonky, or you link out to bad neighborhoods, or your website is listed in dodgy directories, you lose in the battle of perceptions. SEO specialists can help determine exactly how those perceptions are best ‘massaged’.
By the way, we’ll be looking at more or less all of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing in an SEO context over the coming weeks … so stay tuned!
“Would You Like a Cup of Tea?” 4 Usability Steps to Keeping Your SEO Traffic Around
Jan 20th
It’s difficult to persuade people to do things (and even to remember things that you say) when you aren’t directly looking at them. This fact has been confirmed by neuroscientific studies across the world, but in SEO we are intimately familiar with it. Most visitors to websites leave within 8 seconds if they don’t see what they are looking for, or if the site seems like hard work, or if it doesn’t match their expectations. Today we are exploring the top 4 usability steps you can take with your website to keep all that traffic so hard-won through SEO, on your site long enough to see how great you are!
A clear visual hierarchy
Step 1: Make use of visual hierarchy rules
Things that are more important on your page should be made obvious with a combination of the following web design aspects:
- Being larger
- Being bolder
- Being more colourful
- Being closer to the top of the page
- Being surrounded by more white space
Step 2: Be conventional
This isn’t business or general marketing advice, but it makes good sense for web design. Take advantage of conventions like putting a search box in the top right of the page, naming certain parts of your site ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact’, etc. This makes you effortless to understand.
Step 3: Segment your pages
If you run Adsense, it’s tempting to make the ads look like content in order to get people to click on them. Design-wise, it isn’t optimal … it simply makes the site harder to understand, and likely to have a higher bounce rate.
Step 4: Link appearance
Make it obvious when something is clickable, either by making it blue and underlining it, or creating 3D effects on it. At the very least, put a single underline on your links. As a side note, you should always make both the picture and text related to a link clickable. If your users can’t figure out how to get round their site, they’ll click off … wasting all that precious web marketing time!