The Juggernaut

Top Secret Tips for a Perfect Color Scheme

2006-01-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

Top Secret Tips for a Perfect Color Scheme
by: Mike Morgan

Many Web page builders agonize unnecessarily over choosing a
color scheme for their pages. In addition to the color choices
themselves, the proportion of those colors is also critical to
the overall look of the Web page. Fortunately, there is a very
simple, foolproof way to create a perfectly harmonized and
proportionate color palette.
This method is so simple, and so effective, that I don't know
why it isn't plastered all over the web ... but it isn't, it's
still a "secret".

I use Adobe PhotoShop, but the technique will work with any
graphics creation or editing program with an eyedropper tool and
the ability to open an image file.

1. Find any image -- anywhere, I use the web frequently -- in
which you find the colors visually appealing. Don't worry about
copyright because you will not be copying any part of the image.
It doesn't matter why you find the colors appealing, just that
you do. To determine whether it is the colors or some other
aspect of the image that you find attractive, squint your eyes
until the image blurs. If the colors alone are still appealing,
use that image.

2. Save the image, then open it in your image editing
application. I'll call this your "source" image. Open a new
document in the same work area. This is your "palette" image.

3. From the source image, determine the color that covers the
most area. Use the eyedropper tool to sample that color. In your
palette image, use the paint bucket (or fill) tool to set this
as the background color.

4. Pick another color, with the eyedropper tool, from the source
image. Notice the proportion that the color has to the overall
image. In your palette image, use the rectangular selection (or
draw rectangle) tool to create an area that has roughly the same
proportion to the whole palette image and the source color has
to the source image. Again, use the paint bucket (or fill) tool
to set the new rectangle to the new color.

5. Continue transferring colors, in the same approximate
proportions, until you have four or five palette image colors in
addition to the background.

6. If your imaging application is able, convert the image to
"web safe" colors, and save your new color palette.

7. Write down the hex codes (the '#' followed by six letters or
numbers) for your colors.

8. Determine the relative proportion each Web page element has
to the overall page, and assign the corresponding palette image
colors to them.

Of course, you'll have to tweak your colors a little bit until
you get the look you want, but this "secret" method can save you
hours of trial and error.

------------------------------------------------------------------
About the author:
Mike Morgan is the owner of
Bison Creek Desktop Publishing offering a variety of
low-cost and "you'll-owe-me-one" service to those long on vision
but short on funds. Need an outlet for your e-book? A cover
designed? A review or testimonial? Sales copy
------------------------------------------------------------------

How to Create Powerful Headlines- In Just 10 Minutes

2005-12-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

by Bob Serling

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Most direct marketing experts agree that the most important component of any marketing piece is your headline. Legendary marketers like David Ogilvy and Claude Hopkins advised that a great headline can boost your response by as much as 400%.

You probably already know that many top copywriters spend hours sweating over getting their headline just right. They maintain swipe files brimming with hundreds of headlines they've culled from successful ads, sales letters, and web marketing pieces. There are even entire books made up of nothing but headlines that you can use as inspiration for creating your own headlines.

Now, while I agree that a riveting headline is critical to the success of any marketing piece, I strongly disagree that you should have to sweat bullets to create your headline. In fact, I usually spend no more than 5 to 10 minutes coming up with a blockbuster headline — and many of the marketing pieces I've created have been multi-million dollar controls, due in part, to their riveting headlines.

In this issue, I'm going to show you how easy it can be to create compelling headlines that stop people in their tracks and convince them to take time out of their overloaded day to read your marketing piece.

It really couldn't be much easier, once you understand the fundamental concept of...

Letting it all ride on your reptilian brain
Four or five-thousand years ago, life was much simpler. And a whole lot more dangerous. We spent our days dealing with things like, "Cripes, there are saber-toothed tiger tracks on the ground here. How can I keep the beast from leaping out of a tree and pouncing down on me?"

Or, "The cave is getting pretty small for me, my wife Mook and our extended families. Where will we possibly find a more spacious cave?"

That's your reptilian brain doing what it does best — making judgement calls necessary for your survival. Fight or flight. Feast or famish. Do or die.

Now, let's see how this plays out in our modern-day, technologically advanced world. Let's say you're strolling through the mall on your lunch break. You've just finished polishing off your low-carb, high-protein, glycemically balanced meal and you still have 20 minutes to kill before you have to return to your job. So you walk through the mall window shopping, basically doing nothing but daydreaming.

Take a minute and think about what goes through your mind at times like this.

If you really examine the majority of the thoughts you have when you're alone, you'll find that we haven't strayed far from our reptilian brains. "What the heck are we going to serve for dinner on Sunday when the Wilsons come over? Did I send in the mortgage payment yet? I'd better check when I get home tonight. Susie is going to be entering college in less than three years. How are we possibly going to pay four years tuition?"

And on and on it goes. Your mind runs through a nearly endless procession of...

Problems!

Quite simply, that's how our brains are wired to operate. Root out those problems. Search and destroy. Keep everything under control.

Brain-driven headlines
The fact is, we all think like this on a consistent basis. And once you realize this, you can use it to tremendous advantage whenever you need to create a headline. There are two simple steps you can use to harness the power of how our brains think to create a riveting headline:

Spend a few minutes thinking about precisely which problems trouble your prospects the most.

Put your prospects' most nagging problem in a format the brain can't resist reading and following up on.
Let's take a look at each step in detail.

Step 1: Spend a few minutes thinking about precisely
which problems trouble your prospects the most
Your prospects are no different than you or me. Catch them alone - strolling through the mall, driving in their car, or sitting in front of the TV — and their thoughts naturally turn to their problems. Your job is to determine which problems trouble your prospects the most.

Let's say you have a hot new diet product, loaded with all kinds of health benefits. You've determined that your target market is the vast, aging "boomer" market. First, ask yourself, "What are the diet and health related issues these folks are vitally interested in?"

Some potential answers would include:

Slowing or reversing the aging process
Looking younger than their actual age
Avoiding crippling diseases such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer's
Feeling good enough to enjoy their retirement
Being able to participate in the activities they enjoy without painful side effects

I'm sure there are more problems than these, but this is a decent starter list. Now, ask yourself, "From this list, which is the worst problem my prospects face? What would cause my prospects to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat?"

If you look at the list of potential problems, one of them is far more jarring than all the others. Can you guess which one I'm referring to?

The answer is — "Avoiding crippling diseases such as heart attack, stroke, cancer and Alzheimer's." The other problems pale in comparison.

Now you have the raw material necessary for developing a riveting headline.

Step 2: Put your prospects' most nagging problem in a format
the brain can't resist reading and following up on
There are two components to this step: (A) Stating the problem as a problem; and (B) Using a format the brain simply can't resist reading.

Stating the problem as a problem may seem obvious, but I assure you that most people go wrong by trying to focus on the solution to the problem in their headline, rather than sticking with the problem.

Here's an example of what I mean. Let's assume that further research about your target market has determined that their highest priority problem is the fear of a premature heart attack. After all, 99% of all people who we see die of natural causes on television shows clutch their heart, gasp for breath, and crumple to the ground. And the actual deaths of famous athletes and entertainers due to heart attacks are extremely common on the evening news. So it's easy for your prospects to imagine being stricken by this same fate.

Unfortunately, many marketers shy away from using the problem in their headlines, and prefer to focus on the solution instead. But let's take a look at what you sacrifice by focusing on the solution rather than the problem. Here are two examples of headlines you might create around the fear of premature heart attack:

Solution Headline

How to have a healthy heart well into your 80s
...and get more enjoyment out of every day of your life

Problem Headline

WARNING: Doctors report that the first symptom
82% of heart attack victims feel is death

OK, now let's put these headlines to the ultimate test. Assuming that you are acutely aware that you're growing older and heart attack is the number one source of death for your age group, which of these headlines is going to compel you to drop whatever you're doing and read further? Without a doubt, it's the second, problem-based headline.

Now in case you're reluctant to use fear or illuminate your prospect's most nagging problem in your headline, let me remind you that you didn't create this problem. Their reptilian brain has done a perfectly good job of focusing on that problem for you. Your prospect lives with this fear day-in and day-out. You didn't create the problem, you're simply reminding your prospect of the problem they are already well aware of.

So far, we've come up with a pretty strong problem-based headline, wouldn't you agree? But your work is not done yet. There's still another step to make sure your headline is so compelling, it draws in as many people as possible.

Brain science revisited
There's another aspect of how the brain operates that you can put to extremely beneficial use once you understand it. You see, there is a simple way of structuring information that your brain simply can't resist.

Think about the examples I showed you earlier of the problems that drifted through your mind while strolling through the mall. Your brain naturally employs a specific structure for identifying incoming problems. Let's take another look at these problems again:

What the heck are we going to serve for dinner on Sunday when the Wilsons come over?
Did I send in the mortgage payment yet? I'd better check when I get home tonight.
Susie is going to be entering college in less than three years. How are we possibly going to pay four years tuition?

What is the common structure that all of these examples share?

Each is structured primarily as a question. That's the format that your worries usually take when they drift into your mind. Because not only does your brain focus on problems, but it also does a masterful job of solving those problems. And the natural format your brain employs for searching out a solution is to pose your problem in the form of a question.

In fact, our brains are so conditioned to respond to questions, that they can hardly avoid it. Want to test this out? Think of a riddle, then pose that riddle to someone you know and immediately walk away.

Nine times out of ten, the person you've posed the riddle to will follow you trying to guess the answer or demanding that you reveal the answer. Our brains simply can't stand to let a question go unanswered.

So if you want to make absolutely certain your prospects read your headline, focus on their most critical problem. And to make equally certain that they follow up and read beyond your headline into the body of your sales piece, use a question format for all or part of your headline.

Structuring your headline for maximum readership
Let's take the headline we came up with earlier and add a question structure to it. This can be done two different ways. First, you can create a headline that is a direct question. Or, you can create a two-part headline that's a combination of a statement followed by a question. For this particular example, I've chosen to use a two-part headline:

WARNING: Doctors report that the first symptom
82% of heart attack victims feel is death

...what 3 simple steps can you take
to guarantee this doesn't happen to you?

The reason I've used a two-part headline in this case is that the first portion of the headline is so strong, I don't want to dilute it. Also, remembering that our reptilian brains are always scanning for problems, the use of the word "Warning" alerts the brain to the fact that a serious problem is about to rear its ugly head.

Take a good look at this updated version of the original headline with the question component added. If you are an aging boomer who dreads the potential problem of a devastating heart attack, can you imagine not feeling the need to find out how you can avoid this horrendous fate? Few prospects could pass this up without reading further. They just have to know what the "3 simple steps" are.

Putting the 10-minute process to work
Now that you've seen the steps that make up my process, here's how you use it to create powerful headlines in 10 minutes or less.

When you first start using the process, the easiest way to get the best results is to run through each step on paper. Start by listing all the problems your prospects face that your product or service can solve. This should take no more than five minutes.

Next, identify the single most critical problem on the list. This should only take about 30 seconds, because as you've seen, one problem will almost always stand out as being far more dangerous than the others.

Finally, take that statement of what the worst problem is and convert it to a question format. This can easily be done in two to three minutes. Total time to go from zero to a blockbuster headline: under 10 minutes.

Plus, the more you use this formula, the easier it gets. I've been using the formula for so long now, that I run the first couple of steps in my head, usually in less than a minute. The only step I do on paper is writing out the actual question-structured headline.

I conceived and wrote the two-part headline for this example in less than two minutes. The concept came right away, then I wrote out the first draft of the headline. I then tinkered with it, eliminated a couple words here, improved a word or two there, and came up with the final version.

Now that you understand how to run the process and why it works so well, there's no need to slave for hours creating a powerful headline. Just plug in my process any time you need to, and within minutes, you can have a riveting headline that produces exceptional results.

Copyright © 2005 by Bob Serling All rights reserved

Just click on the headline to visit Bob's Website

Feel free to click on the envelope and send this post to a friend

Analyzing Website Traffic

2005-10-04T12:14:00.000-04:00

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Analyzing Website Traffic
===================================================

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable
tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can
make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to
interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web
traffic information that you then have to interpret and
make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from
your host company can be overwhelming if you don't
understand how to apply it to your particular business and
website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the
average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and
monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your
website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the
more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume
your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate
perception. You must also look at the behavior of your
visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge
the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly
known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality
traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of
information requests received by the server. If you think
about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number
of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown
the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage
has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits,
when in reality we are talking about a single visitor
checking out a single page on your site. As you can see,
hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more
accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the
traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis
will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller
the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors
can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out
how well or how poorly your site is working for your
visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long
on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time
spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an
underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out
what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type
of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are
confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit
rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are
spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and
after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as
a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine
effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you
have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are
exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could,
for example, consider improving the link to this page by
making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could
improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors
can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are
spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less
important, you might consider moving some of your sales
copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital
information about the effectiveness of individual pages,
and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential
information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final
order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your
visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your
site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking
for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit
pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a
particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In
the case that a significant percentage of visitors are
exiting your website on a page not designed for that
purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to
discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential
weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or
graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping
visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the
wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time
to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular
keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your
site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they
find what they are looking for on your site, and even
better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the
more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being
directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a
particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands
adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors
to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close
analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find
your site will give you a vital understanding of your
visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website
by typing in your company name, break open the champagne!
It means you have achieved a significant level of brand
recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

-Thanks for visiting
-Randall

Evaulating Web Site Performance

2005-10-03T11:53:00.000-04:00

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Evaulating Web Site Performance
===================================================

Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet
marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site
depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your
website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to
accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish
anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and
monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online
announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action,
whether it is visitors filling out a form so a
representative can contact them, or purchasing a product,
there are steps you can take to insure that your website is
functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators
of how well your site is working for you is finding out the
number of visitors in a given period of time. A good
baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been
doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through
your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually,
you want those visitors to actually do something there. It
is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to
your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the
site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the
efficacy of your website.

To find the site conversion rate, take the number of
visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them
that actually performed the action your site is set up for.
For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only
25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion
rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of
visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors
who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ?00 X 100).

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a
form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is
between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion
rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form
will actually become your customer. However, whether your
site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the
visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will
measure the success or failure of your website whenever you
make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional
marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site
is extremely low. There are several effective methods to
improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly
launching a search engine optimization campaign. This
campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search
engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster
and easier. You can either research the steps you need to
take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a
search engine optimization company to do the work for you.
In either case, after your have improved your search engine
positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular
monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high
positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor
to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up
for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill
out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the
visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If
it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw
in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your
buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or
ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your
website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to
make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be
specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a
cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right
copy can make the difference between profit and loss in
your online campaign.

"How Changing One Single Onpage Optimization Factor Can Boost Your Rankings By Over 350 Positions!"(#3)

2005-10-03T11:19:00.000-04:00

"How Changing One Single Onpage Optimization Factor Can Boost Your Rankings By Over 350 Positions!"

Ok, so now we've selected our main 3 keywords:

weight loss story
weight loss picture
safe weight loss

Notice that all of the keywords contain the word "weight loss". This will make things easier for us when we begin to optimize our offpage ranking factors which you'll learn about later.
Let's Optimize Our Webpage ...
The first thing we need to do is select a page Title for our website.
The page title should:
Include ONLY our main keywords. The least amount of words you can place in the title, the more weight Google will give to each of the keywords and the higher you will rank.
When creating your page title, it should not look like this:
Welcome to our website!
It should not even look like this, which does containg our main keywords, but contains an unnecessary number of words:
weight loss story and weight loss picture and safe weight loss
Although that title isn't horrible and does contain all of your main keywords, you should do a couple of things to cut down on words used.
This would be a perfect title for your webpage:
Weight Loss Story | Safe Weight Loss Picture
Notice that I've:
Taken out all of the "ands"
Replaced one of the "ands" with a "|" character
Combined the keywords "Safe Weight Loss" with "Weight Loss Picture"
Always Combine Your Keyword When Possible to cut down on the total number
of words that are in your title!
Always Combine Your Keywords In The Page Title!
When Google looks at our title it will see all 3 of our keywords only. Combining keywords to cut down on the total number of keywords displayed in the title is a great way to boost the strength of each individual keyword, which will have an immediate impact on your ranking.
Add h1 header tags
Next we'll need to add 1 h1 header tag and place our most important keyword there.
The h1 header tag should be as far towards the top of the page as possible. When Google reads a webpage, it views the text from the top left hand side of the page to the bottom right hand side of the page. So, it's best to place your h1 header tag on the top left hand or top/middle portion of your page. You can think of an h1 header tag as a title for whatever content you have on your page.
For example, the h1 header tag of this lesson would be:
These could be possible keywords we should target to begin with. Once we have our list of 3 to 4 keywords, we need to go to Google and check out the competition to see exactly how hard it will be to optimize for the specified keyword.
"How changing 1 onpage optimization factor can boost your rankings by
over 350 positions!"
... and the html code would look like this h1"How changing 1 onpage optimization factor can boost your rankings by over 350 positions!" /h1
Of course, I would have changed my lesson title to contain my main keyword if I was actually trying to optimize this page for Google. Also, if possible, it's ideal if you can include ONLY your main keyword within the h1 header tags. h1 Weight Loss Story /h1 would be perfect.
Add h2 header tags
Next, we'll need to create an h2 header tag. This can be thought of as a sub heading for our webpage. You should place your 2nd most important keyword in the h2 header tag. The h2 tag should be placed somewhere towards the top half of your webpage.
A good h2 header tag for our example would be:
h2 safe weight loss h2 (Usually it's best to place your primary keyword in your h1 tags and your secondary keyword into the h2 tags.
After we've done this, we need to actually create the content for our webpage. When writing the content, try to evenly sprinkle your main keywords throughout the copy. Don't overdo it though.
Try to mention each keyword in a natural way as you are writing, but be sure to include at least one of the keywords per 1-2 paragraphs, depending on how large your page is.
Tip: Make sure to mention your main keyword at the very top left and the very bottom right hand side of the webpage. A trick I like to use is to include this in the copyright information line at the bottom of the website. For our example, this would be a good example:
© 2005 copyright www.domain.com a weight loss story
Notice that it flows and doesn't really look too strange.
Bolding, italicizing and underlining ...
Once we've finished writing the copy, we should go through and bold, underline, or italicize some of the keywords only 1 time each, maximum. Only do 1 per keyword or it will hurt you more than it helps.
Properly include image tags ...
Next, click on the very top image of your webpage (This is usually your website's header graphic) and include an alt image tag using the text "weight loss story header" if you're adding this alt text to your website header graphic. Click on 2 more graphics throughout your webpage and enter your other 2 keywords, plus an extra word like "graphic" or "image"... For example, we would use "weight loss picture graphic" and "safe weight loss image". This ensures that Google won't view this as spam.
Force Google To Read Your Keywords First!
Now, remember I stated above that Google views your webpage from top left, to bottom right? Well, in general they do. But because most websites contain a left hand column which contains all of their navigation links...
Google WILL View all of the text in the left hand column Before The Body of the webpage
How can you get around this? I've come up with a neat little trick that will ensure that Google reads the actual body of your webpage before the left hand column containing your navigational links.
Here is what you need to do:
Rather than creating a table that looks like this:

navigational links------ You body text...
You should create a table that looks like this:

-------------- You body text...
navigational links

In other words the body Text is placed higher on the page than navigational links.
By doing this, Google will read the top left hand row/column first... BUT will see that it is empty, so it will then read the body of your webpage and then read the 2nd left hand row/column which contains your navigational links! :-)
That's all there is to it!
In summary, I really want to point out the fact that, although good onpage optimization is something you'll really want to do, it is NOT how you make dramatic changes in your search engine ranking!
This is one of the biggest misconceptions in the search engine world. Many believe that by getting your keyword density just right, or by moving your keywords around on the page in just the right places, you'll really move up in the search engines.
That is not the case at all. It is the offpage optimization factors that will get you high rankings. I will teach you exactly what offpage optimization factors are, AND how to make sure you optimize these factors perfectly for Google!

"The Secret To Getting Listed In Google In Under 24 hours"(#2)

2005-10-03T09:42:00.000-04:00

You may or may not have heard pepole claim they can get listed in Google in only 1 day. It seems that nearly 100% of the people you run across in forums act like in order to get indexed by Google in 24 hours is some miracle feat that can only be accomplished by doing some "top secret" marketing tactic or advanced optimization strategy,

Well, the truth of the matter is...

Getting listed in Google in under a day is quite easy!

First let's talk about what NOT to do. This drives me absolutely crazy when I see people doing this, and is actually what I did at one time as well. The following URL probably looks familiar to you:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

This is Google's actual website submission form. They state that you can use this form to submit your website to their index of websites and it can take up to 6 weeks for your website to be placed into their index.

I don't know about you, but 4 weeks is a heck of a long time to just wait for your website to be placed in their index rotation, let alone get a top ranking!

Never Use The Google Submission Form!

You should never use this form, or any other of the top search engine's submission forms. These search engines include Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Alltheweb.

So, how do you get your website indexed within 24 hours?

Let's stick with our weight loss website for now, and I will take you through the steps you'll need to do to get indexed by Google in under 24 hours, guaranteed.

Go to Google and enter the broadest keyword you can think of that's related to your website. In our example, it will be "weight loss". Once you've done this, you'll see a list of Google results.

Browse through each website and pay particluar attention to the Google Page Rank of the website.
Note: Google Page Rank is measured by the number of websites and the "importance" of those websites that link to your website. In general, the more websites that link to your website, the higher your Page Rank will be.
So, as you're looking at these top ranked websites for the search term "weight loss", you should try to find websites with a Page Rank of 6 or higher.

Once you've found several websites like this, you should check and see whether or not they have links pages. Usually you'll see links from their index page that say (resources, links, related sites, etc.) Now, you need to search their website for their contact information.

Once you find their contact information you should send them an email asking if they will link to your website in return for you linking back to their website. If you do this correctly and professionally, they will respond and will place a link on their website to yours.
If you can manage to get 1 PR6 website to link to your website, you will be indexed by Google in under 3 days. If you can get 1 PR7 website to link to you, then you will be in Google's index in under 24 hours!

Sometimes persuading the higher page rank websites is pretty tough, so there's another option you can pursue and that is ...

Purchasing Text Links - But For Only 1 Month

Purchasing links from high Page Rank websites. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to visit 1 of the many link purchasing websites. Here are a few of the better ones:

1. http://www.textlinkbrokers.com (I personally work with them and they are very good.)
2. http:///www.text-link-ads.com
3. http://www.linkadage.com

Many times you can purchase 1 PR7 link for a 1 month time period for, say, $150. After the month is up, there is no need to renew because you are already in Google's index! So, basically by paying $150 you can be indexed by Google within 24 hours, with no work on your part.

There is a catch. During this month period there is 1 thing you MUST do or spending $150 will be a complete waste and you won't see any benefit from spending your money.

So what is this 1 thing?
Check next post

This concludes Post #2- Thanks for visiting

"Optimize The Wrong Keywords And You'll Likely Never See Results ..."(#1)

2005-10-02T19:04:00.000-04:00

"Optimize The Wrong Keywords And You'll Likely Never See Results ..."

Note: Before you begin, if you're NOT 100% serious about getting your website to the top of Google, don't read another word. Only read on if you plan to put into action,

everything I will be teaching you. It's best to print each lesson off on your printer, highlight areas and take notes as you learn the exact steps needed for a top Google ranking.
Ok, on to lesson 1...

If you're anything like me, you've probably created a brand new website. Submitted it to a few search engines and hoped that people would mysteriously show up at your site and buy whatever it is you were selling.

After a couple of weeks go by and only a few stray people show up at your website, you decide to try and "optimize" your website around your main keyword in hopes that you just might rank well in 1 of the millions of search engines. Another couple of weeks go by and still no luck.

At this point you probably give up and decide to either build another website around a different target market or just lose all hope and quit. Well, news flash, as you've probably figured out by now, this is not the way to go about doing things.

Let me give you a specific example of what your very first steps MUST be when creating any website.

In our example, let's create a weight loss related website. Before we start creating and collecting content for the website we need to do a little keyword research. This is VERY important and should not be skipped. To do our keyword research we need to visit a few websites.

The first of which should be http://www.goodkeywords.com/.

They have a very good keyword tool and best of all, it's free! Once we've downloaded this software, we can enter the most generic keyword for our website into the software. In our example, our keyword would be "weight loss".

You'll notice that Good Keywords will return a list of related terms. The "count" column will then sow us how many times the specific keyword has been searched for the previous month within the Overture.com search engine. Generally, you can take that number times 8, in order to estimate the number of times that keyword has been searched within Google for the previous month.

In this instance, weight loss was searched 1,592,607 times during the previous month.

Do NOT start off by optimizing for the keyword "weight loss"

Why? you ask... If a keyword is searched that many times in Overture, then 100 times out of 100, the competition you will have to outrank will be extremely fierce. This is not something you should try to take on right away.

Let's take a quick peek at Google so I can show you exactly how many websites are competeting for this keyword.

If you were to optimize your website based on this keyword, you'd be competing against over 45 million other websites! I don't know about you, but that's an aweful lofty goal to start with.

By the end of this course, you will be able to eventually target HUGE keywords such as "weight loss", but it's always best to start off on the keywords with less competition. Get some traffic with those keywords, and THEN you can focus on the larger keywords.

Ok, so back to finding which keywords we want to target.

If we scroll down, we can find some more specific keyword phrases like "weight loss story", "weight loss picture", and "safe weight loss".

These could be possible keywords we should target to begin with. Once we have our list of 3 to 4 keywords, we need to go to Google and check out the competition to see exactly how hard it will be to optimize for the specified keyword.

We'll begin with the keyword "weight loss story"

You'll notice that the #1 ranked website for "weight loss story" is:
http://www.runwalkjog.com/weight_loss_success_story.htm which is not a top level webpage, meaning it's not simply http://www.runwalkjog.com/

This is good news for us because, typically, if a website's subpage is ranking well in Google, we have an immediate advantage if we choose to target the same keyword with our homepage (i.e. www.domain.com). For now, just take my word on this, as I will go into more detail why it's usually easier to rank well for your homepage than any other webpage on your website.

You'll also notice that the website has a Google Page Rank of 5.

Note: Here's a quick definition of Page Rank. Page Rank is Google's way of giving a specific value to how popular your website is. It is based on the number of "votes" other websites cast for your website. A "vote" is simply when another website places a link on their website that is pointing to your website. Generally, the more "votes" or links you have pointing to your website, the higher your Page Rank (PR) will be. Page Rank is 1 of the many factors that Google takes into account when ranking websites.

In order to see your own Google Page Rank, as well as others, you must have the Google Toolbar installed on your computer. You can get that for free here: http://toolbar.google.com/

Seeing that the #1 ranked website for this keyword only has a Page Rank of 5 is also good news for us, because a Page Rank of 5 should be reasonable to obtain. Remember, the ONLY way to increase our website's Page Rank is by getting other websites to link to us. Later, I'll teach you the right way to get thousands of links pointing to your website in a matter of a few days.

View The Source Code

Next we need to view the source code of this website by clicking "view", then "source" within our web browser.

This will open up a text file for us to have a look at and see if this website is actually optimizing their "Onpage Optimization factors".

* Side Note: There are 2 types of optimization, onpage and offpage optimization. We'll cover offpage optimization in the following posts.

As we view the source file from this website, we need to look for a few things.

Whether or not they are using h1 header tags and are placing the keyword "weight loss story" within those tags. In this case, they are not... AND they aren't even using h1 header tags at all! Another great thing for us!
Whether or not they are using their main keyword in the title tags of the website. In this case, they are, which is one of the main reasons they're currently ranked highly for "weight loss stories".
Whether or not they've bolded, underlined, or italicized the words "weight loss story" anywhere in the body of the webpage. In this case, yes... they have. They've actually bolded the keyword "weight loss stories" 4 different times throughout the webpage. At first glance, it looks as though this is another one of the major reasons they've managed to grab the top spot for this keyword. Bolding is something we can do right away, so now we know that we should also bold some of the keywords throughout our copy.
Whether or not they are using alt image tags and placing the keyword "weight loss stories" within that tag. In this case, that answer is easy because they're not even using any images at all! This is definitely something we can do when optimizing our website. And another thing we can do to "one-up" this #1 ranked website. It is best to add images that are actually named after our main keyword. For example, we could insert an image and call it weight-loss-stories-graphic1.jpg and so on.
The final thing we want to note is whether or not they've placed the keyword once at the very beginning of the copy, and once at the very end of the copy. In this case they have placed it near the beginning BUT have not placed it at the end. This is another thing we can do to better optimize our webpage.

We now know we can easily out optimize this
#1 ranked website!

... Atleast for all the onpage optimization factors that Google deems as important. The reason we know we can out optimize them is because of the following things we've found out by analyzing their website:

The website is not using the keyword "weight loss stories" in an h1 header tag.
The website did not use alt image tags containing the keyword "weight loss stories".
The website didn't place the keyword "weight loss stories" at the very end of the page.
The website has a low Page Rank of 5, which can be beaten. We can easily achieve a Page Rank of 5 or better. I'll show you the exact steps for this in future posts.
The website is ranked with their subpage (weight_loss_success_story.htm). By optimizing our index page for this keyword, we can one up them.
* Remember, the main idea behind ranking well on Google is to analyze the top ranked websites and then doing those things that they're doing, BUT just a little more to on up them and obtain a better ranking.

We'll continue to go through the same process for the other 2 keywords we've found. It is best to analyze the top 5 ranking websites for each keyword. If the top 5 websites for a specific keyword have a Google Page Rank of 6 or higher, it's probably not best to shoot for that keyword until we build some momentum and get some initial traffic from the easier ranking keywords with less competition.

Earlier I mentioned that keyword research was very important in building traffic. Some other very good resources for building keywords and finding niche phrases include the following:

http://www.wordtracker.com
http://inventory.overture.com (This is the same as goodkeywords.com but is web-based)
http://www.adwordanalyzer.com/
That wraps up post#1 - Targeting the right keywords.

Hold on to your hats because the next lesson is a doozy!

Thanks for visiting

Monitoring Search Engine Positions

2005-10-01T11:02:00.000-04:00

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Monitoring Search Engine Positions
===================================================

Since search engines are the first stop for people on the
Internet looking for goods or services, the position your
website appears in search results is an important factor.
If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances
of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally.
Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is
essential that you make sure you maintain the high ranking
you have worked so hard to achieve.

This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your
search engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the
success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search
engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let
your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market
fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks
so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is
the way you must consider your search engines positions.

Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search
engine campaign and done all the right things to increase
your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward
climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment
that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens,
your search engine position campaign moves into stage two,
the monitoring and protecting stage.

In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term
fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the
subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio.
Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole
process. It's the long-term changes that you must watch for
and prepare to act on immediately.

Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions
is imperative. The way in which search engines rank
websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware
of these changes - many of which are subtle yet can be
deadly to your ranking - your position may drop to the
bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To
prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a
system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise
a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your
top pages, and make sure to watch "the market" closely.

Each search engine uses a formula to compute website
rankings. When a search engine changes this formula in any
way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search
engines use a number of different formulas, rotating them
so that a formula doesn't become overused or outdated.
Depending on which formula is being applied, your search
engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank
significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions
frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes
formulas and what effect it has on your positions.

You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor
you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor's
position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your
position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position
higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the
continual changes that are occurring in your competitor's
position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy
to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these
fluctuations will also give you vital information about how
to improve your website to increase your position in search
results.

Of course, you must discern what the most popular search
engines are in order for your monitoring efforts to be
effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines
that direct most of Internet traffic to your sites. The
challenge you face is that these top ten may change from
month to month.

This means that your must not only monitor your search
engine positions, but you must also keep track of the
ranking popularity of the search engines you are
monitoring. Find out which search engines people use most
frequently every month and be sure to live in the present!
People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and
it takes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The
search engines they loved when you first launched your
campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must
adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the
Internet users. Check out
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html
for a current list of website favorites.

Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of
your positions in all search engines. This is not the same
as monthly fluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign!
It could mean a number of different things.

It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may
indicate that search engines spiders - those sneaky
programs that seek out your site and rank their positions -
have found some type of problem with your website. If you
have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider
may become utterly confused and consequently drop your
positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your
website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may
actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or
a search engine may drastically change its formula, and
suddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant. If that
search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino
effect, causing all of your position to drop in all search
engines.

Some search engines rely on the results from other search
engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these
are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The
biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes
change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in
the geography of the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo
decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you
must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep
abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape of the Internet
as a whole.

Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the
foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and
they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts.
If you have found that a number of your positions have
plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has
become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders.
Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase
has recently rocketed into outer space. In either case, you
must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.

Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If
costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this
investment as diligently as you would your financial
portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an
objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a
regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards
by keeping your eye on the big picture - your long-term
marketing campaign.

Thanks for visiting

Increasing Link Popularity

2005-09-30T12:20:00.000-04:00

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Increasing Link Popularity
===================================================

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are
the first tool that potential customers use to find the
products and services they need. This is why link
popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find
your website, you have no possibilities of making any
sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about
a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to
the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,
and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords
are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably
wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking
to sites that have links to their pages from related,
quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important
one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the
most popular search engines employ it to rank your web
pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will
be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this
step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly
on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are
tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the
most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is
that just linking up with a large number of other websites
will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have
quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when
pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link
farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate
links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against
your website if you are associated with a link farm, so
steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site
you are linking to. Never link to a page you have
reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you
want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.
Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link
popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link
popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on
all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the
door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as
Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is
business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and
despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,
it will be money well spent. If your site is
non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take
time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open
Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are
business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make
a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site
listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of
appropriate category, and this just takes some common
sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from
an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny
State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from
Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is
look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine
Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself
with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is
to locate other quality sites that will increase your link
popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related
to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,
but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to
avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful
to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site
example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies
would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the
knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are
also greater. By linking to a related site that will be
relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both
of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites'
link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have
to do some research when you are looking for possible
linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for
your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think
quality customers will also enter to find your own site.
Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,
non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.
Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the
quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.
Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and
determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must
set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link
on your own links page to their site. This is an essential
first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances
significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added
their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.
Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make
sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk
mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat
that you have added a link to their page on your site. A
hook like this almost always insures the reader will read
on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much
you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that
you have actually visited their site, and that their site
is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your
links page, and ask them to check out the link for
themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not
only benefit from the increased traffic your website will
direct their way, but you will also increase their link
popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so
essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't
sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would
greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on
their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as
you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and
non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant
sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if
they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,
and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then
give it another month, and if your site is still absent
from their links page, it's time to remove their link from
your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a
link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial
to your link popularity and your business needs. Just
remember to keep all your communications complimentary and
cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search
engines frequently to see if your link popularity has
improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It
will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no
way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your
link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with
such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined
site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.
Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long
as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

Thanks for reading
Randall
Visit my MarketingXcellence blog

Search Engine Keywords Selection

2005-09-13T14:31:00.000-04:00

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Search Engine Keywords Selection
===================================================

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential
customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to
reach their destination - your website - you need to
provide them with specific and effective signs that will
direct them right to your site. You do this by creating
carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the
Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and
presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front
door. But if your keywords are too general or too
over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it
all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits
from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing
strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no
matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the
right people may never get the chance to find out about it.
So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather
and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words
for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't
followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.
It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center
of your business network, which is the reason that you may
not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the
inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.
And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,
your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of
potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words
from as many potential customers as you can. You will most
likely find out that your understanding of your business
and your customers' understanding is significantly
different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the
words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you
probably never would have considered from deep inside the
trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from
outside resources should you add your own keyword to the
list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for
the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a
small number of words and phrases that will direct the
highest number of quality visitors to your website. By
"quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most
likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around
your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating
the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:
popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an
objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the
more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a
search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity
of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating
based on real search engine activity. Software such as
WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and
phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a
given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to
be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this
concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the
search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are
down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will
probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice.
You must move on to the next criteria, which is
specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater
the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase
your goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have
obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile
companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork
only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower
on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it
would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of
getting a slew of people interested in everything from
buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get
only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled
fenders being directed to your site. In other words,
consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will
immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the
specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you
will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this
requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer
rather than the seller to figure out what motivation
prompts a person looking for a service or product to type
in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another
example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as
an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between
"Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do
you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were
looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would
you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second
keyword targets people who have decided on their career,
have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you
as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school
who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or
her life in between beer parties. You want to find people
who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires
subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most
specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most
motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.
You must continually evaluate performance across a variety
of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends
change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log
traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how
many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you
judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual
search engines. There is now software available that
analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.
This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you
the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a
good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find
keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually
buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your
product. This is the most important factor in evaluating
the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the
sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective
or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better
profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for
search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -
and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into
your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your
business' rewards.

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

2005-09-10T01:59:00.000-04:00

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===================================================

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element
of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to
improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of
dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link
popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,
and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have
increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a
search engines tracks down such a site, that site is
demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search
engine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely
above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page
criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in
the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index,
even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh
treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you
should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of
misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you
are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning
website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the
Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about
increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you
must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose
to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites
that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of
artificially boosting their link popularity. They have
actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be
penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;
penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the
link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and
double-check, all the links that are active on your links
page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages
you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way
to do this is to download the Google toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most
pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a
sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the
scale. This is especially important when the scale is
completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages
have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you
may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be
difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose
scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.
These sites have not been penalized, and their links may
grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that
you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that
at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have
linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to
artificially boost their link popularity is the use of
hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web
pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means
that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you
have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine
ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of
keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding
their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to
any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the
keywords but made them the same color as the background
color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on
a white background. You cannot see these words with the
human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot
them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to
index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it
goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but
search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a
search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the
page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit
overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For
example, if the background color of your page is gray, and
you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider
will only take note of the gray text and assume you are
employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,
simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color
to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is
called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your
keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you
can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please
those spiders. A search engine uses what is called
"Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to
artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of
keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search
engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a
keyword before it decides you have overdone it and
penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass
without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your
keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,
it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword
is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase
in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so
that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not
repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword
should never appear in more than half the sentences on the
page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To
those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should
be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when
the server directs a visitor to one page and a search
engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees
is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic,
and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine
ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything
it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the
list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this
act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep
penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that
sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as
prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as
"pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these
days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link
popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is
aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure
the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will
put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link
popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent
to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor
your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially
boosting your rankings.

Paid URL Inclusion

2005-09-08T15:10:00.000-04:00

===================================================
This is a teqhnique that is spreading like wildfire on the net.
While easy to set up and use,it's easy for your competitors also.
This explains why it is so popular. In time prices per click will rise.
(They already have) So keep a close eye on the budget and don't let
this powerful tecqnique get out of control.
===================================================

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is
both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There
are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your
website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose
from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine
optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are
targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of
search engine results as possible. One of the differences
is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign
versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that
most search engines, including some of the largest ones,
now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which
translates to your company paying the bid amount every time
the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is
the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your
website traffic, your site often appears in the results of
other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and
disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor
your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very
effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never
have to tweak your web pages to change your position in
search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO
campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click
campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click
process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't
demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more
you know about search engines and keywords, the easier -
and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding
war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on
search engine results. This means that you will have to
raise your bid to regain your position - which can
obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are
bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective
form of marketing for your business, you must do some
computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site
is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit
you make on your website over a given period of time by the
total number of visitors for that same time period. For
example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were
2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50
cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which
your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show
a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you
are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost
considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way
around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be
paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything
you can about search engine keyword research. The good news
is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can
add to your bid because additional keywords do not add
additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for
you because there is no need to optimize your site to index
a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than
others are, but they will not cost you anything except time
to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the
popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called
Overture provides an online tool that will give you the
data on how often particular keywords are entered into
their search engine. They also offer suggestions for
keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You
must understand that the object of your description is not
to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as
possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy
your service or product go to your site. You must use
expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is
both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal
candidates to your site. This description is your most
powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is
that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important
that you bear in mind that the results of the top search
engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are
Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other
popular search engines. Because of this, the competition
for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find
that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click
to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on
that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when
you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in
essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in
place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword.
It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a
monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis
of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about
consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring
and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business
needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click
campaign is a success.

Soon I'll write another post with the URL's to top pay-per-click programs.

Till then Thanks for stopping by,
Randall

If you have a friend or associate whose wewbsite needs help- Feel free to click on the envelope and send this post to them

Analyzing Website Traffic

2005-09-05T10:23:00.000-04:00

Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable
tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can
make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to
interpret the data.

Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web
traffic information that you then have to interpret and
make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from
your host company can be overwhelming if you don't
understand how to apply it to your particular business and
website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the
average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and
monthly basis.

These figures are the most accurate measure of your
website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the
more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume
your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate
perception. You must also look at the behavior of your
visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge
the effectiveness of your site.

There is often a great misconception about what is commonly
known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality
traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of
information requests received by the server. If you think
about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number
of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown
the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage
has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits,
when in reality we are talking about a single visitor
checking out a single page on your site. As you can see,
hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.

The more visitors that come to your website, the more
accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the
traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis
will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller
the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors
can distort the analysis.

The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out
how well or how poorly your site is working for your
visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long
on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time
spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an
underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out
what that problem is.

It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type
of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are
confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit
rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are
spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and
after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as
a gauge of how effective your fix has been.

Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine
effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you
have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are
exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could,
for example, consider improving the link to this page by
making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could
improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors
can access the necessary information on that page.

If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are
spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less
important, you might consider moving some of your sales
copy and marketing focus to that particular page.

As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital
information about the effectiveness of individual pages,
and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential
information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.

Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final
order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your
visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your
site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking
for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit
pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a
particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In
the case that a significant percentage of visitors are
exiting your website on a page not designed for that
purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to
discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential
weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or
graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping
visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the
wrong page.

After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time
to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular
keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your
site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they
find what they are looking for on your site, and even
better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the
more valuable that keyword is.

However, if you find a large number of visitors are being
directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a
particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands
adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors
to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close
analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find
your site will give you a vital understanding of your
visitor's needs and motivations.

Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website
by typing in your company name, break open the champagne!
It means you have achieved a significant level of brand
recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.

Know someone with a websaite that needs help? Do them a big favor- Click on the envelope to send them this post.

Visit the MarketingXcellence link to maximize both offline and online businessess.

Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company

2005-09-04T17:30:00.000-04:00

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable
asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize
in knowing how to raise your search engine positions,
monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and
adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable
results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,
effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best
interest to go to an outside source rather than try to
maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and
there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and
the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an
affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering
the approach they employ to raise your search engine
positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,
doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These
techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the
worst case scenario, will only get your website severely
penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's
index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible
to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is
coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to
this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost
your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages
utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely
different server. Google, one of the largest and most
important search engine on the Internet, will remove your
website from their index if they detect you have cloaked
pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this
technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the
company you hire will not work with your competitors while
they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously
compromise the effectiveness of the search engine
optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will
use the success they achieve for your website to sell their
services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in
writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to
check out is the company's track record of results.
However, don't take the company's word for it. They will
undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell
their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement
of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify
their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results
on. The ones that are important are the most popular
engines, and these are the ones you want to see good
results on. Since the popularity of search engines can
change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check
out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You
can access this at
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming
great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with
unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes"
will get high popularity ranking because no one else would
think of using it. What you are looking for is good results
using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,
available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free
trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This
software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based
on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the
company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to
see a wide range of positions over a number of different
search engines using different keywords or phrases for the
entire site. Request a report for any client the company
claims to have done well for. This report should show good
positions on a number of the most popular search engines
for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization
companies, make sure they have actually done the work they
are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other
company's results in order to get you to sign on with them.
If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you
results for, and ask for the name of their search engine
optimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful search
engine optimization campaign will result in maximum
exposure across a wide range of popular search engines
using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the
formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it
always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are
considering for a report that shows you rankings across a
number of popular search engines for a period of at least
six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process
that is continual, and you need a company that not only
understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search
engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust
its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your
positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your
search engine optimization company to do this for you,
request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that
this report should show rankings for the most popular
search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only
shows great results for a limited number of small search
engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also
confirm that the popular search engine results they are
showing you are indeed the popular search engines
currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a
format that you can easily understand. For example, it
could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at
least six months and presents data such as the top 50
positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages
each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are
considering actually monitors these positions or pages
every month, and that the sample report they show you
includes findings and recommendations for the specific
site. This insures that the company will actively monitor
and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis
rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You
need a company that is actively participant in your search
engine marketing campaign, not just an information
gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of
company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization
company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.
It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a
company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your
website, you might consider waiting until you do have the
finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for your
finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable
company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable
work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that
there are risks involved with using a company without a
proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't
take that leap unless the company can supply you with a
least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good
company. Don't use a company that won't show your
references because of any reason, confidentiality included.
Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm
you choose should provide you with a minimum of two
references, one that is from the past, and one that is
current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask
precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is
wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the
company, such as their availability to answer questions and
deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask
the reference to rate the overall performance of the
company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make
significant changes to their web pages that affected the
visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search
engine optimization company that can balance the needs of
both search engines and site visitors without compromising
either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of
the search engine optimization company resulted in higher
profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't
matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or
not.

Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking

2005-09-03T19:03:00.000-04:00

The methods employed to increase your search engine
rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have
probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell
you - the time has come to face your website! A high search
engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you
have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your
business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this
issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on
the Internet find websites through search engines such as
Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages
for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted
customers to your site who will be more than likely to make
a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine
results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your
website. That's what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information
available online to figure out how to optimize your web
pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few
simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments,
and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The
first item you should examine is the title bar on your
homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.
Look at the words that appear there when you access your
home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on
your homepage's title bar should include the most important
keywords or phrases, one of which would include your
company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on
the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page
of your site should contain the most important keywords and
phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very
long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or
less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title
bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to
each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website
content. Search engines generally list sites that contain
quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The
text on your site must contain the most important keywords
- the words that potential customers will be typing into
search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is
not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100
carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high
ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However,
the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning
that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your
cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able
to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not
highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,
ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in
order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this
sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is
really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags
are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality,
they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth adding
them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags
in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must
access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the
browser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a
window revealing the underlying code that created the page.
If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of
the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta
name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that
reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This
may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any
little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a
factor that is extremely important in terms of search
engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link
popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based
on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your
links page.

If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular
search engine, the search engine will then show you what
sites are linked to your site. In the case that there
aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites
that are linked up have low search engine rankings,
consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,
this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that
they exchange links with your site. Of course, this
requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want
to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only
boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more
quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a
successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out
and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking
some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't
boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this
all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the
higher your search engine ranking, the more quality
customers will be directed your way.