Archive for June, 2008
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Tuesday, June 17th, 2008The life blood of any website is traffic, not traffic in the real world sense, but a large flow of internet visitors to your website. The more visitors to your website, the more money you will make. But getting a large flow of visitors is not as easy as it sounds, it doesn't just happen, you have to make it happen, and here are 4 very effective ways of doing this:
1) Conduct joint ventures with other webmasters or list owners. Creating an effective joint venture is one of the quickest and most profitable ways of boosting your website traffic and massively increasing your sales.
A joint venture is simply an agreement made between two parties in which they both benefit. In your case, you have a product to sell and what you need to find is somebody who has a large list of subscribers and who is looking for good quality products to offer their list. You would offer the list owner a percentage of each sale in exchange for them recommending your product to their subscribers.
The key with joint ventures is to find list owners who are not direct competitors. For example, if you have a product related to puppy care you joint venture with somebody who has an ezine dedicated to dog breeding, or you could joint venture with your local vet.
2) Write articles related to the topic of your niche product and submit them to as many article directories and ezine editors you possibly can. Writing articles serves three purposes:
i) It sets you up as an expert in your niche. If your articles appear in many newsletters and hundreds of websites, people will perceive you as an expert.
ii) At the bottom of each article there is a brief bio in which you can place a link back to your website. If people are impressed with the content of your article, they will click on the link to your website to read more.
iii) Each of your articles that are published on the internet is one more link back to your website. The more links that point back to your website the more relevant your website will appear to the search engines and the higher your page will rank.
The key with articles is to submit them everywhere, to as many different places as possible. Submitting articles manually will take days, so use a paid submission service.
3) Promote your website using pay per click search engines. Your first task is to find as many keywords and keywords phrases related to your product (that people are typing into the search engines) as possible. We're not talking about ten or twenty, but hundreds, over a thousand if you can. Next you need to create a brief classified type advertisement which has a catchy benefit laden headline.
When you have these, enter them into your pay per click search engine and decide on a maximum bid for each keyword (the amount you are prepared to pay when a person clicks on the headline for your advertisement). When a surfer enters the same keyword phrase as one of yours associated with your advertisement, your advertisement will be displayed as a "Sponsored Listing" and if the surfer clicks your ad, you get charged the bid amount and the surfer is taken to your website.
4) Get as many links as possible pointing to your website. As mentioned earlier, the more links pointing to your website, the higher it will rank in the search engines for the keywords you have optimized the page for.
There is another side to having hundreds or thousands of links pointing to your website… You also get a considerable amount of traffic from people clicking on those links. This type of traffic tends to be very targeted as people won't click on a text link unless it is of interest to them.
Other than article writing, there are two major ways of getting links back to your website:
i) You can purchase text links back to your website from other high ranking web pages. The key is to buy links on pages with a similar theme to your website.
ii) You can create a reciprocal linking directory on your website. For each link you receive from another website, you will place a return, or reciprocal link back to that website. The ultimate link directories are categorized to help surfers find interesting links and also because links of a similar theme give the page they appear on the same theme, which is important for link relevancy and search engine optimization.
SEO Tips for Dynamic Websites.
Monday, June 16th, 2008Is your website is dynamic? You need to be careful, or you might not do well in the search engines. Some spider handle dynamic URLs quite well, but others have trouble – and even those that do spider them might not look very deep within your site. The problem lies in the fact that you cannot really predict what will be delivered in these URLs at all times. If you have an inkling of what is going to happen to URLs most often plan ahead; try to insure that you do not run into problems regarding these URLs.
Dynamic web pages are usually database driven and displayed on-the-fly. You can recognize by looking for symbols like question marks and ampersands in the URL. These on-the-fly web pages are hard to deal with because they very every time that they are delivered. The best way to conquer this problem is to run everything that you can through the URL rather than through post method or through sessions/cookies.
If you want to sell one or two products, then you only need a static website with one or two pages. If you have a database with hundreds of products, however, then it would be very time-consuming to make each page manually – that’s when most people build a dynamic website.
These dynamic web sites should be organized in such a way that every page that has the potential to become dynamic can be delivered in a static form as well. I.E. your product listings pages may display certain categories dynamically, but they should have static links that will simply display every product. You should also have distinct links to each category as most search engines can handle a dynamic URL as long as it doesn’t change each time that the site is viewed.
There are programs that will automatically produce static pages from a database, but it’s not usually the best move. Most designers to work with true dynamic technologies such as PHP, because of the amount of time it saves. Because search engine technology is increasing, the problems associated with dynamic URLs are decreasing day by day. It is still important to have constants, but you don’t necessarily have to have a huge list of static links throughout your site.
It can be much easier to put www.domain.com/article.php?num=1 than www.domain.com/articles/article1.html. A search engine can easily locate the prior so there is no real need for the latter. The only time that you will see trouble is if you have things like www.domain.com/article?num=1&userid=2424 where “userid” changes for each user. If this sort of thing happens you may run into trouble and should arrange so that the “userid” isn’t completely necessary (unless, of course, you want the page password protected).
Dynamic websites aren’t usually engine friendly, though, unless you deliberately make them that way. If you’ve spent money and time to build a dynamic website then you won’t want to throw it out – you need to learn how to optimize it for the search engines.
So how can you keep the functionality of your dynamic website, and make it search engine friendly at the same time? Well, suppose you have a website with products, and instead of having each product on one page you’re using a dynamic, searchable database. Searching returns a list of products that meet the search criteria, and maybe a small picture – clicking the picture shows the user more information about the product.
You have to realize that search engines can’t use your search box, so the only way for them to access your dynamic information is if they follow a link to it some other way. The lesson to learn is that you need to give access to all your pages with plain, text links, somehow – you can’t just rely on searches to drive your whole site.
What this means is that somewhere on your website you need to have a list of your products that has been organized by category – from here, you should be able to follow links to every page in your database. Once you’ve done this, the search engines can see your content.
Offering both search and category views improves your site’s navigation, as well as making it crawlable – your work will be useful to your visitors as well as the search engines, which is what SEO is all about.
SEO Tips for DMOZ.
Saturday, June 14th, 2008DMOZ is the directory where Google starts when it crawls the web, so getting listed in DMOZ is good for you. SEO with DMOZ starts with selecting the search terms you’re targeting, and then finding a directory category that includes them. This can be a time-consuming and difficult task. You’ll often find lots of matching categories.
The trick is to find the most precise category and, if possible, a directory that does not have too many other competitors in it. You can hit a niche market simply by being placed in a category that has few competitors. DMOZ, of course, makes the final decision as to where your website will be located.
Don’t choose a category that’s too general for your site, as it might just get removed later on. Make your site stand out by using a unique, catchy description – one for people, not search engines. Remember, you will probably get a pretty hefty number of hits from DMOZ itself. When you are trying to get listed in DMOZ, don’t worry about trying to get a nice listing in the search engines that crawl here, worry about getting a good listing here.
The search engines care more about where DMOZ lists your site than what you have to say about your site in your description; DMOZ cares more about how accurately described, how interesting, and how often visited your site is than where you are listed in the search engines.
A third feature to be aware of is the PageRank of the category, and the number of listings on the page. You’ll do better with more specific, smaller categories, especially if they have dedicated editors. A small category with a high page rank is the best situation that you can run into. Remember that a page’s page rank is split between the number of links that go out from it so if you run into a page with a rank of seven with seventy-five out links you probably aren’t as well off as a page with a ranking of five and ten out links.
This is a constant for Google Page Ranks, not an exception for DMOZ. Your targeted keywords should appear in your site’s description, towards the beginning. Don’t put them towards the end, as the editor might chop them off to save space!
Remember that once a site is submitted to DMOZ, it’s very difficult to update its description. Give it a few days to think it over before you submit it, and be more vague about websites if you think they might change. Don’t write descriptions that could become out of date easily. If you are running a monthly special you shouldn’t include this in your description unless you say something to the extent of “low price sales monthly.” If you suddenly decide that you are going to completely transform your site into something completely different you will have huge problems with your listings. Keep this in mind before you start building your site if there are possibilities that you will choose to reuse the domain that you have purchased.
If you absolutely have to resubmit, you can submit a blank form that informs the editor of your former web site that your site has changed drastically and that you want the old listing deleted. From there you can submit a new form to any category (or categories) that you need to be listed on with an updated title, description, and key words.
Multiple Listings for the Same Site.
Some editors allow multiple listings for submitted sites, especially if they’re good quality sites that span multiple DMOZ categories. It’s always best to request multiple listings – you can use the text box on the submission page to justify yourself.
If you find a good category for a niche inform the editor as to whether or not this will be a specified category and then search for any other categories that are related. You may get a good deal of hits from your niche, but it may also be a small market for a reason. If there aren’t that many people who would be utilizing that particular category, you may want to submit to other categories that will provide you with more substantial results.
Being Patient.
Follow the submission guidelines and don’t exaggerate. If no-one seems to be reviewing your site after a week or so has gone by then you could post a question. Be patient, though: most of the DMOZ directory is edited by hand, and they’re very busy. In many cases it can take as long as three months to get added.
DMOZ simply wasn’t prepared for the sudden importance it had forced upon it. One of the biggest problems with the directory is that each site must be looked at by editors, so your site might not get indexed for no reason other than the editor not liking it, or even just losing it.
Secrets to Getting Affiliates to Sell Your Niche Products and Services
Saturday, June 14th, 2008One of the quickest methods of increasing the sales of your niche product or service is to start an affiliate program. An affiliate program is simply a system you can implement which allows other people to sell your product or service and earn a commission on each sale. The higher the commission you pay, the more affiliates you will attract to sell your product.
Your best affiliates are unlikely to want any help from you when it comes to selling your product or service; they will most likely be experienced marketers themselves and could probably teach you a thing or two about selling online.
You can't rely only on experienced affiliates, there will be a considerable number of people who will join your affiliate program who are inexperienced in some aspects of internet marketing and the onus is on you to help them in any way you can.
First things first however, you need to set up your affiliate program so even the most seasoned internet marketer will feel comfortable joining your affiliate program. Important issues you must address are:
1) Pay a reasonable commission on each sale. Most information product authors pay commissions in the 40% to 60% range. The point is not to be greedy, make it worth the experienced marketer’s time to promote your product.
2) Pay the commissions due your affiliates regularly. Once per month is the average for most affiliate programs so you never want to exceed that. When sales are good, you might want to consider twice monthly payments to your affiliates.
3) Don't use an overly high minimum payment threshold. In the old days when check payments were expensive to generate, many affiliate programs introduced a minimum earning threshold. They did this because it was pointless raising a check for a small amount when the bank charges and postage costs were more than the value of the check. Another reason the minimum was introduced was because it was so expensive for foreign affiliates to deposit the checks into their bank accounts.
Now days international banking has become common place and therefore considerably cheaper, and there are also other payment mediums such as PayPal which make it feasible to pay smaller amounts to your affiliates.
4) Always pay your affiliates on time. Never miss a payment date unless you have very good reason to do so – not having any money is NOT a good reason, you must plan for all your payments. Nothing will scare experienced marketers away quicker than somebody who misses payment dates and then has no reasonable excuse. They might forgive you once, but not twice.
5) Use an accurate system for recording sales, commissions due and commissions paid. People need to know how they are doing with your affiliate program. They need to know how much traffic they have sent to their affiliate link. They also want to know how many sales they have made and when they can expect payment. If you have paid them they need to know when you sent the check or made the transfer.
Pay attention to these five issues and your affiliates, particularly the experienced ones will be happy, but you also need to offer a helping hand to your inexperienced affiliates by creating:
A) A number of text advertisements that can be used in the affiliate's email advertising, be it in their own ezine or for solo ads in other people's ezines.
You must test these text advertisements and make sure they are effective at generating sales before placing them in your affiliate resource center.
B) A number of classified ads for affiliates to use either as classified advertisements or as top sponsor ads in those ezines that accept advertising.
As with the text ads, you must test all your classified ads before placing them in your affiliate center.
C) A few different banner ads – there are still a few places where banner ads can attract sales, but for the most part banner advertising is not that effective.
One type of banner advertisement that is worth spending some time getting professionally made because it attracts sales is the 120 x 240 pixel, or the slightly longer 120 x 600 pixel banner which people can place under the Google Adsense code on their web pages.
D) Links to training materials which will help your affiliates become better internet marketers. You have a vested interest in their success because the more successful they become, the more money you both make.
5 SEO Tasks You Should Do Every Day.
Thursday, June 12th, 2008There are five simple tasks that you need to do daily to keep your site on top. Here they are:
1. You need to start off by managing your links. This involves making sure that none of your current links are dead, and you should also check if there are any sites linking to you that you don’t know about. If your site consists of a large number of links you should make sure that they aren’t getting out of control and get rid of anything that is no longer relevant. Also make sure that your links are sufficiently labelled to reflect the page that they link to.
2. Re-order your links, putting the best ones first. And putting them into categories if you have a high number of links. If you have a links page with 25+ links it is a good idea to turn it into a directory of some sort. This can even help you in getting more links to your site in exchange for back links on the directory that you have created. Also check the sites that you link to and make sure that any back links that are due to you are still there as you don’t have much reason to keep a link if you aren’t getting the backlink that you deserve (if the back link was, indeed, negotiated when you placed the link onto your site).
3. Process link request emails. Whenever you receive requests for a link exchange, respond quickly. Not every mail you receive will be a good one, and you should make sure to check any site that wants you to link to it. If you are declining a link request let the web master know why. Perhaps you have an incite that they do not have. They may be able to fix a few things and then become excellent link partners in the future. It is common curtesy to inform the web master as to whether or not you are willing to exchange links within two or three days of receiving a request. Web masters will be even more impressed if you send them a personalized message regarding your approval or disapproval of the link exchange.
4. Check link exchange forums. This is a similar aspect to the above except that in this case it is more difficult to keep track of all of the people who can potentially request links from your site. There is a lot of spam on these sorts of things as well as many really terrible and useless sites. If you encounter such a site or forum member, inform them of your problem with what they are doing and report them to a moderator/administrator if they do not correct their behavior in a suitable manor. It is important that these kinds of forums be kept clean or a search engine may consider it a link farm more than an exchange service.
5. Finally, you should check each feature of your website, to make sure it’s still working properly. The dynamic content that you will probably include at some point must be delivered properly. Any messages that are generated on the fly must not be generated at misopportune times. The difference between a quality dynamic site and a subpar dynamic site is that in a quality dynamic site all content is delivered at the right time and everything seems static and planned out.
Take your time with your website and make sure that you do everything you can for it each day. Keep adding anything new that you find, because updating regularly will keep search engines coming back to spider more often. Updates are crucial and if you can follow the patterns here of insuring quality and precision, you will probably be able to come up with other ways that you can insure your visitors satisfaction and your increased traffic, link count, and search engine listings.
Never agree to link to someone’s site without asking for a link in exchange, unless they offer to pay you – even then, you should think twice. All your incoming and outgoing links need to be related to your site’s content for you to be ranked high in the search engines.
Basic Link Checks.
Some sites use robots.txt to stop search engines from indexing their links pages, in the mistaken belief that outbound links will count against them. To check, just retype their URL with robots.txt on the end (for example, http://www.website.com/robots.txt). If you see a page that says ‘Disallow’ and has the URL of their links page, then they’re not letting spiders index that page. Don’t exchange links with that site.
You should also check to see if the website is being ‘cloaked’, and report it to the search engines if it is. You don’t want to get involved with these people – better to have them banned and out of the way.
Does the site offering you a link have PageRank? Even if they do, you should look at how it drops between the front page and the links page. Be aware that new pages take a while to get ranked, so PR0 doesn’t necessarily mean a site that will never have any PageRank.
Take a look at how many links are on the page already. There shouldn’t be more than 20 links – if the site breaks this rule, don’t even consider it. Plenty of webmasters collect links, thinking they’re helping their rankings, but it just has the effect of making them look like link farms. Many of them don’t even involve linking to the big spam industries, like casinos and adult content. There’s no point in having a link from a site that takes links from just anyone.
Secrets of Profiting From Resale & Master Resale Rights to Niche Products
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008Here are three ways to profit from resale & master resale rights to niche products:
1) Profiting by selling the rights to your own products
Creating and selling niche products can be a challenging but very profitable business. There is considerable work involved and many hard hours before your product will be ready for sale.
Imagine then your bitter disappointment when you don't make a single sale. After days and days of relentless promotion all you have to show for the effort is a string of bills…
That's one end of the spectrum, here's the other:
After considerable effective promotion you have made numerous sales, but sales are dropping off. The market that you have managed to penetrate is becoming saturated; you simply can't find enough people to sell your product to.
In both cases you need to find a different market niche or approach your existing niche from a different "angle" to find more customers. One very effective way to do this is to use the efforts of established marketers who are already selling in your market niche or in a similar one. It is to these marketers you can offer the rights to your product.
Essentially you are selling the rights which allow them to sell your products and keep all the proceeds (resale rights), or you could allow them to sell the rights to your products (master resale right).
You should only sell a certain number of products with rights and base your product pricing on the rights, for example:
- Unlimited copies with no rights @ $20 each.
- 200 copies with resale rights @ $150 each.
- 100 copies with master resale rights @ $300 each.
2) Profiting by selling products you have purchased the rights to
You might not be in the slightest bit interested in creating your own niche products, so buying the rights to sell somebody else’s products gets you started quickly.
Don't "jump the gun" – it's important you have a market to sell to. Getting carried away and buying resale products just because the price is good is a sure way to loose money. The correct sequence is:
A) Find a niche market that is ready and willing to buy.
B) Purchase a niche product to sell the market.
One point worth remembering is niche product creators who sell resale rights often include the sales website as a bonus. This means a number of people will be selling the same niche product from identical websites.
The success of your sales is going to depend on how much you can differentiate your package from everybody else’s, don't follow the crowd. A few examples of how you could do this are:
i) Redesign the sales website, for example you could:
– Use different sales copy
– Use different graphics
ii) Purchase similar products that have resale rights and offer them as bonuses. Check the rights before you buy the product… Very often product creators will not allow their products to be given away or used as bonuses.
iii) Write your own brief 10 to 15 page report related to the niche product and offer it as an exclusive bonus.
3) Profiting by creating and selling resale rights packages
To do this you must own niche products with master resale rights. You want to sell the resale rights to other people.
Far too many people try this avenue for earning an income on the internet and the end result is a number of resale rights packages which are practically identical, because they all bought their master resale rights niche products from the same sources.
If you have decided to pursue this avenue, your success will depend on how unique your package is. You need to source as many niche products with master resale rights (preferably that nobody else is selling) as you can. The products don't have to be from the same niche, but must be related.
For example, if you decide to put together a package of products related to dieting; your package could include e-books in these niches:
- diet recipes
- exercises
- dieting
- fat reduction
Bear in mind your exclusivity won’t last long. As soon as your package is revealed, others will try to include the same products as you.
In all three cases, you can profit from resale and master resale rights to niche products, but there is one common denominator… Make sure you have a market to sell to. Do your research first and make sure your niche is full of people who are ready and willing to buy.
SEO Scams and How to Avoid Them.
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008Uneducated customers usually expect unrealistic results when it comes to SEO. This is mostly caused by some so-called optimizers who promise things that just aren’t possible. When it comes to SEO, you should always do your research before you hand over any money. This applies to every aspect of your business as do most SEO related techniques. It is always important to keep in mind that your SEO work is no more or less than another business expense. You should never fork over money until you have done your research and ensured that you will be provided with a quality product.
Basically, there are only a few choices when it comes to getting search engine traffic. You can use pay per click ads, or submit your site to the search engines and hope you get a good ranking. Instead of hiring some overpriced company who know nothing about optimizing your site, you should keep control of your site and save money by doing the SEO yourself. Another great resource is to find a site that you would like to post your ads and pay them for a static link.
These links are very powerful because they will increase your google page rank since they are permanent. They are dually useful because you know where the traffic is coming from and you know that you are getting traffic from a site that is related to your own.
Legitimate companies won’t try to hide anything – if a company’s WHOIS information looks suspicious, then buyer beware. Any legit SEO specialist or company will give you more for nothing than they make you pay for, to show that they’re serious and they can deliver on their promises.
Basically, there’s no shortage of websites that promise to get your site to that number one position in the rankings. The biggest problem is that all of these scam ‘search engine marketing companies’ use recycled information (the same information anyone can get from the web). Worse, many of them use outdated information, or information that’s just plain wrong. There are too many inexperienced people out there trying to make a buck, without having any knowledge.
The truth is that no one can guarantee the number one position – they can try to get your site there, but it’s rare for anyone to even be able to guarantee you the top 10 nowadays. In many cases you have just as much chance of getting yourself into a top 10 position as any of these companies do. Any person or company that guarantees you a number position is just out to take your money: beware of these people! They’re out there and you might not even realize what you’re dealing with at first, as they do a good job of pretending to be knowledgeable about SEO.
Not only do you have to be careful of the unscrupulous companies doing SEO, but you also you need to be careful of some of the companies trying to sell you SEO tools. Apart from being a waste of your money, some tools can actually damage to your site's rankings. There’s plenty of software that is honestly helpful but there are still problem cases, especially with search engine submission software. Many search engines and directories won’t accept a site that is submitted through one of these programs.
Unfortunately, the Web has more than its fair share of fast-talking con-artists ready to separate naive people from their hard-earned money.
If you do outsource search engine marketing, make sure you find a real, specialized search engine marketing firm to do the work for you. You need to be certain that you’re using a trustworthy firm with a first-rate track record — check them out and see who they’re working with currently. Knowing something about the subject helps you to ask questions and make the right decision.
Do-it-yourself marketing is still the best way, if you can put in the time and effort to complete it. It can be time consuming in the beginning, and if you don’t have the two or so hours a week it takes then you should consider hiring someone to do it for you. Search engines are a great way of finding out more about SEO – learn as much as you can before you get started and you’ll do much better than the people who didn’t bother.
SEO or PPC: Which One is Right for You?
Sunday, June 8th, 2008There are two major search engine marketing strategies in use today: SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). These two methods are very different, and deciding which one is right for you can be hard. Which one do you think will do more for your website? Well, that all depends on what your website’s like.
One leading contributor to the difficulty in deciding which is correct for your site is that you don’t really understand why you can’t just use both. There is no real reason that you cannot implement both methods when marketing your site, in fact, I encourage this behavior as PPC can be integrated quite nicely into an SEO plan.
PPC is a good way to get users to become more familiar with your site. Once they are used to seeing your site, they will probably begin to stick around if they encounter it in a search engine. The more often that your site is visited the more that search engines will like it. This is one reason that it is so crucial to attempt to get as many quality hits as possible.
Reading up on the pros and cons of each program lets you sit down and decide in your own time which strategy would work best for your website. Since search engine marketing is undoubtedly the best source of targeted traffic out there at the moment, as people will continue to battle for the top search engine positions, even from day to day.
As people continually try to find new and unique ways to being additional traffic to their websites, the SEO industry continues to grow. PPC refers to text-based advertising on a search engine, and you will be charged by the click whenever a visitor clicks on one of your ads. These order of ads is usually based on bidding prices, meaning that the advertiser who bids the highest price per click will be listed first. We’ve all heard of sponsored listings, right? Well, that’s what they are: PPC listings.
SEO tries to change your search ranking by looking at a number of factors, including link popularity, PageRank, and so on. Rankings you get through SEO will appear on the main, ‘natural’ search results pages, not over in the box with the sponsored links. And you don’t have to pay for your clicks!
So, how can we tell which method is better? You can’t say that one method will always be better, because they serve different purposes. However, one is likely to be a better fit with your business than the others.
PPC.
PPC traffic, rankings and results tend to be more stable and predictable than SEO, and, combined with its low cost, this makes PPC one of the more popular ways of advertising. Most companies try PPC before they try SEO, because it’s seen as more stable and respectable.
In many cases PPC lets you rank high on the search engines, without having to do the tedious work involved in SEO – no finding link partners, posting links, and so on. As long as you have the budget for it, the ranking’s yours, and another advantage is that the listing will get posted when you add it, not when the search engine gets round to it.
Sadly, PPC’s popularity makes it a competitive market. You will find that CPCs (costs per click) are steadily rising, and that hurts the little guys. Prices work as auctions – the more people in the auctions, the higher the prices.
SEO.
The main benefit of SEO is that it can be done entirely for free, and let’s face it, who doesn't like free traffic?
The disadvantages, though, are that your traffic is unpredictable. You have to guess, adapt, and constantly change strategies. One month you could just fall out of the top 10 without any warning, and there goes your income. SEO is also slower than PPC, as the search engines only update their natural listings about once a month.
So what should you choose? Well, it depends on how much money you have to spend. If you have cash then PPC should be your first choice, as it produces faster results. If you’re on a low budget, you should look at SEO first. The best thing to do, though, is to use both techniques together – use PPC for some keywords and SEO for others, depending on the keywords’ price.
Killer Copywriting Tips to Increase Niche Sales
Sunday, June 8th, 2008The success of your niche website is going to depend on the quality of the copywriting on your sales page (there is no such thing as a product that sells itself). People will only purchase a product or service if they consider it a viable solution to one of their problems. Your task is to convince visitors to your sales page that your product or service is the best solution available.
It is vital you get their attention; nobody is going to read your sales page just because it is there. They need to be stopped dead in their tracks and compelled into reading your sales page.
You do this with a big bold headline. A headline that in one sentence highlights a problem your potential customer is grappling with and hints that a solution is available from reading your sales page. For example, your customer might be flat broke and desperately seeking a way of making extra money… This Headline will get their attention: "How To Start With Nothing And Create A Money Making Empire".
No matter how bold you make your headline, it's lost if the next sentence doesn't capture your reader and lead them into your sales page. This next sentence is often called a sub-headline and is often formatted to be bolder than the rest of the text on the sales page.
The sub-headline must provide a compelling reason for your prospective customer to continue reading. Saying your product or service is the best is not a compelling reason. Implying your customer will benefit in some way is compelling. For example a sub-headline like: "This New Business In A Box Can Earn You Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars While It Runs On Full Auto-Pilot" implies that money can be made in this business which runs on its own without much personal involvement. Basically your big benefit is time saving; while the business runs on its own, you can go do whatever you like.
Having got your readers full attention, its time to elaborate on the problem and how your product or service can offer a solution. You must speak on a one to one basis; imagine your friend is sitting opposite you and you are explaining why your product or service is the solution they have been looking for.
You need to get involved in the conversation that is going on in their mind. In essence you need to create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) which asks and then answers as many questions as possible. Put yourself in your friend's position and ask:
- What are they feeling?
- What are they scared of?
- What do they disbelieve?
- What are their expectations?
- What is their dream solution?
Each of your answers must introduce how your product or service is the solution. In your final copy, you may choose to list these points or you may choose to re-write them so they flow from one point to the next. There is no "best method" and only testing will show which method works best in your unique circumstance.
By explaining the many ways your prospective customer will benefit, you begin to create a desire for your product or service. Don't fall into the trap of implying you have improved on what is available from your competitors. Running down your competitors won't get you anywhere. The only way to heighten your prospective customer's desire for your product is to show them more and more ways they will benefit from owning your product or service.
The only time you list the features of your product or service is when they add to the benefits your prospective customer will receive. For example, a key feature of a new computer could be that it has a Pentium 4 processor, but owning a computer with a Pentium 4 processor is irrelevant to somebody who only uses it to download email; it is relevant to somebody who needs the extra processing power of a Pentium 4 processor if they use their computer as a full multi media center.
Having established a desire for your product or service, you need to call your prospective customer to action. Put simply, you need to ask them for the sale and state it in an obvious manner. For example, if your want them to order, use a very obvious graphic order button which states "Click here to order now".
Copywriting is a skill that takes a lot of learning and practice to perfect. You are not going to be a copywriting expert on your first time out, but experiment using these simple tried and tested copywriting tips and are bound to increase your niche website sales.
Search Engine Optimization Myths.
Friday, June 6th, 2008For as long as SEO has been in existence, there have been all sorts of myths about it, and the situation isn’t helped by the number of so-called ‘experts’ spreading them. Here’s a list of the biggest SEO myths:
You can’t optimize perfectly for every site
There are 10,000 search engines out there
PageRank is dead
Your should repeat your keywords 100 times on each page
Search engines don’t have time to ban you for bad SEO
You should submit your site to every search engine going
You don’t need content to get ranked high
Meta tags are very important
All you need is more links
SEO doesn’t require patience
New sites can’t get listed in search engines
You should have multiple domain names
It’s good to resubmit every week or every month
If you find companies that tell you any of these things, then you should run away as fast as you can. Don’t pay attention to the myths of SEO – the only techniques you should be using are ones that are proven to increase your website’s ranking.
There are a lot of unethical, unprofessional business practices in the optimization industry, and you need to make sure you have enough facts on your side to compare the services you’re being offered. To have a good SEO campaign, you can’t fall victim to the kind of big promises that are always un-promised in the small print. Don’t throw away your money: invest it properly in good marketing, advertising, and content.
When inexperienced and unprofessional optimizers scam uneducated SEO customers, it gives everyone who works in the field a bad name. If anyone tells you that it’s OK to keyword stuff, or that you don’t need PageRank – well, they’re just completely wrong.
If you’re trying to make money with your website, you need visitors, and that’s where SEO comes in. SEO is important because of the amount of competition you have. When you’re competing in a worldwide market, you need to stand out.