Archive for November, 2008
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Get Googled with Adwords to Boost Website Visits
Saturday, November 15th, 2008The Google Adwords program is a very popular new program. Mainly people who have products to sell on the Internet use it. If you want to sell products, it might be a good idea to check into the Google Adwords program to give you web site more exposure. Besides, it is not hard to learn and it can mean big profits for your business too.
The Google Adwords program is a PPC, a pay per click program. It combines the use of an ad with text as advertisement for a product. You can write your own ad or have Google write it for you. Many people prefer to write their own ad. The ads consist of top keywords that are important to a website. More than likely you have seen the ads and not even realized what they were. They are usually vertical ads on the right hand of a computer screen you will see after you have done a search for something on the Internet, although occasionally the ads are horizontal.
It does cost to place an ad with Google Adwords. This cost depends on what you are willing to pay for a CPC, a cost per click. If you have done a good keyword search before you write your ad then it is possible to use those keywords that will help your site and the ad will cost you less. Overall, it will cost you less because you have targeted your keywords to create an ad that draws in customers that will buy your products. Remember the less you are willing to pay for good keywords, the lower your ads will appear on the computer screen.
You need to consider that you will be in competition with other websites that use PPC and there might be times that you will have to adjust what you pay for your ad. Finding relative keywords does take some work on your part. So, others that have found the relative keywords first, in order to bump out competition, are willing to pay a higher click through premium. Be sure you know what you are willing to pay for this ad text service from Google Adwords before you get started.
Once you are at the level set by Google to stay in the rankings of valid PPC sites, you will need to maintain your listing. You cannot just create them, then forget about them and move on. You’re ranking will fall because of tight competition for keywords and therefore ad placement. The ranking in a Google Adwords program is based on how many times a person clicks on your ad. The CTR, click through rate, is the life or death of your ad on Google Adwords. What else can you do to remain in the top rankings besides having good relevant keywords? The use of solid attention grabbing copy is another key to keeping your site prominent in a Google Adwords ranking.
The Internet has changed dramatically in the last two years. For example, the domain names that were consider once high ranking and were very easy to get are rare to find today. So an acceptance of longer domain name extensions was created because of competition between websites. Banner ads became very popular and for a while, people were able to make money with them on the Internet. Banner ads are still used but more so as a linking tool to several different sites of an owner. This is done in the hopes to make more money covering many unique sites. There were a billion sites but trying to find customers is getting much harder to do.
That is why the Goggle Adwords program was developed. Mass keyword targeting was the first step in trying to find a way to find an audience, but that proved too inefficient. There were just too many words on the Internet! Now, Google has created a marketing concept of site targeting for consumer searchers. This makes it a real benefit for you as a searcher or an advertiser. Information is much easier to find and because of targeted keyword use, it is what you need to find. As an advertiser you can target specific sties that you want to advertise on.
Google Keywords does have its detractors. So if you are not sure if you want to use it, take it for a test run first. Go online and find out first everything you can about it. Use the extensive learning center at Google Adwords. Talk with others that use it to see what they thought about it. Read about some of the problems that others have faced and overcome with Google Adwords. It might be the key to your success online.
WordPress 2.7: Project Icon
Thursday, November 13th, 2008Earlier in the beta period, we put out a call here on the development blog for designers in the WordPress community who might be interested in designing custom icons for the 2.7 admin interface. Over a dozen icon designers from around the world responded, so rather than choose just one, we decided to turn the [...]
Get Affiliated – How Affiliate Programs Work for You
Thursday, November 13th, 2008Joining an affiliate program is a great way to allow other people to do your selling for you. You can make up to $200 an hour and work only a few hours a day by joining or creating your own affiliate program. Does that sound tempting? Many affiliate programs can get on you the right path to a sustainable income through a small or home based business.
So, what are affiliate programs exactly? An affiliate program is sharing revenue between you and a business that sells services or products. The business rewards you with money for sending customers their way. Does it sound good so far? Now you know what an affiliate program is, now let us see how it works.
First, you place links on your website to a particular businesses website. When a visitor clicks on that link and purchases a product or service from that business, you earn a referral fee. Some affiliate programs will only pay you for a limited amount for time while others will track the sales from your referrals for the entire life of the customer. The average referral fee comes from a percentage of the total amount sold. Some businesses will pay a set amount, click through, or other actions initiated from your website. That percentage can vary from business to business. More visitors and the higher the sales is more money in your pocket.
Does that sound easy? Remember there is no easy money. You cannot just put up a website, start posting a dozen affiliate links, and expect the money to come swarming in. There are a few things to consider first. You need to decide what kind of website you should have that would allow you to start making money through affiliate programs. What works best for you and your website? Now you will have to decide how you will market your website most effectively. Never create a website that consists solely of affiliate links. This creates a very unprofessional site and does not bring in the traffic that you desire.
Another aspect to developing a small business is careful panning. You should be able to map out a profitable strategy by using affiliate programs. Your planned strategy should allow your business to grow and enable you to build a sustainable income on a regular basis. You need to be able to generate a reasonable income website by using affiliate programs that will bring you more than petty cash and that will be worth all your time and effort.
Do not wait for the website traffic to flow in all by itself. It is up to you to market your website and lure the visitors to you. Only hard work and persistence will grant you the keys to success. You will need to research all of your options carefully before entering into any contracts or making any commitments. Even if you do not have your own service or product to sell, you can still make money by selling someone else’s service or products. You can do this by becoming an affiliate of another e-commerce website.
Finding an affiliate program can be as easy as going to a Link Share or Commission Junction. These are companies that have systems set up for you to find, apply and manage a variety of affiliate programs through their websites. These companies will also collect all your commissions and compile all your earnings into one paycheck, so that you receive only one check instead of a series of small checks. You can find an affiliate program in nearly every area that interests you. Be sure to take you time when browsing through the categories and select the ones that would work best for you.
If you are interested in putting an affiliate link on your website, most programs will give you instructions on how to establish a link to their website. Normally, the web page allows you to produce a HTML code to post on your website. This HTML code will display an image or text on your web page that is directly linked to the businesses website and contains information that will let the business know which click through came from your website.
Free is good! Five Ways to Give Away Free Stuff and See Website Traffic Increase
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008Everyone loves to get something for free. This is true of almost everyone who frequently surfs the web as well. Website operators are constantly looking not only for ways to attract new visitors, but also ways to keep them coming back. If you are looking for a way to increase website traffic, consider using a tactic such as the “Give Away”. By giving away free stuff on your site, you will likely attract many more visitors. You can also keep these visitors coming back frequently by offering new free stuff each month. If you are interested in see the results of your website traffic improve, then consider using these five ways to give away free stuff.
Donated Goods
You may be interested in trying to give away free stuff on your website, but you may not be willing to spend your own money in doing so. If this is the case, there are options for you. You can always network with other companies who will essentially give you their products to showcase and give away from your site. Local businesses are the first place to look, as they usually are very willing to help fellow town citizens. You can also go to larger corporations if you know exactly who to contact and make sure they realize that they too would be receiving free advertising from allowing you to showcase their products. Usually you won’t get enough products each month to offer to every visitor, so make sure you mention that only the first 30 (or the equivalent of products you have) visitors who sign up will receive the products.
Monthly Contests
Website visitors love contests and many of them are willing to visit the same sites each day just to enter to win something free. Therefore, by offering free stuff through a contest, you are likely to get visitors to return on a daily basis. Set the rules to state that each visitor can only enter once a day if you like. Purchase a good prize or get one donated and give it away to the random name drawn from the entries. This is a great way to get the attention of many consumers, especially if your prizes are extra interesting and worthy.
Personalized Items
One interesting tactic is to give away merchandise with your website’s name or your business’s name on them. Items such as shirts, hats, towels, cups, and key chains are perfect for this task. The idea is to keep people coming to your site for free stuff as well as to look around. The extra perk with this strategy however, is to allow them to be your advertisers as well. If they wear one of these items out in public, there are likely thousands of people who will be exposed to your business passively. This is a great idea and can be done through many methods including contests or loyal customer incentives.
Referral Prizes
If you really want to spread the word on your website and get more traffic than ever, you should consider giving referral prizes. You can set your system up to allow each visitor to send an automated email from your site asking him or her to visit. If the visitor is willing to offer up 10 or 20 valid email addresses, then you can offer them a free prize. The prize can be as small or large as you wish. This is the perfect way to get more traffic while also rewarding those that are helping you along the way.
Reminder Emails
After you choose the method of how you plan to give your free stuff away, consider offering reminder emails to those who love to participate. You can offer initial free stuff to those that sign up, like a key chain. This is a great way to get that traffic to continue after the visitor’s initial visit. You can remind them monthly that there are new things to see at your site and they will likely visit more often. You can also use this not only to remind them of free stuff being given away but also to tell them about deals or other offers you have for them as well. They are likely to forward these emails on to friends they think might be interested as well.
Four Tips for Choosing a Website Marketing Company
Sunday, November 9th, 2008If you have decided to look for a marketing company for your website, you will need to know a few things on how to go about choosing one. I hope that you will not just wildly look around and decide to go with the first one you find. It isn’t the best approach for you or your website. Here are some suggestions on find a good marketing firm that might help you market your site successfully in the end.
First, you must decide how much you want to spend on the site. Be realistic in your approach. Know that you can always go back, and spend a little more for upgrades and maintenance. Overloading yourself financially would not be wise. An online business involves more than just online cost. Other necessities include printer cartridges, paper, mailing envelopes, stamps etc. The sooner you realize this, the better off emotionally and financially you will be.
The characteristics of a good marketing firm are as varied and unique as your site and needs. Here are a few factors that you will need to look at when spending your hard-earned money and time.
Experience - You will want to pick a firm that has extensive knowledge in the area of service that you need. For example, if you want a designer for your pool table site, do not go pick one that only has experience in perfumes. It is like a sub specialty in medicine – go with the one that knows your particular area. Do not be fooled by any marketing company that lets you think or implies that a search company is a search company. There is not any one formula for all websites. It is just not so. Specialized experience matters a lot.
Testimonials - Take this one serious. People have gotten numb to the value of a good testimony. Thousands of testimonies are on the Internet endorsing everything from cooking oil to airplane parts, so it is understandable that some testimonies are lost because of the numbers. The important part is if you request it, can you speak with someone or email him or her about his or her experience with the company? In addition, can you view several websites that the company has done and marketed? Look for a pattern in success and the design aspect of the site. This can include how popular the site is including the cohesiveness of success.
Integrity and Personality - Any reputable marketing web firm will not endorse Black Hat tricks such as fake doorways, portals or any other host of magic tricks to make you instantly happy. In fact, if any firm, without seeing your site, says they can get your website into the top two pages of certain search engines, do not believe it. It does not happen overnight. Tweaking and refining a website is a detailed process. They need to be willing to work with you and use the latest marketing techniques on the market to get you there. Putting just a few Meta tags in your site and telling you that is all it needs is not good business service. There is so much more to marketing. You may in danger of falling for a scam. A good personality and communication skills is a necessary skill in marketing and it should shine through with you – their customer.
Price - This category could also fall under integrity. Finding a company that will let you know up front, especially if you have extensive SEO, search engine optimization work, what it will cost in a quote to redesign or design a site for you is important. Ask for a quote, but only after you have worked together to find exactly what you need. If their price seems a little over the top, you can always go to another company. Remember though; do not judge to harshly at first. Check around and talk with others their approximate price for work they have had done. That is the importance of having a base of testimonies to rely on.
When choosing a marketing company to work with, consider other options such as how long it will take them to schedule you in. Larger design firms have more people, so consider your needs. Understand that they just cannot drop a project and work on yours. This is also true for the smaller firms on the market. Other considerations are what kind of services do they offer? Do they have exactly what you need? Do they package their work at a set price? In the end, you will be the one to make the final decision and how you carefully you choose a marketing firm will affect your website and profits – so choose wisely.
Five Ways to Increase Website Traffic through Online Message Boards and Blogs
Friday, November 7th, 2008The use of message boards and web blogs is becoming increasingly more popular, not to mention that they are very powerful tools. Message boards and web blogs are as good as word of mouth. Real people are on those message boards and blog sites to give their opinions and thoughts for the entire Internet world to read. They, the people, can literally make or break your website.
Regardless of the products or services you are promoting on your website, you must have customers in order to have a business. In order to increase your sales, you need to increase your number of customers, and this is achievable by increasing the traffic to your website through promotion. Unless you are one of the few independently rich people, you will need to promote your website in order to have a successful business and to turn some kind of a profit. It takes a lot of time and money to start up and maintain a website and you should be able to turn a profit to make a return on your investment.
You can have five hundred visitors to your website each day, but this will not mean anything until you make a sale. You will need to target your audience according to what products or services you offer and what your target audience wants or needs. By targeting your audience, you may be able to make about five sales per 100 visitors. Without a target audience, the conversion rate drops even lower.
Remember when you are trying to make a sale; never try to push a sale onto a person. Nobody likes pushy persistent sales people. The important part of operating a business is to build a good relationship with customers. You must build trust and prove yourself an expert in what you are selling. Once the potential customer learns more about you and your services or products, they will trust you enough to buy. They may also send other sale leads your way and return to your website often to make more purchases.
Message boards and blog sites are a great way to increase website traffic and sizeable a source of free internet marketing. Sometimes the best promotion tactics are free. Here are five tips to get you started in increasing website traffic through message boards and blog sites.
1. Before posting on any message board or web blog, visit as many message boards as possible and socialize with the online community. Meet the people, read what they have to say, ask questions and communicate with them. Share your ideals, wisdom, advice and offer words of encouragement.
2. Keep in mind that you want to build healthy relationships with the online community on the message boards and web blogs. You want the people to get to know you, to like you and to be able to trust you. These people are your potential customers and sales leads. If you are nice and professional, they can build up your business. If you are rude and arrogant, they can practically destroy your business.
3. Never spam on message boards or web blogs and never repeatedly post the same messages. Spamming can get you blocked from using a message board and it is very bad business. Most spam is a scam and people know this. Your postings should have some purpose and relevance to the conversation. Never enter into an argument or other disagreement in postings about others. You never want to criticize or post any negative comments or feedback. What goes around comes around.
4. You want to make the most out the message boards and web blogs. You want to choose the boards that relate to your products or services. Find the boards with people who can use your website to their advantage. Introduce yourself to boost your popularity and always include a signature file with your name and URL, but not you personal email address. You can include this information on a profile page that other people can access.
5. Visit as many message boards and web blogs that you can handle. Never do more work than you can realistically handle. You should find some enjoyment and satisfaction in what you are trying to accomplish, avoid any unnecessary stresses.
WordPress 2.7 Beta 2
Thursday, November 6th, 2008WordPress 2.7 Beta 2 is ready. Here is a quick rundown of changes since beta 1.
The Upload button didn’t always show. Fixed.
JS on the Dashboard broke for blogs with no comments, causing several UI elements to “freeze”. Fixed.
Recent Drafts Dashboard module didn’t show correct times. Fixed.
Various Autosave fixes.
Redirect after deleting a page from the editor [...]
Five Ways to Get Visitors to Bookmark your Website
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008There are many factors to keeping someone’s interest on your web page or site. It is not an easy task. Your ultimate goal is to get them to come back repeatedly. There is one precious commodity that most of us do not have much of – time. Face it even you do not have the time when surfing to read in depth every site you want to. Naturally, you bookmark it because it was impressionable enough for you to want to put it in your favorites. Now read about what will keep the customers coming back for more!
Before you consider setting up a web site, you will need to have your goals in mind. Answering a few targeted questions will help you decide how to best approach setting up the site. Targeting your customer is very important. Their age, economic status and gender will play a part in deciding how you will need to have your site designed. For example, you would not sell jeans in larger sizes and higher waist styles to a junior teen sized woman. Good market research is the foundation for setting the goals of your site, and marketing and designing your site with your customer in mind. This is only the beginning and a mere part of the story of getting customers and keeping them
You will need to look at how your customer interacts with the graphics and total site layout. Ask yourself is there any design flaws that stop them from going to the next page? Is there too many banners, buttons and graphics that confuse them? Is the text on the site clear and easy to understand? Is it confusing on directions about information on ordering? Consider having others evaluate the site to give an honest opinion on site layout.
Next, consider if your site leaves the customer with a feeling of confidence in your product and service. If the writing is timid, sparse or overtly braggadocio, it is more than likely, your customer will click away without so much as a thought of returning. Take some stock of others review of your site, and work to improve on the writing. Remember though you will not be able to please everyone. Keep tweaking it until it is in line with the image you want to portray and the product it represents.
The third step is looking at the content of information on the site. Is the information relative to what you are selling? Is it up-to-date and does it helps the customer decide what they want to buy? Do you offer other content that will give your customer a sense that you care more about them than your wallet, such as information on a subject they might be interested in? This is where your market research will come in handy. A person that is in the age bracket of 30 – 35 will be much more interested in a retirement fund than a 20 – 25 year old. It is, of course, not a standard to cling to, but it is a market idea theory that you will need to tweak and refine for your site.
Does your site generate interaction with your customers? Do you provide easy ways for them to tell you about themselves like providing surveys about other interests and hobbies? Are there fun things to do on your site? Kids are not the only ones that will enjoy entertainment. Do you have jokes of the day, puzzles or a pleasant inspiring story to read? Communicating with your customer is a nice way to get them to come back and visit too. That is a real shot of personalization that will set your site apart from the others.
Finally, consider the whole package. Does the whole website design entice them, make them want to come back and visit because it was a very user-friendly experience? Without trust and pleasant user experience, most customers will not return. Trust is a key value to happy customers and returning customers too.
It does seem like a lot of work to get your website up and running. The Internet is an impersonal arena with many busy people with limited time. To break through that barrier and capture their attention takes a lot of hard work and dedication on your part. As time goes by though you will be able to capture a loyal customer base that will want to return and buy again. It will not be because of tricks or just slick words. It will be because you care about your customer, and are determined to give them the very best website you can. You will love it when it happens.
Five Ways to Choose the Right Keywords and Have Your Website Hopping
Monday, November 3rd, 2008Choosing the right keywords can really increase your website traffic by increasing your search engine ranking and by encouraging visitors to stay on your site and return to your site. Choosing the wrong keywords, though, can be disastrous. There are five simple ways to choose your keywords wisely and improve your web traffic.
The first, and perhaps the easiest, way to choose the right keywords for your website is to brainstorm ideas with regard to your individual goods and services. Sometimes simply the name of your goods or services will work as an excellent keyword. For example, if you offer writing services, consider “technical writing” as you keyword. Creating a page around “writing” may not get you the customers you deserve. Think specifically about what you offer and create a page to advertise it. Within this, though, you must remember to stay away from general keywords. The competition for these keywords is rather stiff.
Thousands of sites are optimized for words like “computers,” and doing the same thing with yours can simply make it redundant and hard for customers to find. Moreover, customers are more search savvy than you are giving them credit for. If a customer wants to find information on something specific, he or she will search for something specific. For example, they may want to know about flea treatments for their cat, but instead of searching for “fleas” or “cat,” they may search for something more specific like a product name or type of treatment. If you feel you must use a general keyword, try taking a keyword and adding a more specific term to it. For example, if your key word is “cat,” try adding more specific terms like “behavior” or “specialist” to that for site optimization. With these general terms, you might also consider adding regional terms. If you service a particular area of the country, you may have some regional terminology that will help customers find you. Names of nearby cities or towns can help as can terms that your customers know and respect. For example, if you run a sandwich shop in New Orleans, you might want to optimize for the term “muffuletta.”
The second way to choose the right keywords for your website is to use a service like Google Keyword Sandbox or Overture Term Suggestion Tool. This way to choose your keywords can be a bit time consuming, but in the end, it is certainly worth it. Start with either service, and you'll end up with a huge list of possibilities. Once you've finished with that service, pick another and try running the same search. See what keywords you have in common with the two lists.
The third way to choose the right keywords for your website is to check your server log files. When someone visits your site from a search engine, the words they used to find your site are recorded in your server log files. Analyzing the actual files, though, can take some work. You can use various methods to examine those files depending on your server operating system. It can sometimes be best to use a software program to extract the information if you are not technically inclined.
The fourth way to choose the right keywords for your website is to use a keyword counter service. These analyze your web page and compare them with other, similar web sites. They offer you a density percentage report and the top words for the two pages based on their analysis. Keyword counter services are available all over the internet in both free and costly forms. Choosing the right service for you will simply be a matter of reading the reviews.
The final way to choose the right keywords for your website is to review sites that have both similar missions and products with regard to yours. It is important to notice sites that have rankings within the top ten on any given search engine. The point here isn't to copy the site; it is to figure out which keywords they are using to draw in potential customers.
Choosing the right keywords can be both a difficult and a long process. However, if you pick the right terms, you won't regret it based on your increased web traffic.
What’s your favorite thing about the 2.7 Beta?
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008There have been a lot of posts and twitter announcements by people checking out the WordPress 2.7 Beta since it was announced yesterday. What’s your favorite thing about 2.7 so far? Or if you haven’t made the leap yet, to which feature are you most looking forward? Tell us in the poll below.
What [...]