The Secret Key To Search Marketing Success

Sometimes I can tell just by the way they sidle up to me at a conference. They look around to make sure no one is watching, and then they half-whisper to me out of the side of their mouths, “Just between you and me, what is the trick to search marketing?”

Now, you are all reading this column because you think I am some kind of high-fallutin’ book writing, Twittering, blogging search marketing expert, so I have decided, for the first time, to publicly reveal the all-time top-secret search marketing trick.

Just promise that you won’t tell anyone else. (Or at least look both ways and half-whisper out of the side of your mouth if you do.)

The all-time top-secret trick to search marketing is to have what your customer wants.

You need to have the right information to answer their questions. You must have the right arguments to overcome their objections. You must have the right offer to fit into their budget. You must have the right offering to solve their problems.

Whew! Aren’t you glad you asked?

You see, search marketing is more about marketing than about search. The same things that make marketers successful in any other form make search marketers successful. But we so wish that wasn’t so.

We tell ourselves stories about how this TV commercial worked so well to sell that lame product. We regale our colleagues with tales of how marketers have changed the course of so many unsuccessful products.

And, once in a while, that does happen. Sometimes a brilliant marketing message can save an otherwise unremarkable offering. But that’s not the way to bet.

Instead, try to place yourselves in the searcher’s shoes. What are they looking for? How can you help them? What problems do they have? How can you solve them?

The beauty of search, and of the Web in general, is that you have an unlimited amount of space and time to help your customer. You can approach your customer’s problem from every possible angle. You can use as many different words and examples as possible. You can put so much information on your site that they are bound, not just to find you, but to be persuaded by you.

When you do that, suddenly you’ll find that you have content written for all the possible keywords your customers use. You’ll have information so compelling that it will attract links. And it will be passed along in social media. Basically, everything that you need to do to rank well in search will start to happen, not because you forced it, but because your helpfulness attracted it.

So, that’s the secret. Don’t tell anyone, OK?

About the Author:
Copyright Mike Moran. Mike Moran is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, expert on Internet marketing, and the author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc., the best-selling book on search marketing. Mike also writes the popular Biznology newsletter and blog.

Using Social Media to promote your brand

If you think Twitter, Facebook, and other online social media communities are only for teens, you’re missing out on valuable and free marketing platforms for your brand (book, business or product).

Further, if you’re not on social media, you’re risking losing your potential clients/customers to those smart business people who are utilizing social media.

Which social media platforms you focus on depends a great deal on what your brand is. Here are seven excellent reasons why you must use social media no matter what you are promoting:

Reason 1: It’s the Most Cost-Effective Online Advertising

The current most popular social media platforms being used for business are free: Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. (LinkedIn does have an upgrade that costs, but it’s not necessary to get this upgrade.) And this is “relationship” marketing to targeted markets. “Free” is definitely more cost-effective than spending money on online advertising techniques such as Pay Per Click or banner ads.

Reason 2: You Can Have Global Reach With Social Media

The world is now a global marketplace. Why not reach this global market? Many of the most popular social media platforms have this global reach, and you can see this clearly illustrated on Twitter. At any time of day or night you can see real-time “tweets” from people in Japan, England, the U.S., India and many other countries.

For example, if you have a book that might appeal to anyone in the world who reads in English, why limit yourself to just promoting in the U.S.? Thanks to Amazon people outside the U.S. can buy your book even if it is only available in U.S. stores.

Reason 3: You Can Attract Targeted Groups of People as Potential Clients/Customers for Your Brand

Social media enables you to join groups of people with the same interests and goals. On LinkedIn and Facebook you can join groups as varied as Children’s Book Writers to eMarketing. If you choose groups to join based on your brand, you’ll be putting yourself in front of the exact groups of people you want to reach as potential clients/customers. This can pay off in increased sales for you.

Reason 4: You Can Form A Community by Using the Community Aspect of Social Media

Once you are active on social media platforms and have people who are your followers (Twitter), your friends (Facebook) and/or your connections (LinkedIn), you can start groups of highly targeted interests. You can create a niche market in your brand, book or business and share your knowledge with others who join your community.

These people can become your loyal followers, friends and connections - and they can help spread your marketing message to their followers, friends and connections.

Reason 5: You Can Use Social Media to Establish Your Expertise

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. By sharing your knowledge for free online with the people in the social media groups you belong to, you can establish yourself as an expert. This can pay off in increasing potential clients/customers’ trust in you.

And you can also receive invitations for blog “interviews” or BlogTalkRadio show interviews or podcasts. And these interviews lead to more free exposure for your brand and more free exposure for your expertise.

Reason 6: You Can Use Social Media to Find Cross-Promotional Partners

Amazingly in the world of social media, people who would be considered competitors in the off-line world are teaming up to provide products and services to their combined clients/customers.

And these clients/customers are very responsive to these cross-promotions (often called joint ventures) - especially when introduced to a second expert by a first expert they already know, like and trust.

You and your cross-promotíon partner can each get access to the other person’s “list” (the names of interested clients/customers collected at a website) and thus you’ve greatly expanded your potential client/customer pool.

Reason 7: With a Few Keystrokes You Can Announce New Updates of Your Activities

Your updates on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn take seconds - and you’ve announced to your followers, friends and connections what you’re doing or what you’re offering or what you’re speaking on. And there are even online applications that allow you to update your status across several of your social media accounts simultaneously. So it is as easy as 1-2-3 to keep in front of your potential clients/customers.

In conclusion, once you become active yourself on social media platforms, you’ll find many more reasons to promote your brand, book or business on social media in order to attract targeted potential clients/customers. And you’ll look back at your pre-social media days and wonder how you ever did marketing without using online social media.

About The Author
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant whose company website www.MillerMosaicLLC.com has lots more useful advice like this. Grab her free report on “The Top 3 Internet Marketing Elements” to maximize your Internet marketing experience. Claim your report now from www.TeachMeBranding.com.

What your website is missing

“My mechanic told me, ‘He couldn’t repair my brakes, so he made my horn louder.’” - Comedian, Steven Wright

We all want our websites to be more effective, and if you’re like most business people you are constantly searching the Web for anything that will help. What you find is a cabal of experts armed with statistics, analysis, charts and graphs all pointing to how they can get you high-up on the search engines and drive more traffíc to your site. The problem is that like Steven Wright’s mechanic these guys are adjusting your horn when it’s your brakes that need fixing.

There is little point in attracting more visitors to your site if your site has little of interest to say. Even if your site is jammed packed with useful products, services and solutions if it doesn’t connect with your audience, they won’t ever invest the time necessary for you to make your case.

When websites fail it’s most often because they do not function effectively as your primary communication tool. The Web is overcrowded with options and unless you’re prepared to deliver a compelling differentiating presentation you will be quickly dismissed as irrelevant. Let’s face it; business is tough, probably tougher than it’s ever been before.

Something is Missing

You’ve done all the technical tweaks and responded to all the research and analytics. You’re blogging, micro-blogging, social networking, and search optimizing, but still something is not quite right, something is missing. What’s the missing ingredient? You know it’s out there, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what it is.

You know the Web offers the potential to access new markets, find new customers, and reach new heights, but with all that potential, the results always seem just out of reach. If research and analytics were the answer you’d already be rich. Of course it was an over-reliance on research that brought us the Edsel, New Coke, and that wonderful Wall Street goody called Derivatives, one of the greatest investment boondoggles of our time.

There is something artificially comforting about putting your faith in seemingly logical yet unfathomable solutions based on indecipherable scientific modeling and over-hyped research analysis, all brought to you by computer scientists and mathematicians who haven’t ever run a marketing department or launched a new product or business.

Business leaders have adopted the attitude that, “It must be right, because I sure as heck don’t understand it.” And when it all goes wrong, or results are anemic, well, “What are you going to do? It’s not my fault, it all looked good on paper.” Ad agencies and Wall Street have been getting away with this kind of bunkum for decades, and look at the mess they’ve made of things.

What’s It All About, Alfie?

Business success is all about your ability to engage your audience with a message that compels them to action. Simply put, your business relies on your ability to communicate. Eureka!

And your website is the best communication vehicle you have. The question is how do you use your website to communicate your marketing message in the most engaging, compelling, and memorable manner? What is the missing ingredient that will turn your scientifically sterile online cookie-cutter presentation into something that cuts through the massive sameness of Internet clutter, and makes a statement that your audience will respond to?

Finding Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition

One of the hardest things for tough-minded business people to accept is that sales and marketing success is based on the subconscious emotional and psychological appeal of a brand. That’s the reason, reliance on feature selling rarely works, and only tends to commoditize a product or service - the guy with the most bells and whistles for the least amount of money wins, and why would you want to play that game?

Even the most casual market observer must recognize that all leading brands have one thing in common, no matter what they sell: the promise of their brand is based on a concept that is established through an emotional or psychological appeal. Apple is about thinking and acting creatively without the worry of technical issues; Starbucks is about reconnecting to the original coffee break ideal of a relaxing oasis away from the hustle bustle of everyday life; and Ikea is about stylish living on a budget. Each concept appeals to the deep-seated desires of the targeted audience. It is this singular concept that makes each of these companies special and different from their competition; it is the message that all their marketing, advertising, and promotion is based upon, and it is the true value they provide their audience that attracts interest, holds attention, and delivers promise.

Implementing Your Emotional and Psychological Value Proposition

In order to implement a company’s emotional and psychological value proposition, we use a process called the ConceptCreator. It starts with various sales’ points that need to be covered. Based on the supplied information, we develop a focused marketing concept using the Law of Dissatisfaction that enables us to discover the experiential human subtext of why people will want what you sell. The presentation concept is boiled-down to a movie-style logline that states the brand story to be presented in the Web Video campaign.

How Much Is A Concept Worth?

“Wait a minute - did he say a movie-style logline? That sure doesn’t sound business-like, and I haven’t heard any corporate CEO or MBA talk about movie loglines.” Maybe so, but think about it. Hollywood studios spend enormous sums of money to produce a movie with the potential of making hundreds of millions of dollars, and each financial investment starts with someone coming up with a clever logline that captures the imagination. Television commercials can cost ten thousand dollars a second to produce and without a guiding conceptual premise they become DOA when implemented. So why wouldn’t you start your Web Video campaign using the same proven formula.

The logline, mission statement, or elevator pitch if you prefer needs to state the characters, goals, obstacles, differentiating factors, and resolution within the context of a story scenario.

For Instance…

If it works for the movie industry will it work for the advertising and marketing industry? Let’s take a look at one of the most successful, popular, iconic marketing campaigns of the last number of years, The MAC versus PC campaign.

Example Logline Concept: A stylish, pleasant, mild-mannered young man verbally spars with his geeky competitive opposite (characters) in a series of humorous, relatable incidents (story scenario) that illustrate the people-friendly advantages (resolution) of the brand compared to its rigid, unbending competitor (differentiating factor) whose sheer size dominates the market (obstacle) in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the computer buying audience (goal). - The MAC Versus PC Ad Campaign.

“The Time Has Come The Walrus Said…”
- Lewis Carroll from ‘Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There,’ 1892

The time has come to realize that Web Video is the best communication tactic available to deliver your marketing message to a worldwide audience; an audience that craves answers and resolution to their every need, concern and desire. It is not good enough to list a bunch of features and hackneyed bulleted points or even to dump pages and pages of search engine optimized hard-to-read text, especially when it’s aimed at an audience raised on television, movies, music and video games. We must learn to speak the language of the audience, and use the appropriate communication tools they can understand in a way that connects on a human level.

It all starts with finding the emotional and psychological value proposition your product or service promises. In a world of frustrated, cranky, attention deficit consumers, the onus is on you to present what you provide in a way that relates to the human elements that make your brand relevant.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

SEO determined by your Business Goals

SEO is predictable. You might disagree. Predicting where you land for a single keyword might be a bit of a pot shot but good SEO campaigns involve many terms and that makes the overall campaign much more predictable. No other advertising format is more trackable and predictable.

From a business viewpoint, every SEO campaign should be run with the idea that there is a significant return on investment. Very often in advertising, it is somewhat of a guess relative to what you can expect. Marketing on the internet is a much more predictable process.

Setting up your Search Engine Optimization requirements begins with a simple question. “How much revenue do you want your website to generate in the coming year?” Bear in mind that the more unreasonable the answer to this question is, the more difficult it will be to reach your target. Set achievable goals!

Once you’ve established your revenue target, you’re done. That’s it. That’s your goal! OK, so not exactly. The point is, your revenue targets are your goals. Goals should not be expressed in terms of traffic, hits, or even how much the site shows up in the search engines (but it sure helps : ). But let’s say that our sights are set on meeting our revenue targets via search engine results. That’s the purpose of an SEO campaign.

HOW MANY CLIENTS DO YOU NEED? You should be able to state clearly your revenue targets and the average annual value a client brings to your business. If you know that, then simple division will tell you how many new clients you need. You should also have a “gut feel” for how many of a hundred people on your website turn into clients. So with that, you should be able to determine how many visitors you need to generate to your site to develop those clients.

The number of visitors required is equal to the number of clicks that are required. The purpose of a good SEO campaign is to increase the number of visitors who are searching for your products and services. Successful SEO creates enough impressions on the search engine results pages (SERPS) to deliver enough visitors to meet the revenue targets.

Getting on the first page of the SERPS generates an impression, or a chance that the visitor will click on your site. Since very few people advance beyond the first page of results, a conservative SEO specialist considers the first page of the SERPS the ONLY place to be and of course number one is best if you can get it.

AOL published information showing that first place in the search results gets almost half of the organic clicks. Second gets 10-15%. Third gets 5-10%. The remaining scrounge around 3-6% but at least they made it to the party. Conservatively, you can estimate that with a well executed SEO campaign, that you will get 5-10% (we’ll use 7%) of the search volume. Predictably, you’ll be somewhere on the first page of the SERPS. So, if you need 100 visitors, then you need impression in 100/.07 (1,428) total searches.

Once you’ve established your total search volume to optimize for, you then move into keyword selection. The best approach is to select a variety of keywords rather than the most popular terms. Remember this: Most of the time its easier to rank for many low volume keywords than a single high volume one that equals the same number of searches. Further, lower volume keywords are usually more relevant and more specific to the needs of the visitor. Ultimately, they convert better. You’ll also discover that once you know your total search volume requirements, your keywords collectively will meet the search volume requirements without extending into a range that’s impossible to optimize for. You can develop a much more practical approach to your SEO campaign.

Greg Newell owns a WSI franchise serving Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton. Want to calculate your SEO requirements? Check out the SEO Requirements Calculator on:
http://wsinetreturns.com/InternetMarketing/Search_Engine_Optimization_Dayton.aspx

Keyword basics for website success

Successful sports teams have engrained in their heads the fundamentals of their sports. Business leaders and coaches alike who dwell on the fundamentals usually have the most successful outcomes. Failure is almost always rooted in a deviation from the fundamentals. So if your website is not delivering clients, perhaps you’re missing the fundamentals.

Part of the answer is no one actually taught you the fundamentals of website success. Most businesses understand the need for a website, few understand the fundamentals. Getting your website to deliver clients is an exercise in fundamentals. First and foremost is a back to basics, grass roots understandng of your market, website style.

Keyword research is the first thing every website owner should have done but most didn’t. With respect to your online business, keyword research equals market research. The coolest thing about being online is that you can absolutely KNOW your market, understand their interests and create an online business and marketing plan relative to your market and their needs.

There are probably hundreds of keyword research tools online that can help you do research. Our advice is to seek out an expert. Getting the data is one thing. Knowing what to do with it is quite a different thing.

Relative to keyword research, here’s what we can find via search engine tools: keywords and keyword phrases, search volumes, total web pages using those keywords, web pages optimized for those keywords, keywords in hypertext (called anchor text) linking to other sites and pages. We can even look at any specific website and determine what keywords they are at least trying to rank for. And of course, type the keyword phrase into a search box will list the top ten sites ranking for that term. The result of such a search is referred to as the SERPS or the Search Engine Results Pages.

The best keywords to use are ones that will generate reasonable traffic AND have very little competition. One of the parameters we seek in our keyword research is to determine the competitiveness of the keyword phrases. Google will tell us how many web pages are indexed for the search term. Just run a search and notice in the upper right of the results that Google will tell you how many pages are indexed with your search keywords. Without getting too technical here, Google and the other major search engines will also tell you how many web pages use those keywords in the page title, an indication that those pages specifically cover the topic of your search. Having keywords in the page title is one of the key ways to optimize a webpage for the keyword. Knowing how many pages are doing this gives you a better idea of how many pages are intentionally using the keywords you’re researching.

KEYWORD STRATEGY
The first thing that has to go is the ego of the site and/or business owner. Unless you show up in the first page of the search engine results, you’re NOBODY! Worse, you can’t push your way through the crowd to get to the top of the SERPS. You can get there by Google sponsored ads - Adwords guarantee your visibility on the SERPS. But still the point is, you’ll pay.

Let’s consider three strategies for beating your competition relative to the search engine results.

DIRECT STRATEGY
Choose the same keywords that your competition is ranking for and go head to head. If they are doing pay-per-click, you do it too. In this scenario, you’ll end up spending a lot of money to achieve and maintain top SERPS positions. If your competition is ranking on good, high traffic terms, plan on spending time, money and resources to get to the same position it may have taken them years to achieve. A direct strategy can get bloody. Ultimately, it is the most obvious choice, the least creative and the stupidest.

INDIRECT STRATEGY
Choose keywords that your competitors didn’t even think of! An indirect strategy is often associated with cross marketing and selling through an indirect channel. If you sell a service or product that your competitors don’t have, you channel your efforts through that market knowing there’s some pull-through relative to your other products and services. Very often you could be sucking business right out from under your competition’ s nose and they don’t even see it!

DIVISIONAL STRATEGY
Find out what keywords your competition is NOT ranking for in the same keyword set and go after them. The divisional strategy is the primary marketing method of niche marketers. Most business owners will equate the word “niche” with the word “small”. On the web, niche site owners are millionaires! Get rid of your pre-conceptions. The web is huge.

We use a two step process for choosing keywords. First, you have to take your direct competition into account. The second part is to look specifically at the search engine optimization parameters to determine which keywords make sense for you to specifically go after.

The leverage a website carries is in part determined by its page rank. Page rank is in large part determined by how many other sites on the web link to yours. Your exposure in the SERPS is in turn affected by your page rank. The reason you need to know this is if the top ten websites all out rank you in terms of page rank, you’re better off choosing another keyword.

Fundamental lesson: Small Fish eat smaller fish to grow bigger.

About The Author
Keyword research is one of the fundamental strategies taught to clients of www.buildawebshop.com . BuildaWebShop.com offers the lowest cost, easiest ecommerce package available.

Social Media worth it?

Every one - from politicians, businesses, musicians, celebrities and many other groups of people - uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networking outlets to spread their message, build their businesses and connect with others.

Do they know something we don’t?

Networking, whether online or offline, is a great use of time when done properly. As with anywhere you spend your time, knowing why you are doing it, how you will measure success and having a plan is the best approach.

With that said, I jumped in with both feet last year with the guidance of a social media expert, and I have found clients, joint venture partners, speaking engagements and other great connections through various social media outlets. I am a member of more social media outlets than I can count, but I currently focus on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. While I am not an expert in social media, here are five reasons to take some time to learn the benefits of social media.

1. There Is No Direct Cost

There is no direct cost unless you opt for an upgrade, if one is offered. I haven’t paid for an upgrade and have steadily increased my list to include over 1000 followers between just three social media outlets, and without much effort.

2. Build Your Business by Connecting With Peers

Are you interested in finding joint ventures, affiliates, guest experts or other peers you can bounce ideas off of? In the last few weeks alone, I have located one large joint venture partner and have had several other partnership opportunities cross my desk. Business owners just like you are using social media to connect with others who are interested in using your articles, hosting you as a guest expert on teleseminars, webinars and live events, and even creating projects together!

3. Build Your Business by Following Reporters You Are Targeting

Would an article written by a certain reporter make your year? Follow them on Twitter or Facebook and see what is of interest to them and what they are writing about. You don’t know what golden nugget you’ll find by following them online that may open the door at the right time. Follow them and invite them to follow you as well! Or with LinkedIn you can find out how many degrees you are from them. You may surprise yourself by being only one or two degrees away from your target!

4. Showcase Your Expertise, Build Your Platform and Attract New Clients

Social media is an interesting animal. While many people use it to grow their businesses, you must be mindful about outright promotions. Generally speaking, heavy marketing of your products and services on these sites is a big no-no. Here’s how I do it. I’ll post something like this: “Just got off the phone with social networking guru Nancy Marmolejo. Now I’m off to finish writing my sales page for the Business Breakthrough Series.” People who are intrigued will check you out and may end up deciding to follow you and … bingo! They have just entered your world!

5. Reach Large Audiences

The world is your oyster in social media. There are only a few businesses that are truly limited by geographic boundaries, especially if you are in the information marketing business. Being active on social networking sites eliminates geographic boundaries and allows you to reach a vast number of people from all over the world. If you have products and services that can be purchased by anyone in the world, being active in social media is an absolute must for you. I recently held a teleseminar with people from over 10 countries in attendance, all from the comfort of my home office! And my sweat pants!

So, is social media worth the time? It depends. Social media is absolutely the wave of the future, and you will need to know something about it at some point. However, whether you work it into your plan for 2009 depends on your goals. If you have a goal of increasing your reach to prospects either locally or internationally, you can do that quite effectively through social media. However, if you can cannot and will not commit to learning how to “tweet” on Twitter or communicate on Facebook or use your connections on LinkedIn, it will not be worth your time.

My advice to clients when they are just starting out is to select one social media outlet, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and master it before jumping into every outlet possible. You obviously need to schedule time for connecting, so select the social networking outlets that will benefit you the most.

Now that I am experiencing the financial results of my online efforts, I understand why this is such a great use of my time and I’m hooked!

About The Author
Meredith Liepelt, President of Rich Life Marketing, offers a free report called “101 Ways to Attract Ideal Clients, Build Your List and Raise Your Profile,” which can be downloaded immediately at www.RichLifeMarketing.com .

Link Building Tips

As the online market place continues to warm up to the idea of SEO, link building has become center stage as it tends to be the most time consuming and crucial part of any internet marketing strategy. Link building services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of SEO. This process involves finding qualified and thematically relevant one-way linking partners who will link back to your website.

At first glance this sounds easy and there are hundreds of automated products out there that claim to add thousands of back links overnight. The truth is there are no short cuts in cultivating authoritative back links for a site. Link building companies spend many hours link building by hand in order to get the best results. Spammy automated products often don’t cultivate valuable links and tend to do more harm than good. Here are a couple quick suggestions to help you get started.

1. Know What Keywords You’re Targeting

Link building strategies are an extension of your current SEO practice. You’ll want to reference the list of keywords you have selected to optimize your site. Make sure that the anchor text of the link has the keyword you are targeting. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “baby names” you’ll want to place that keyword in the anchor text of the link. I’ve seen many companies go after links by using their company name. Although this does boost link popularity it fails to pass popularity for a specific keyword and can be seen as a failed attempt.

2. Develop a Link Building Strategy

There are many strategies link building companies use to source qualified back links to their clients. The most tedious but often most rewarding method is manual linking requests also known as “cherry picking”. This method allows you to obtain exceptionally qualified links which can really help boost your position in the search engine results page (SERPS). A good place to start with manual link building is to look at your suppliers, vendors, clients, related organizations associations and more.

Besides manual link requests other well known tactics include:

1. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, Joe Ant)
2. article submission (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com)
3. optimized press releases (PRWeb.com)
4. social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)
5. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Furl)
6. Blogs (niche blogs)
7. Forums (niche forums)
8. Classifieds (niche classifieds)

3. Identify Thematically Relevant and Authoritative Linking Sources

Search engines see links as votes of confidence for your site. The more relevant and authoritative the site, the more consideration is given to the link and the subsequent keyword in the anchor text. It really pays off to focus on the quality of your links rather than the quantity. It is also important for your link building to look natural and not an attempt to deceive search engine spiders in search of links. Try looking for sites within your industry rather than general, unrelated sites to get links from.

A good example of this would be content creation and distribution. Try creating content on a relevant subject of which you can speak authoritatively. An example of this would be a SEO company writing a short article on 5 simple ways companies can start link building and placing it on an authoritative, industry relevant site like this one. Remember, before placing a link on a site (or making a request), ask yourself three questions:

1. Does a link to my website belong here (does it look natural)?
2. Is this site relevant and authoritative?
3. Is there any benefit to my potential customers?
4. Look for the onsite attributes of the linking site

4. Determine Where Your Link Will Reside

Once you’ve nailed down a potential linking partner that represents the overall quality and thematic authority that your site deserves you’ll need to see where your link will reside.

Here are a couple guidelines that I look for when placing links on a site. I try to get my links no more than a few clicks away from the homepage. The page must be thematically relevant and recently cached by Google’s search engine (this lets me know that the page has been indexed by Google). I also take a look at the number of external (outbound) links leaving that page. I try to keep the number of external links below 50 as it will dilute the effect of the page. Lastly, I look at the page the link will be placed on. For some sites this is harder to control, but if you have the option you should know where the most valuable locations are. I always try to get my links in line with thematically relevant content, like an article or blog post. I’ve found this produces some of the best results. Try to avoid placing your links on a “sponsored” or advertisers section that runs throughout the entire site. Also avoid footer links as rumor has it Google has devalued links buried in the footer of the site. Links placed at the top of the page or inserted into the site’s navigation also tend to do quite well. Bottom line is that your links need to look like they belong and provide value to the user and the site it is published on.

5. Be Aware of “No-Follow” Links

Within the last 5 years Google developed the concept of the “no-follow” link. The “no-follow” code is inserted into your link and instructs the Google spider to ignore it. The “no-follow” link can be seen used most commonly in blog comments and forum posts. This initiative was set forth to combat spam and automated linking mechanisms that would throw links automatically on blog comments and forum posts.

There are a lot of SEO professionals that will only place a link if it is a “do-follow” link, meaning it doesn’t have the “no-follow” attribute. I tend to disagree with this notion especially when the link in question is on a highly trafficked authority site. If it makes sense for the link to be there, then add your link. Even though Google won’t give you any credít for it, it will be seen by thousands of people who may visit your site and link to you themselves because your site is highly relevant. I call this concept indirect link building. You are influencing and promoting your site to potential linking partners.

Link Building is a very time consuming process and link building companies spend a lot of time researching, testing and improving their techniques. Link building services are available for companies that don’t have the time to invest in manual link building. The bottom line is that with a little help anyone can link build and move their site up the SERPS.

About The Author
Oliver Feakins is the owner of WebTalent, a full service SEO company offering internet marketing services nationwide. Oliver is a frequent speaker at industry conferences as well as regional colleges and universities. He also writes for MarketingProfs.com, WebProNews.com, Social Media Today, ITworld and more. For more information on WebTalent visit www.webtalentseo.com.

Paying for links? Good or bad..

Online Marketing is Complex - One thing I believe about online marketing (and SEO in particular) is that the more rigid the advice the lower its value, particularly when it is cast out to a general audience. Why? Online marketing incorporates psychology, sociology, game theory, etc. The human mind is complex. Understanding how many of them work together (or against each other) is even more complex.

There are hundreds or thousands of ways to win a market. Each idea is a tool that has potential risks and potential rewards on a per market and per project basis.

Link Building in 2003

With link buying people get emotional and just consider it out of the question. Back when I got started as an SEO, many SEOs were considered spammers simply because they even did any link building at all. Why?

• It was amazingly effective.
• It was time consuming and expensive work that many established SEOs did not want to do for their clients.

Since then the web graph has got amazingly polluted and paid links are treated similarly to how link building efforts were treated back then.

Few SEO Tips Are Universal

Rand recently stated that he no longer recommends paid links. If you philosophically didn’t believe in buying links then why would you spend $1,000,000+ building a web graph of link data? What good is researching all the link data if you take link buying off the table as one of the options? Most of the competing links that you can replicate will require some level of payment.

Sure link buying does not make sense for everyone, but it makes a lot of sense for some businesses. And if you don’t buy links then there is little purpose to link research tools, IMHO.

The potential risks & ROI in link buying are not the same for everyone. Saying link buying is off the table is like saying keyword research is off the table. Sure if you are TechCrunch you don’t need to do keyword research to succeed, but it still wouldn’t hurt to consider it.
Waiting in Obscurity is a Real Cost

Let’s say that you are starting a brand new project and have 0 market momentum - a position almost every successful webmaster starts from at some point in time. I don’t think there is risk in buying a few links because you have to start from somewhere. Most of the people who launched new websites in the past year will be out of it by the end of next year. The biggest online risk for new webmasters is perpetual obscurity.

While being obscure you are not…

* building brand and momentum
* building cashflow
* building customer loyalty
* optimizing conversion flows
* catching up with established competitors who are re-investing into growing their businesses

One way or another you have to start doing some push marketing to build momentum. Eventually pull marketing can drag you along, but you don’t benefit from it until AFTER you have built some awareness and market momentum.

At Pubcon 2 years ago Stephan Spencer mentioned you might get penalized 5 years from now for links you bought today. I said that I got started in SEO less than 5 years ago and if I didn’t buy any links back then I wouldn’t be speaking into the microphone right now. I also said that if you get penalized 5 years later for what you did back then well then you didn’t build much of a business.
Brands

But for established brands doing limited link buying can still make a lot of sense. Since “brands are how you sort out the cesspool” there is much less risk in a brand buying a few links.

Some SEO consultants who are trying to appear like the safe option (to pull in corporate consulting clients) think that saying they don’t recommend link buying makes them look wholesome, but any SEO who has worked for fortune 500s knows that once you get in the board room all that matters is efficacy.

Having wrote that, I can think of numerous instances where we advised clients to approach their overall strategy in a way that was less spammy and less risky than what they were already doing and what they were proposing.
Deep Links

If you don’t buy links it is hard to influence the anchor text, particularly if you are doing SEO at the enterprise level AND want to get deep links into commercially oriented pages. Companies spend billions of dollars a year on organic SEO because ranking a few spots higher in Google can be worth a lot of money. If you know a #5 ranking is worth x, then there is a good chance that a #1 ranking can be worth something like 8x.
A Tool is a Tool

Am I advocating that everyone go out and buy links? Not at all. I am just saying that it does not make sense to categorically take it off the table. Link buying is a tool which has various value levels depending what market you are in and how your company is positioned.

Paid links can be a stepping stone or part of your strategy, but rarely should they be your entire strategy. On some client projects we have done we have suggested shifting away from doing as much link buying or reciprocal linking because we felt that the strategy needed to be more holistic and well rounded. It worked, and there was no reason to stop doing what already worked, but going forward it would make sense to leverage some of the brand assets and audience to build other types of links.
Where Link Buying Can Lead You Astray

If link buying is your only SEO strategy it is hard to stay competitive long-term because

* if your link profile is nothing but paid links that is risky
* if your link profile is nothing but paid links that is easy for competitors to clone
* if you are in a big money market some competitors will have other assets to leverage against you in addition

Doing a bit of link buying way back when helped get me some exposure, but it didn’t produce the explosive ROI that we got from doing things like going to conferences, networking with people, and launching a bunch of popular SEO tools. Link buying can be considered a support, but the most successful businesses typically have numerous supports.
Creative Link Buying

Did you see that Mint.com was recently bought by Intuit for $170 million? It seems they used a creative way to buy links:

To build demand, we started asking for email addresses for our alpha 9 months in advance of launch. Then when we had too many people sign up, we asked people to put a little badge that said “I want Mint” on their blogs to get priority access. We got free advertising and 600 link backs which raised our SEO juice.

See how they required links as payment for priority access? Well I would say they got a nice return on those link buys. And so would they. And now that they have so much momentum they can’t and won’t be penalized for buying links.
Where Link Buying Can Make Sense?

* if you are new and have nothing to lose
* if your brand & link profile are so big that buying a few links won’t stick out
* in markets where the competitive barrier set by all the top ranked competitors includes an array of link buying (not saying you should match them link for link, but it might make sense to cherry pick a few of the best opportunities)
* getting a few deep links with targeted anchor text
* in markets where links are valuable and there are few organic links

A Word From Bing

One thing SEOs should love about Bing is that Bing’s search team gives practical advice and does not try to scare you:

The truth is that getting bad links happens to great sites. We know this happens. In fact, we’ve never seen a decently ranking site that doesn’t have a few (or more) bad inbound links. We take the approach that bad inbound links won’t adversely affect your site ranking unless most or all of your inbound links are from bad sites.

Consider this as well: perhaps the reputation of the site linking to you is bad, but the content on the actual linking page is relevant to the page on your site. This could possibly be a decent inbound link-not as good as one from an authority site, but it might give you a little link goodness.

When it comes to inbound links, just remember this: zero inbound links are better than all bad inbound links. But if you have many good, relevant inbound links from respected sites, a few bad links won’t count against you (but they won’t help you, either).

So in general they look at the overall profile of the business when making editorial decisions and are not likely to penalize you for having a couple bad links. They not only won’t penalize you for having a few bad links, but even expect them to be there.
Summary

I don’t buy all that many links for SEO purposes. But I don’t think it is a good perspective for most webmasters to remove the option from their tool set. Had I not bought links back in 2003 and 2004 I am not sure if I would have as big of an audience as I do today.

If you are just starting out and have limited capital you might want to approach link buying creatively (like Mint did), but if SEO is core to your business strategy you shouldn’t be afraid to buy a few links.
Comments

About the Author:
Aaron Wall is the author of SEO Book, a dynamic website offering marketing tips and coverage of the search space, free SEO videos, and free SEO tools. He is a regular conference speaker, partner in Clientside SEM, and publishes dozens of independent websites.

Struggling to make the Sales with an eCommerce website?

During a recent copywriting consulting call with a new client, we discussed her primary concern: having good traffic, but no sales. I’ve seen this a thousand times before. Usually, what I find is a site filled with content that is chock-full of keyphrases and sounds stupidly repetitive. The solution is easy: Write natural-sounding, persuasive SEO copy that entices customers to buy. But this client’s site didn’t fit the stereotype.

The home-page copy needed some work, but it wasn’t awful. The category and sub-category pages had no copy at all that needed to be fixed. The product descriptions were canned (straight from the manufacturer). While that’s definitely not the best way to go for several reasons, it’s not a death sentence. But still, for a site – even a brand-new one – to have several hundred unique visitors a week and not one sale was frustrating.

We looked at some stats. Low bounce rate, high number of pages viewed per visit, acceptable length of time spent on the site. The rankings left something to be desired, but they’d come along soon enough with a few tweaks and some linking.

As we clicked our way through the site’s pages, it became clear. This site suffered from a common curse among e-commerce resellers: lack of differentiation.

Why Should I Buy From You?

Generally speaking, most grocery stores carry nearly the same things. So how did you decide to shop at the one you frequent most? Chances are it was because of the store’s location. Online, we don’t have that advantage.

When e-commerce resellers carry the same exact items as hundreds or thousands of other sites, comparison shoppers have a difficult time deciding whom to buy from. Most often, it falls to price. Since my client wasn’t branding her site to be the cheapest, she had lost the location and the price advantage.

After searching through dozens of websites offering the same products, the surfer had no way to answer their most burning question: Why should I buy from you?

Identifying Differentiation Points

As our tour continued, I asked questions – lots of questions – in an effort to help my client find ways she was different and/or better than her competition.

> > Do you offer free shipping or reduced shipping (with or without a minimum order)?

She did, but that wasn’t stated visibly on her site. There’s one differentiating item. Online shoppers love free shipping.

> > Do you hold any promotions?

She did, but that also wasn’t clearly stated. She made a note to draw attention to her promotion on the home page.

> > Do you offer quantity discounts?

She did, but the link to the copy that explained the discounts was rather hidden. We discussed adding a few words of copy right by the price to let visitors know discounts were available.

> > Can you tell me about the wish list feature? What happens after someone adds products to their wish list?

She didn’t know, so we went through the process together and created a plan for strategically placed copy that would entice visitors to add items to their wish lists. We then discussed the particulars of creating copy for an autoresponder series that would follow up with people who had created a wish list, but never ordered.

When our hour was up, we had identified several actionable steps for her to work on to differentiate her site from her competitors. Of course, they’ll all need to be tested to see which works best to achieve her goals. But for now she’s busy tweaking and tracking instead of scratching her head.

Karon Thackston is an SEO copywriter and trainer. She has authored 3 popular books including the keyword optimization guide “Writing With Keywords.” Get details at http://www.WritingWithKeywords.com today.

How To Increase Your Followers And Make Money With Twitter

The web is fast becoming a center for social activities. Instead of just looking for information, advice and the latest news in the more conventional ways the internet has to offer, people are relying on their friends and acquaintances.

This is now easier and faster than ever before, thanks to innovative websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The latter is particularly popular since you can get all the latest updates and information directly to your mobile phone, no matter the hour of the day or your location.

This innovative communication system is therefore an excellent source of revenue in many ways, as long as you put a little effort in the venture you are undertaking and use some of your own creativity.

This article discusses some useful tips to help you succeed and make money with Twitter.

How Twitter Works

In order to take advantage of the opportunities the social site has to offer, you should know first how it works.

It is quite simple – you sign up for an account, which allows you to post short messages (tweets) to people who have agreed to receive them (your followers). This in turn provides you with a totally free way to share your views and advertise your offer in various ways. If you do it right, you can make some healthy profits out of it.

How To Increase Your Twitter Followers Fast

The first step towards twitter success is to get as much people as possible to become your followers. This is especially important if you are going to market various products and you want them to get massive exposure.

There is no point in posting your tweets to only a few people, unless they are raving fans or dedicated followers.

Here are 4 effective ways to get more people to follow you on Twitter.

1) Spread The Word To All Your Contacts.

Collaborate with your friends and acquaintances to spread the word about each other’s Twitter accounts. This is a great option if you are an active member of an internet community that is at the same time a distinctive target group.

Let’s say you have a music blog with regular readers. If you are constantly writing in various dedicated online forums, you can ask fellow members to become your Twitter followers.

If you have a list of subscribers, you could invite them to receive your messages. If you have a website, you could post a note informing visitors about your Twitter account.

2) Provide A Specific Free Service Using Twitter.

This can be an alert for sports games scores, for shopping discounts or the latest gossip and news in a specific area.

It is best to choose a bit broader subject and have an appropriate username presenting your service. You have to put some extra effort in this as it requires regular work, but you can readily do it from your home or office.

3) Add Your Twitter Account In Twitter Directories.

You can increase your chances of getting targeted followers by adding your Twitter account in the appropriate categories of Twitter directories.

Some of the most popular ones include:

http://www.twellow.com/
http://justtweetit.com/directory/
http://wefollow.com/
http://www.loadedweb.com/twitter/
http://www.tweetfind.com/
http://mrtweet.com/
http://mytwitterdirectory.com/
http://tweeplepages.com/

All it takes is a couple of minutes to add yourself into each Twitter directory; and you only need to do it one time to get permanent exposure.

4) Follow Other People In Your Niche Or Field Of Interest.

When you follow Twitterers in your niche, they tend to follow you back. It’s the law of reciprocity at work.

Where do you find them? Browse through the Twitter directories above and follow people who are in the same field, or have the same interests, as yours.

How To Make Money With Twitter

Despite the way in which you have attracted Twitter followers, you have to make your tweets informative and interesting in order to make people read them.

Now it is easier than ever before to make money with Twitter. Through the Sponsored Tweets service, you can present a marketing offer to potential clients to advertise their products in your tweets. This is particularly convenient since you do not have to look for customers elsewhere and spend money and time advertising your own offers.

However, there is an important point you have to pay attention to. You would not want your followers to stop reading your messages just because they are overwhelmed with advertisements. A good way to avoid this is to continue sending the usual information people expect from you and add an end line with the marketing message.

Experienced social marketers recommend sending a promotional tweet only after every 5 to 7 non-self-serving tweets. After you’ve built trust and rapport by sending helpful or interesting tweets, you might increase the number of times you advertise.

But always remember to do it subtly. One way to do that is to point them to a webpage where they can read an informative article or watch a video that “pre-sells” your product. You may also give them a free report branded with your own offers. Avoid blatant promotions and you will get more sales.

Generally, the preliminary creation of a free service will aid you in making money with Twitter, as it will allow you to incorporate advertisements more easily. For example, if you are sending information on electronic gadgets discount stores, you can have these retailers pay you for including their address in your tweets.

All these advertising tips to make money from Twitter can be successfully adopted with the right timing and strategy. It costs you nothing but your profits could skyrocket.

Want to launch, reinvent & grow your online biz dramatically? Discover a breakthrough membership site considered as the #1 source of supply for most hot-selling digital information products on the web. Go to http://www.surefirewealth.com and skyrocket your profits now!

Next Page »