by: Felicity Anderson

 

One of the first things to do before starting up any business is to investigate the competition. Any business owner knows this is crucial; to determine how to position a business in the market, who to target, what prices to set and who to keep an eye on. The same is true of the internet marketplace.

However, this understanding is rarely transferred when a business decides to ‘go online’. Perhaps the initial setup is so daunting that little thought is spared for anything beyond the layout and content of a website. The internet, however is still a marketplace, and one that is growing exponentially. Those same business skills need to be put to use here too.

If you want to learn from the success of your competitors you first need to think like a search engine. By mimicking popular keywords and phrases you can benefit from traffic that would otherwise be directed to your competitors sites.

Keywords are contained in what are called ‘Meta Tags’. These are tags that are found in the source code at the top of a webpage and include descriptions, titles and key words. Search engines use this information (in addition to content) to rank your page for different search strings. You can access this information by viewing the source of any website, just simply select ‘View’, and ‘Source’ from the toolbar.

If after looking at this code you fear it resembles some alien language, do not despair! There are many programs available that will search competitors’ sites for this information and provide a full report: in plain English. Just look for anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it is one of the new hot topics; and you will be swamped with products. The danger is to believe too much of the hype, don’t pay for promises; search engines are not as easily tricked as we are!

Another key ingredient is links. Your page will be ranked favourably if it is viewed by the search engines as being an authority on a given subject. Links work a bit like votes, if someone links to your site they are effectively ‘casting a vote’ of approval. However the weight of this vote is affected by how many other sites they link to, so beware of ‘link farms’ (pages contained entirely of links) because they will not help improve your site’s positioning. The easiest way to obtain links is through online directories – although people may not visit your site directly through these links, it will help with overall search engine positioning.

Returning to the competition; you can discover who is linking to other sites by using an online link popularity checker. This way you can try and get these sites to link to you also. Remember, directed traffic is the best, so aim for links from sites which contain similar content to yours. If you are a business selling stamps, your best links would be from stamp appreciation pages – obvious really.

The internet has been established for a while now. It is no longer an unknown jungle. As a new business entering this arena you can learn from other people’s successes as well as their mistakes!

by: Lee Traupel

 

I am sick and tired of marketing geeks touting the beauty of
branding, brand building and just spouting branding in any context,
especially when the term is used with "internet" or "web" or "digital!"
You can't have a conversation today for more than five minutes without
some marketing type throwing in a line about brand building!

Branding doesn't work with the net's warp speed - look at
some of the leading online brand builders, including a certain big
three TV network here in the states and a book seller in Seattle
trying to do classic brand extension, from books to barbecues.

We tell our B2B clients to build a revenue-producing online brand by
developing a campaign that sells the value of their goods or
services! Forget the esoteric, very expensive brand building
campaigns that have no measurable impact! Here are my ten "cliff
notes" to building an effective B2B Brand Online, B2C coming next
article.

1)Do a careful Competitive Web Analysis of your competitors – you
can't build a unique brand without knowing the lay of the digital
and realworld land! The beauty of the web is that it is a 247/365
resource for analysis and you can find out quite a lot from your
competitor's web sites. We've created a comprehensive matrix
of 75-200 items to assess when preparing a competitive analysis
report for a client.

2)Identify your target audience early on as everything flows from
this. You can't conceptualize your creative, graphical imagery,
content or what type of online media you want to deploy until you
know the size and characteristics of your target audience.

3)Think revenue producing branding – this translates to marketing
campaigns that deliver sales (the goal of all good marketing
campaigns) by customer acquisition. Meaning, develop messages that
speak to your audience. B2B customers typically want referenceable
data that addresses their needs. "Our xyz services help you
leverage your IT resources by…." Think providing tactical
information to enhance their decision-making!

4)If your early to market or just plain old early stage then you may
want to develop some branding with other complementary partners who
have established names (brands) in your market segment. This can
include joint announcements, co-branded pages; direct marketing or
opt-in e-mail pieces, etc. Here's an example of a co-branded page
we did for an existing client, PolyServe, Inc.
http://www.polyserve.com/partners.html

5)Make sure you PR agency and Interactive or Traditional Agency are
all in concert when it comes to building a branding campaign. Your
various messages and processes should be mutually reinforcing.

6)Select an Interactive or Traditional Agency that understands your
unique B2B needs. Consumer branding is much different than B2B
Customer Acquisition Branding. By "understand" I mean ask
them about the types of campaigns they've set up for previous
clients, what types of media they've used, do they know how to
develop creative that speaks to a potential B2B client – I love
the "do the Dew" campaign, but this isn't the type of
branding you would want to deploy for an IT Manager who is
contemplating a purchase of your software.

7)How do you measure effective branding on the web? I am not sure if
I have any answer or if I have unlimited answers – this is such a
difficult marketing characteristic to measure. But, again,
be "customer-centric" – ask people who purchase your software or
services what they think. Why did you purchase (or why not if you
can), did our marketing address your needs, was it meaningful and
informative?

8)Think digital shelf life when branding on the web – you have to
build messages and content that will only last for a finite amount of
time. You have to continually refresh your branding and positioning
by developing new content for a web site, opt-in e-mail or banner
advertising campaign.

9)Incorporate your offline branding (creative, content, graphics,
etc.) into your online branding when/where you can. So your customer
has a sense of continuity when they review all of your marketing and
communications processes. This also sends a signal to them that you
have carefully thought through your overall campaign.

10)Last but not least – build net speed into your overall
campaign. I've said it before in many articles, but always essential
to underscore; better to be quick to market with something that may
need slight calibration later on that to delay a facet of a campaign
of the entire campaign to get everything perfect! Revenue is the
engine that makes a B2B Branding campaign work and you can't
drive sales unless you are putting your branding message out there in
front of your potential customers!

by: dale ronewicz

Feel free to use this article. Please include the advertisement and active link at the end. Thank You.....word count 521

Finding the Right Web Host

Choosing the right Web Hosting service for your website can be a little bit confusing. There's so many choices out there and many people aren't exactly sure what they should be looking for.

Here's a few things you should take into consideration when looking for a Web Host:

File Storage Space/ Disk Space

How much disk space do you need? That depends on how many files (pages) you plan to upload to your hosting space. If it's a personal or ecommerce site (a site that sells products) with just a few pages and graphics, than 25 MB of disk space a month should be more than enough. If it's a multi-page site such as an online shopping mall, then 2000 MB would be safe.

Storage space is specified in kilobytes KB, megabytes MB, or gigabytes GB, a megabyte is 1000 kilobytes and a gigabyte is 1000 megabytes.

Bandwidth / Traffic / Transfer

All words above are used interchangeably. It's the amount of data that flows through your site, the amount of hits or how many people visit your site. If you're expecting a few hundred hits a day then 10, 15 of 25 GB of Transfer should be enough. If you're expecting hundreds of thousands of hits every month then you should get a hosting account with as much Bandwidth as possible.
Bandwidth is usually expressed in Gigabytes.

CGI

Common Gateway Interface, is a protocal script used to make your site dynamic. Flash banners, moving objects. With the right web design program or scripting knowledge and a host that offers CGI you can easily bring your site to life.

Frontpage Extensions

Now-a-days more sites are offering Frontpage extensions. Microsoft Frontpage is a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) web design program that lets you easily create web pages while the software does all the coding behind the scenes. The great thing about using Frontpage and having a host with Frontpage extensions is once you design your webpages all you have to do is click one button that says "publish site" and all your pages go from your computer to your hosting space with one click.

Shared Hosting / Dedicated Servers

Shared hosting, or sometimes called basic hosting means that the webspace that you rent will be shared on the same web server with other clients of the company you've purchased web space from. This is the most common.

If you purchase a Dedicated server it means your website will have it's own unique server. This is the preferred choice for sites with a huge amount of traffic and many graphics that would take to long to load on a shared server.

Finding a Web Host can be confusing if you're not sure what to look for. If you're planning on having an average website with a few hundred hits or fewer a day, than shared hosting is the way to go.

by: Halstatt Pires

Once your site is up and running, the best method for getting immediate traffic is pay-per-click search engine marketing. Although you have to be patient, you should also be focusing on search engine optimization as a long term strategy.

Search Engine Optimization – “SEO”

Search engine optimization, or “seo” as it is better known, is the definitive long term Internet marketing strategy. So, what is it? Seo simply refers to taking steps to make sure your site appears high in non-paid search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The reason seo is considered a long term strategy is…well, it takes a long time. If your marketing is focusing on highly competitive keywords, such as “Europe travel”, there is so much competition that you could be looking at two or three years before getting top rankings. The time period is really a factor of how fast you can build links. Sometimes you can move up within 6 months, but sometimes it takes a few years.

Is it worth it to wait for 2 years to get into the top five for “Europe travel”? There are over 2,000,000 searches a month for the keyword phrase. What do you think? If you offer a service or product related to traveling in Europe, how much money would you make if even 1 million people visited your site each month? Think about that.

The Big Three

There are three, and only three, search engines that matter when it comes to seo – Google, Yahoo and MSN. What about Alta Vista, etc.? They simply don’t have enough traffic to make them worth pursuing.

There are four keys to seo. First, you must research the amount of traffic various keywords are receiving. Second, you must modify your site to include the exact keywords phrases in the meta tagging and text. Third, you must add and add and add content to your site. The more content, the more the big three will like your site. Finally, you must trade links with other sites that have content related to your site.

The keys to pursuing a seo marketing strategy are discipline and patience. Let’s take a quick look at each.

You must have the discipline to stick with your seo effort when you are seeing no results. The desire to throw one’s arms in the air in frustration is going to be strong. Just remember that every step you take today will pay off down the road.

Patience balances feelings of frustration and you are going to have a lot of those. Look, it is going to take a long time, so resist the urge to whine. Stick a sign up over your desk counting off the months or have a regular exercise routine. If nothing else, you can day dream about all of the free traffic you are going to get one day.

Search engine optimization is not for the weak of mind or impatient. If you can stick with it, this long term marketing strategy always pays off.

Re-blogged From Michael Fields

It’s almost June and warm weather is spreading across many parts of the world like wildfire! What better time to get out of the house and explore new places? Before you leave, though, it would be a great idea to take your camera along to document the experience.

When you return and get the urge to share you photos with the world, there’s no better place to do it than right here on WordPress.com. We’ve put together a brand-new theme that will showcase your photographs in style!

Ideation & Intent, designed by Kevin Conboy, is our latest free theme and features beautiful typography, bright colors and clean lines. Your photos will get the royal treatment in the featured post area and custom image sidebar.



Read more about its features in the Theme Showcase or dive right into previewing it on your blog by navigating to Appearance → Themes.

Keyword can be classified into three categories :

-Single word Keyword
-Multiple word Keyword
-Keywords based on Theme

Keyword(s) are basic raw material used in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keyword selection or Keyword Research as it is called technically, where we use special tools to find out a list of Keywords (search terms) searched by targeted audience, recently. Keyword can be single word, two or three words, multiple words and theme based.

Lets detail each of these one by one . Understanding these categories of keywords would also help one to decide as to their targeting on specific pages.

#Keyword of Single word

Keyword of Single word is used to target a large traffic but leads to highly competition category of sites. Keyword of Single word are known as generic Keyword(s) where we target general audience. Keyword of Single word does not help to target a specific page for a specific audience.

Although, Keyword of Single word helps in bringing huge traffic but these terms are mostly not relevant these days, as, searchers mostly use two or three keyword to find out their required information.

Instead single word keywords are good theme keywords.

We can use these primary keyword 5 to 7 times in a web page for good theming according of a site. The inside pages of the site can qualify these themes into product or service categories by adding qualifiers to these theming keywords.

Example:

Keyword “Services” will produce result of all the web sites related to Services which can be United States Department of Health and Human Services, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, direct Services, online Services, offline Services, Indian Services, American Services, food Services, agricultural Services, business Services, free Services, paid Services, etc.

#Keyword of Multiple words

Keyword of Multiple words is used to target a specific traffic, which leads to high sale, top position in search result listing as well as improves page rank competition. Keyword of Multiple words are known as Specific Keyword(s) where we target a specific audience & not general searcher. Keyword of Multiple words helps to target a specific page for a specific audience.

Keyword of Multiple words, more often than not are location specific and related to geographic area of your intended services or products.

#Keywords based on Theme

Keyword based on Theme are used to target a highly targeted audience, which leads to quick high sale, top position in search result listing as well as boosts page rank. Keywords based on Theme are known as Conceptual Keyword(s).

Keywords based on Theme consists all possible primary Keywords related to the web site therefore attracts high traffic of targeted audience. Keywords based on Theme add quality by providing Keyword Rich Text to search engines, which improve results and provide targeted search result listings.

Keywords based on Theme are used in each page of web site to focus on a specific topic correlated to a targeted topic or idea (theme). Keywords based on Theme effectively contribute in growth of informative pages for its site focusing on different related topics. 

by: Rakesh Ojha

The Memorial Day Sale!

From now until Memorial Day (May 28), you can take advantage of our special Memorial Day sale. You'll receive a 30% life-time discount for your ManageWP premium account, which will remain active for as long as you remain a customer, even if you upgrade or downgrade in the future. Simply login to your account, and then come back here and click the "Upgrade Now" link at the end of this email. Simple!

10 Reasons to Upgrade

ManageWP provides you with the most powerful suite of WordPress management tools ever imagined, and we also help you focus on the things that matter most: your content, your business, and your customers. Join the 25,000+ users and 100,000+ websites that use ManageWP to revolutionize WordPress management.

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