Choosing your Meta-Keywords

Choosing your Meta-Keywords
by James Timothy Faasse


Introduction
This article assumes you already know what a ‘meta-tag keyword’ is and know a little about their importance to search engines. In this article I will attempt to explain the art of choosing the most appropriate and best performing keywords for your web pages.

As you should already know keywords contained within your websites’ meta tags are extremely important in allowing search engines to determine the content of your web pages. In order to make sure that these keywords are bringing your site up within Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and driving visitors to your site, the most important factors in determining your keywords are:

- Relevance.
- Choosing keywords that people actually search for.
- Choosing keywords without too much competition.

Relevance
All your keywords should ALWAYS be relevant to the content within the page they describe. Adding keywords to your site just because they are commonly searched for words is not recommended. Not only will it frustrate visitors who are looking for other information, but it may well get your site black-listed from search engine rankings. Highly relevant keywords will attract visitors who are actually interested in the products and services your website offers. At the end of the day, it is better to attract fewer visitors who actually have an interest in your website than it is to attract more visitors who leave immediately.

Choosing keywords people search for
Although your keywords should all be relevant, sometimes it is best not to be too specific. For example, I once discovered a new fossil (honest!), it was new to science so I named it, wrote a paper on it and had it published. I didn’t ever build a web page dedicated to it, but if I had the most used keyword and most relevant word would have been the fossils name (Trypanites fosteryeomani). You might therefore think that it would be sensible to use this as one of my most important keywords… However, that would (at least to start with) have been wrong. No one else has ever heard of this fossil, so it is very unlikely that anyone would ever type its name into a search engine. And sure enough, a quick check shows that during Dec 2004 there wasn’t a single search for this term within a particular, popular search engine.

I would therefore need to be more generic with my choice of keywords. The fossil itself was a trace fossil of a worm from the Jurassic, so keywords/phrases such as ‘fossil’, ‘trace fossil’ or ‘worm trace fossil’ may be more successful.

There are several tools available that allow you to check the number of times a particular word or phrase has been searched for. It is important to choose keywords that are regularly searched for and these tools can help in this decision. It is also worth including common mis-spellings of your most relevant keywords as your competitors may not have thought of this when choosing their keywords.

Choosing keywords without too much competition
The section above may lead you to believe that choosing very generic keywords is your best bet as they are often searched for. However, if you get too generic in your choice of keywords then you will be competing with many more websites for the top spots in the SERPS. If we go back to our fossil example we can see what I mean. A quick search in Google brings up the following numbers of results:

- Trypanites fosteryeomani – 1 result (something I once wrote in a forum!)
- Jurassic Worm Trace Fossil – 4,320 results
- Trace Fossil – 407,000 results
- Fossil – 9,120,000 results

As you would expect, the more generic we get, the more results we get. It can be seen then that choosing the best keywords is a matter of balancing the number of times the keywords are searched for against the number of other sites competing for rankings with those keywords. The best keywords will be those that are searched for often but have few competing sites (assuming the keywords are relevant to your content).

I find that it is best to have a balance between the generic and specific keywords relating to your web page and using key-phrases is a useful way of achieving this. In this way the entire key-phrase can be specific to your particular page, but the individual words within it are fairly generic.
e.g. Affordable Website Design Wales (4 generic keywords to create a specific key-phrase)

To Summarise, choosing keywords is an essential part of producing a successful website. Your keywords need to be highly relevant to the content of your page and specific enough to reduce competition. They also need to contain some generic keywords that are often searched for. As always, the single most important factor is relevancy and good content to go with the keywords.

Determining Keywords

Determining Keywords
by James Timothy Faasse


Determining keywords is a critical step in web design. If your website and meta tags do not contain related keywords, web surfers will be unable to find your website when they conduct searches.

The formula is a little tricky - you will need to locate terms that are popular and relevant to your site. These terms may or may not be terms that *you* feel are relevant terms. The optimal terms in a site should be terms that a potential customer would use when searching for a website with your content. In order to achieve success your website should be optimized with terms and phrases that are descriptive, related to your content, and which receive a significant amount of searches. The caveat, of course, is that you want to find terms and phrases where there is little competition, so you quickly achieve high ranking in the important search engines.

relevant + popular with searchers but not with competitors = success

Markets saturated with other sites competing for search terms make it difficult to find quality keywords. Sometimes it is better to optimize for a less popular term, one that is more targeted at your visitor, as it will likely have a higher conversion rate than a less specific popular term. The first step to determining keywords is brainstorming a list of logical terms and phrases that relate to your product or offerings. This should be done by a number of individuals; sometimes people have very different ideas for search terms and by identifying a variety of people and their search terms you may tap words that hadn't occurred to you. There are a number of free and low-cost tools available online and for download that will allow you to expand and research terms that have been brainstormed. The results typically vary with the tools but overall the tools will assist you in determining where to focus your keyword efforts. The tools will often assist with pay-per-click engines, creating expanded, related keywords or phrases that can be bid on.

In addition to examining log files to see what terms customers are using to find a website, visit competitors’ web sites and examine their meta tags for additional terms, use a thesaurus to find related terms, include misspellings of keywords in your meta tag keywords, and optimize for various forms of nouns and verbs, including tenses and plurals.

Keyword Tools

KeywordTumbler - KeywordTumbler takes existing keyword phrases and generates multiple variations, reordering the words. This allows you to build a large keyword list in seconds. http://www.keywordtumbler.com

TheDowser - Overture Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Sandbox, Keyword Harvester, Google AdWords report analyzer, Google AdWords optimization tool, log file analyzer, conversion tracking and optimization tool. http://www.thedowser.com

WordTracker - Wordtracker helps you choose the right internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use Wordtracker for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine ranking, and that starts with the proper internet marketing keywords. Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information! http://www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Suggestion Tools - A handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often. Enter a search phrase below to see how often it's searched for, as well as get suggestions for alternate (but similar) keywords. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Keyword Ranking Tool - This utility can be used to check search engines for keyword ranking and track search engine ranking for your various keywords over time, which, as you probably know, is critical when doing search engine optimization. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

Overture Keyword Tool - After entering a keyword or phrase, Overture provides a list of related phrases that have been searched on. The tool provides a count that indicates the number of times the phrase has been searched on. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Topword Tool - Topword Tool is a free online tool that analyzes a complete web page and counts keyword occurrences, as well as keyword phrases (number in brackets), equal to or above that set in the Minimum Occurrences setting. It supplies a list of keywords and keyword phrases which are most likely to achieve the highest rankings on a major search engine. The tool will also analyze your meta description/keyword and title tags and then, through color coding, inform you of words/phrases which should be included. The main use for this tool is checking your optimization and tweaking existing web sites to rank well. http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html

Google Suggestion - The Google Suggestion is a new online tool for webmasters. As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's 'Did you mean?' feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time. For example, if you type 'bass', Google Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include 'bass fishing' or 'bass guitar'. Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like 'progr,' Google Suggest might offer you refinements like 'programming', 'programming languages', 'progesterone', or 'progressive'. You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow keys or mouse. The tool provides a number that indicates the number of searches a specific word or phrase has had. http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Keyword statistics give webmasters a way to tap into what is on the minds of Internet consumers. When you can match your marketing efforts to the various ways people locate their items of interest on the net, potential customers will be streamed to your site like ants to a picnic.

Finding Keywords Worth Gold That Are Easy To Optimize For…

Finding Keywords Worth Gold That Are Easy To Optimize For…
by James Timothy Faasse


Trying to get into the search engine optimization game? Well, here is a way to quickly find the most profitable keywords that are easy to optimize for. This is the hidden strategy that all successful businesses use to start.

The real aspect of building a website for search engines is to do your keyword research correctly. This can be the most time consuming, hectic, and frustrating aspect unless you know what you’re doing – that is why we want to teach you today.

Are you ready for this challenge? Not many people are. Find good keywords is the step that most give up and that is why most can never make a penny online. But, with the secrets we’re about to reveal, you should be able to sulk profits from search engines for years to come…

We’re going to help you learn how to choose the keyword that will help set-up the foundation of your online business.

Why are we looking for keywords?

These keywords are going to become the foundation of your site’s
CONTENT. These are the keywords that will determine how you optimize your website for search engines. They’re also the same keywords you can use to buy cheap traffic through pay-per-click.

How to start?

First, make a list of 5-10 keywords or keyphrases that are related to your
niche. For example, if your niche is computers, come up with a list like this:

1. Computers
2. Computer Parts
3. Computer Software
4. Cheap Computer
5. Building a Computer

Next, you’ll use a tool that will expand on these keywords for you. The
best tool to use is Wordtracker. It’s the most highly recommended
keyword searching tool on the web. This tool actually lets you type in one general keyword and it will come back with hundreds and even thousands of related phrases out of which many are great keywords to optimize for.

What kind of keywords should you look for?

Look for keywords that are about 2-3 words long – so you’re really looking for phrases. The next goal is to find the phrases that aren’t too competitive. Meaning, look for keywords that are getting a good amount of traffic but do not have a bunch of competition too.

Start off your search engine optimization with easier keywords and as you build up you can go after the harder keywords (that is the best way to attack SEO).

In essence, you’re looking for keywords with a high KEI – KEI is an index developed by a search engine optimizer and basically the higher it is, the easier it should be for you to rank for that keywords. Ideally, you want to find KEI’s that are higher than 40. Anything lower than 5 is probably too hard to start optimizing for.

KEI is a simple calculation that uses the number of times a keyword is searched with the number of competing websites.

Back to wordtracker – this tool automatically calculates all the KEIs for you and ranks them in order of highest to lowest so you know just where to start!

Why Avoid Short Keywords?

There are a few reasons why it’s pointless to try to optimize for one of two word keywords/keyphrases.

1. Extremely difficult – these are the keywords that everyone is going for and all the major companies are optimize for. It’s going to take a lot of work and money to get there.

2. Pointless – for example, what’s the use of optimizing for “computers” if all you do is sell computer hardware. You’re going to get a bunch of visitors that are waste, untargeted and won’t make you any money. You rather optimize for something like “computer memory hardware.” That will not only be easier to optimize for, but it will get you targeted traffic that buys!

3. The one-two phrase keywords require that you have massive, large websites or thousands upon thousands of incoming links (they other keyword phrases do not).

So, to finalize, if you want to optimize the right away and you want to do it fast with targeted visitors that actually buy – find keyword phrases that are at least 3 words long, not very competitive and start there.

Pretty soon, you’ll be ready to go for the harder keywords…

Tons of Top 10 Rankings Guaranteed

Tons of Top 10 Rankings Guaranteed
by James Timothy Faasse


Okay I admit it. I was kidding. I can’t guarantee top 10 search engine rankings any more than the next guy.

But hold on. Before you click away in disgust I believe I’ve got the next best thing. That all but guarantees you'll get top 10 rankings. Lots of them. For next to nothing. So you might want to stick around and find out what this is all about.

You see to hear some tell it a top 10 ranking is a shoo in. A gimme. A piece of cake.

Must be since Google Adwords are crammed with all sorts of beckoning, come hither ads that suggest as much.

Now admittedly in any food chain even the bottom feeders play a role in the big scheme of things. But I don’t know. Such pitches may be hard for the typical traffic starved newbie to resist. I mean these ads suggest for a mere $49, $69 or $99 you’ll be rolling in top 10 rankings in no time.

The sad truth is you may indeed land some top 10 rankings. But they won’t be for keywords that produce much if any traffic. And if you don’t get any traffic what good are the top 10 rankings?

Still, let’s not be so hasty. While I’m not advocating anyone plunk down hard earned cash in the hopes of landing high search engine rankings for competitive keywords, hidden in the hype is a low cost strategy. In other words there’s a way to make this work. If you know how. And you will in about 60 seconds.

Here’s all you do.

Simply fire up Wordtracker. (A subscription is about $8 for a day.) Start looking for related keywords by doing a search for a broad, general, generic keyword in your niche. Then drill down and dig up all the related 'exact' keyword phrases that have 9 or fewer competing pages. All that’s left is to optimize a page on your site for each one and presto chango! A top 10 ranking!


See? A surefire formula for guaranteed top 10 rankings. Brain dead simple too.

Now I call such search terms “orphan keywords”. Orphans because the search volume is so low they are all but ignored by the fat cats intent on landing the big fish -- a.k.a. high rankings for terms that get hundreds of searches a day.

That fact makes these orphans super simple to rank in the top 10 for. Especially since many of the competing pages aren't even optimized the least little bit.

But hold on. Let’s not high five all around just yet. There’s a tradeoff. As I suggested lack of competition is a sure sign such terms aren’t searched for often. Maybe no more than a mere handful of times each day in Google.

Okay so how do we make lemonade out of those lemons?

The best way to make this tactic work is to find a ton of these terms. And don’t worry. Most niches are loaded with orphan keywords.

Then here’s your next step. Simply create content pages that each focus on two, or at most three, of these small fry.

Put up 100 such pages and you’ve probably got 250 of these 9 or fewer competing pages phrases covered.

To get to 100 pages all you do is create four pages a day - five days a week. If you miss a day make it up over the weekend. But by the end of five weeks you’ll have 100 pages hard at work for you. Now that’s not so hard now is it?

Even better these orphans come with a collective traffic jolt you wouldn’t expect.

I’m looking at one list of orphan keywords that shows 309 daily searches in Google. Another came in around 513. While the orphans for a third niche had over 1876 Google searches each day according to Wordtracker!

Given all that I casually suggested this micro traffic idea to a friend with an already successful web site. In other words he wasn’t hurting for traffic. Which made this a no lose proposition for him to test.

About four weeks later he excitedly reported his traffic had doubled! That’s right doubled. That got my attention. Should get yours too. Because this orphan keyword strategy is a surefire way to get top 10 rankings for a whole host of lesser keyword phrases. Giving you near exclusive access to the traffic that comes with them. While leaving the bruising battles for the hyper competitive terms to someone else.

Pretty clever, huh? Absolutely.

Drive Traffic To Your Site With Free Doorway Pages

Drive Traffic To Your Site With Free Doorway Pages
by James Timothy Faasse

Have you seen the ads for people charging you hundreds of dollars to make doorway pages for your site? If you have a little time, I'll show you how to make your own doorway pages absolutely FREE.

Basically a doorway page is a page that leads people, or is a doorway, to your actual site. Each of these pages have a different url so you can submit these multiple pages to the search engines. You can create doorway pages using your existing url, such as www.yourpage.com/doorway1.html or you can create multiple doorway pages using all of the free homepage service providers available on the internet. You can try different keyword combinations on each doorway page to increase your hits. So let's get started.

1. First you need to determine which keywords are going to generate the most traffic to your site. You want to pick one primary keyword or keyword phrase and 3-4 secondary keywords or keyword phrases. Here are some suggestions to help you find popular keywords or keyword phrases that accurately describe your website:

*Weekly Search Engine Keyword Statistics -

http://www.mall-net.com/se_report/ Get the top 100 weekly keywords and keyword phrases that people are searching for. They take samples from all different search engines 24 hours a day, with a million queries a week

*Word Spot


- http://www.wordspot.com/ Get a weekly top 200 keyword and keyword phrases report e-mailed to you every week for free. They sample random search engines every 5 min. during the day and evening.

*GoTo's Search Term Suggestion Page

- http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/Search_Suggestion.jhtml Enter your keyword and this tool will show you how many people have searched for your keyword and it lists other related keywords.

2. Now you need to create the meta tags for your page. You want to use your one primary keyword in your title tag, description tag and keyword tag. Then use your secondary keywords in your keyword tag. If you need help creating your meta tags, here are two meta tag generators that are easy to use:

*Web Head Central's Meta Tag Generator

- http://www.webheadcentral.com/metatagtool.html

*Site Owner

- http://www.siteowner.com

3. Now you are ready to create your doorway page. I created a sample doorway page from Web Position Gold. I made up a fictional company to illustrate for you how an actual doorway page would look. Feel free to copy and paste the html code to your own site. Just change the keywords, title, etc. to reflect your own page. Go to http://www.webheadcentral.com/doorway.html You can also use the free doorway page generator at http://www.siteowner.com.au/doorwaypage2.html Save all of your doorway pages in the same folder in your website directory. When the search engine spider indexes your site, it will index all of the pages in that folder.

4. Start submitting your doorway pages to the search engines. For a list of free and low cost search engine submission services, go to http://www.webheadcentral.com/submit.html

5. Finally, you'll want to check and see how your pages are ranking on the search engines. If you don't have the money to purchase search engine ranking software, here are 2 sites that will let you know how your site ranks:

*PurePromotion Search Engine Position Analyzer

- http://www.purepromotion.com/rankit.htm

*Site Owner

- http://www.siteowner.com/ Now go out and start generating traffic to your site!

1 Simple SEO Strategy To Get More Visitors To Your Site From Google

1 Simple SEO Strategy To Get More Visitors To Your Site From Google
by James Timothy Faasse

Did you know that you can dramatically increase the number of visitors that come to your site on a daily basis from Google? And it's not constantly improving your position in Google search engine result pages(SERPs) for your competitive keywords which can take some time after working on your search engine marketing campaigns.

I take this example from Google because I've experienced it some time back now. Apart concentrating on getting and maintaining a top 10 ranking in Google, there are lots of easy traffic sources that you haven't exploited yet. We are still talking about search engine traffic here.

What's that strategy you ask? The answer might surprise you but it's a technique that works and is pretty legitimate. It's not creating stand alone or doorway pages with practically no content, overly optimized with keywords and a link back to the homepage. Doorway pages work but only if you know how to do it well. And this article will talk a bit about this topic as well.

The strategy is to search for overlooked keyword phrases which are not too competitive and create effective doorway pages related to these keyword phrases. These pages can be promoting a product for instance.

Just by adding a few effective doorway pages, I managed to make 9 sales in just a few short weeks and earned $364.59.

Imagine you come up with several keyword phrases that generate a few monthly searches, you now have several pages. So each page targeting a specific keyword phrase is worth traffic and not any type of traffic but it will be targeted.

So if you have one page which brings you only 1 visitor per day and you have 50 pages, you can easily receive 50 visitors per day for free. You see the potential now.

Keywords that have about 1000 searches on Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions previously known as Overture at this link are valuable keywords with lower competition.

If you are using Wordtracker at http://www.wordtracker.com , a keyword with only 10 searches per day can get you a good ranking and bring you traffic.

If you have already a website which is generating traffic, you can dramatically increase your numbers, simply by adding relevant doorway pages targeting a specific keyword. These pages have content and have your optimized navigation menu on it with their specific keyword phrases. These pages are just an entry to your site nothing more nothing less.

They should not be overly optimized with keywords but they must have some optimized content which is readable by your visitors and friendly for the search engines as well.

If you have a good website which is crawled by Google's robot called 'Googlebot' often, your new pages will get spidered and indexed fast and will start bringing you small loads of targeted traffic.

But be careful when adding pages, don't go in a frenzy with this and add hundreds or even thousands of pages all of a sudden. For eg if your site has 50 pages already indexed in Google and ranking well and you add 100 new pages at once, your indexed pages might suffer a temporary drop in rankings. The key here is to add pages on a regular basis say 1 or 2 pages daily until you reach the total number of pages to be added.

Why not capitalize on this free source of traffic? The key is to research your keywords well first, work on your content and create these pages afterwards.

Your website will grow bigger and bigger with time and it will attract loads of targeted traffic from multiple keyword phrases.

Good luck and happy research and optimizing.

Reverse Searching for Meta Tags

Reverse Searching for Meta Tags
By James Timothy Faasse`

Reverse Searching is one of the old tricks to increase your sites rankings. Reverse searching is searching on your target meta keywords and checking the sites are returned in the results. By visiting those sites and checking their meta keywords you can get a general ball park idea of what big meta keywords are pulling in site traffic.

This used to work fairly well, but as search engine algorithms become better and better at detecting spam, this option holds less and less value. Search engines now check to see if a meta keyword is present in a meta tag, and if it *is* also present on the web page. If the meta keyword is not present on the page, the meta keyword receives less value or relevancy.

Additionally, many search engines are so slow at actually including pages in their index, the chances that you are looking at the actually source code that generated the high placement, is very slim. However, if you keep those two things in mind, you can sure make some educated guesses about which words are being used in the meta tags. If you are into it, check the date of the listing on the search engine (many show the date that the page was spidered in the results). That can kinda give you a clue as to how old the page is in the search engine database, and how hold it is on the web.

Here is where we get into specifics for each search engine. While reverse searching can work well to build keywords for one search engine, it will fail miserably on others. While one search engine will give high relevancy to keyword occurrence in one position, another will discount it entirely. It pays to reverse search on as many search engines as possible and compare the same sites generated page.

Additionally, some people are now running stealth keywords and you wont be able to detect if you are viewing true keywords or bogus keywords. You may also stumble upon a page that was designed for another search engine from the ne where you found it listed. You can get around this somewhat if you are using a browser that allows you to set both the USER_AGENT and referring URL. By setting the USER_AGENT to one of the major search spiders, and the referring URL to null, you can sometimes trick web pages into thinking you are from one of the major search engines and fessing up the real set of keywords. (I'm amazed at how often this works).

Reverse Searching for Clues

You can use reverse searching to see what sites are linked to your top competition. Infoseek and Altavista, allow you to enter "link:site url" to see what sites are linked to a particular page or even domain. By searching for the links to your competition, you can get a rough estimate of how many sites are linked to them. If you find that one of your competitors has five hundred links to it, while another has just fifty, you can assume who is the most successful. Visit that top linked site and see just what it is they are doing to get those links. Are they promoting their site by running a newsletter, a mailing list, or other promotional scheme.

Stealth Keywords

Ok, I admit it, I have a love-hate relationship with Cloaking and Stealth. The following was written during a hate phase.

Stealth keywords are keywords that are generated by a CGI program when a search engine spider has been detected.

Simply put: don't use hidden stealth keywords generated by CGI programs to target specific spiders or crawlers. Most of the search engines that this once worked on have taken notice, and it not only wont work, it can cause you serious grief and might cause the death of your website.

Some of the search engines have shadow spiders now, that use a different IP address and use a different (generic mozilla) agent. The shadow spider compares what keyword (html header) information it gets from one viewing to what it gets from the standard spider. If they don't match, they know that you've target them and can bury you deep in the search results in a heart beat (been there, done that, wont be back again).

Determining Keywords

It is obvious that choosing the right keywords can do much for your online business exposure optimizing your positioning and searchability with major search engines including Arameda. However, no one says that it is easy. Today we are happy to share with you the article written by James T. Faasse, who studied the keyword issue carefully and made up a small review of online software tools that can help you in finding the optimum keywords.

Determining Keywords
by James T. Faasse

Determining keywords is a critical step in web design. If your website and meta tags do not contain related keywords, web surfers will be unable to find your website when they conduct searches.

The formula is a little tricky - you will need to locate terms that are popular and relevant to your business. These terms may or may not be terms that *you* feel are relevant terms. The optimal terms in a site should be terms that a potential customer would use when searching for a website with your content. In order to achieve success your website should be optimized with terms and phrases that are descriptive, related to your content, and which receive a
significant amount of searches. The caveat, of course, is that you want to find terms and phrases where there is little competition, so you quickly achieve high ranking in the important search engines.

relevant + popular with searchers but not with competitors = success

Markets saturated with other sites competing for search terms make it difficult to find quality keywords. Sometimes it is better to optimize for a less popular term, one that is more targeted at your visitor, as it will likely have a higher conversion rate than a less specific popular term. The first step to determining keywords is brainstorming a list of logical terms and phrases that relate to your product or offerings. This should be done by a number of individuals; sometimes people have very different ideas for search terms and by identifying a variety of people and their search terms you may tap words that hadn't occurred to you. There are a number of free and low-cost tools available online and for download that will allow you to expand and research terms that have been brainstormed. The results typically vary with the tools but overall the tools will assist you in determining where to focus your keyword efforts. The tools will often assist with pay-per-click engines, creating expanded, related keywords or phrases that can be bid on.

In addition to examining log files to see what terms customers are using to find a website, visit competitors' web sites and examine their meta tags for additional terms, use a thesaurus to find related terms, include misspellings of keywords in your meta tag keywords, and optimize for various forms of nouns and verbs, including tenses and plurals.

Keyword Tools

KeywordTumbler - KeywordTumbler takes existing keyword phrases and generates multiple variations, reordering the words. This allows you to build a large keyword list in seconds.

http://www.keywordtumbler.com

TheDowser - Overture Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Sandbox, Keyword Harvester, Google AdWords report analyzer, Google AdWords optimization tool, log file analyzer, conversion tracking and optimization tool.

http://www.thedowser.com

WordTracker - Wordtracker helps you choose the right internet marketing keywords that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use Wordtracker for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine ranking, and that starts with the proper internet marketing keywords. Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information!

http://www.wordtracker.com

Keyword Suggestion Tools - A handy little tool will show you the results of
your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases
are searched most often. Enter a search phrase below to see how often it's
searched for, as well as get suggestions for alternate (but similar) keywords.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Keyword Ranking Tool - This utility can be used to check search engines for
keyword ranking and track search engine ranking for your various keywords over
time, which, as you probably know, is critical when doing search engine optimization.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

Overture Keyword Tool - After entering a keyword or phrase, Overture provides
a list of related phrases that have been searched on. The tool provides a count
that indicates the number of times the phrase has been searched on. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Topword Tool - Topword Tool is a free online tool that analyzes a complete
web page and counts keyword occurrences, as well as keyword phrases (number
in brackets), equal to or above that set in the Minimum Occurrences setting.
It supplies a list of keywords and keyword phrases which are most likely to
achieve the highest rankings on a major search engine. The tool will also analyze
your meta description/keyword and title tags and then, through color coding,
inform you of words/phrases which should be included. The main use for this
tool is checking your optimization and tweaking existing web sites to rank
well.

http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html

Google Suggestion - The Google Suggestion is a new online tool for webmasters.
As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing
and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's 'Did you mean?'
feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search,
except that it works in real time. For example, if you type 'bass', Google
Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include 'bass fishing' or 'bass
guitar'. Similarly, if you type in only part of a word, like 'progr,' Google
Suggest might offer you refinements like 'programming', 'programming languages',
'progesterone', or 'progressive'. You can choose one by scrolling up or down
the list with the arrow keys or mouse. The tool provides a number that indicates
the number of searches a specific word or phrase has had.

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Keyword statistics give webmasters a way to tap into what is on the minds
of Internet consumers.

When you can match your marketing efforts to the various
ways people locate their items of interest on the net, potential customers
will be streamed to your site like ants to a picnic.

Hiring a Search Engine Marketer

Hiring a Search Engine Marketer
By James T. Faasse - March 15, 2005



Many website owners put the cart before the horse- anxious for search engine traffic and rankings, the first thing they do once their site is complete is buy a "submit to 1,000 search engines for $29" service. Unfortunately, what they receive is a tenfold increase in e-mail spam but no increase in search engine traffic.

Do-it-yourself SEO is a great way to go- if you've got the time to put in, anyone can effectively optimize a website. However, it makes sense to hire a professional when your time is better spent doing what you do best; running your business.

Where to start? Selecting an internet marketer can be a daunting task. There are a wide range of fee levels as well as different attitudes, strategies and experience levels.

A few pros and cons can help you in your search:

Con: Submit your site to 25,000 Engines

Any service that claims to submit your site to more than 4 or 5 engines is not submitting to search engines at all. Most likely, they are submitting to free-for-all pages or they are spamming directories. Currently, the only engines with significant traffic are Google and Yahoo and to a small extent Teoma (Ask Jeeves). You don't have to submit to any of these engines- they will find your site by crawling links to your site.

Pro: Directory Submission Service

There are professionals who will prepare and submit your listing request to the major directories as well as industry-specific portals. This is a valuable service-- a well-written description as well as a carefully chosen directory category can improve your chances of getting listed quickly and accurately.

Directory listings are valuable links that add to your link popularity and can send traffic in their own right. Many directories are still free but several have paid options that can speed your review. Directories such as Yahoo and Business.com are paid listings only. Directory submission specialists can let you know what options and fees are available.

Con: We Won't Change a Thing on Your Site

Companies that do their optimization "off-site" by building a mini-network of sites or pages on their own site that point to yours aren't really optimizing your site. They may send you traffic, but when you stop paying, the traffic goes away. You can do that yourself with PPC listings!

Other companies create software-generated "doorway" pages or "information" pages - these pages are often created with nonsense words sprinkled with keyword phrases and meant to appeal to the search engine algorithms. The key is that they are only for search engine spiders to see; not humans. They may work for a short while (if at all.) The problem is that these pages have no links pointing to them and aren't very important in the eyes of the search engines, therefore they are not very effective.

The most dangerous companies will tell you that you won't "see" any of their changes- they add hidden links, hidden text, and other tricky techniques designed to fool search engine spiders. Some create different pages that are shown to spiders than to people- this is referred to as cloaking. These techniques can and will eventually get your site penalized or banned.

Pro: We Can Optimize Your Site

A professional SEO is likely to work with you on keyword research, change your tags, your copy, possibly your links and other code on the page. They will optimize the page- making it friendly to users and search engines while making it relevant to the terms you have agreed upon.

They may recommend you remove splash pages, frames, flash navigation, javascript links, or other things that interfere with the user experience and hinder search engine spiders. While there are workarounds and techniques that can help with situations like these, they are not the optimal solution. Even if you choose to leave search-unfriendly elements on your page, your SEO should point them out to you and advise you of the best option.

Con: We Guarantee #1 Listings in the Editorial Results

No one can guarantee you a #1 listing in the search engines' algorithmically determined results for a specific term. The engines do not have special agreements with anyone that allows them to choose where your site will appear!

Read the fine print- often the guaranteed terms are "guinea pig" terms- words no one is searching or optimizing for that even a guinea pig could get you #1 rankings for! Remember that a guarantee doesn't mean they have to achieve the results- simply that they'll give you your money back if they don't.

Other companies guarantee rankings on PPC terms. That's easy enough, you just have to have a big enough wallet to be #1.

Pro: We Guarantee Improved Results

A good search engine marketing firm should be able to guarantee that they will improve the performance of your site in the search engines- you shouldn't be worse off than when they started. Really good companies should be able to improve your conversions, not just your traffic and rankings. Isn't that the ultimate goal?

Don't be surprised if, after a search engine marketer works on your site, your traffic figures decrease. Don't worry- traffic doesn't pay your bills; in fact it actually costs you bandwidth. The quality of the traffic you continue to receive should be improved- more sales or conversions in relation to the number of visitors.

The ideal situtation is achieved when you narrow your search visitors to people who are interested in your site and they are easily able to find the information they want. This is more likely to occur when you stop focusing on unqualified but high traffic keyword phrases and start focusing on terms that really relate to your site.

Go with Your Instincts

Don't let a search marketer change your pages for the worse- slapping keywords on the page here and there may improve your rankings but decrease sales. Optimization techniques should complement and improve your site and good SEO copywriting will improve the focus of the page without losing the marketing edge.

You should feel confident that the search marketing professional you hire knows what they are doing and is willing to explain what they will do to your site and why. There really aren't any "secrets" in search marketing anymore- you can spend a few hours reading at any of the major search engine forums to find out how things work. If a marketer isn't willing to tell you what they plan to do to your site to drive more traffic, you may have a mess to clean up later.

Ask for examples of the marketer's other work; it's the best way to see what they do and how. Don't just look at the ranking reports, take a look at the page and make sure it reads well and isn't using sneaky tactics. Above all, pick someone you trust!

There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings

There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings

Potential clients are after a single goal: “Get me a top-ten ranking at Google.” Some will also mention MSN, and a few will rhyme off a list of search engines and want to rank well at the top 200 of them.

It is time to separate fact from fiction.

Yes, your SEO consultant can get you a top-ten placement at Google. But…

1. If the placement is for “dirty brown shoes”, it probably won't help your shoe store one bit, even if I get you the first place ranking. Few people are actually searching for that term.

2. Being number ten might not help much either, depending on the term. People searching for “Essential Nectar liquid vitamins”, will probably click on the first result they see, or at least on one of the “above-the-fold” results that do not require scrolling. On the other hand, someone searching for “liquid vitamins” might check through two pages of results to familiarize herself with the options available.

3. If your title tag reads like a cheap list of search terms, it will not be enticing. For instance, if it reads: “vitamins, liquid vitamins, multivitamins, multi-vitamins”, you might skip over it in favor of the next result that reads “Liquid vitamins from the Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store”.

4. If your description tag is a mess, people will more likely skip over your listing, even if it does rank number one, in favor of one that sounds like what they are looking for. Google and others use the description tag usually when the term searched for is found in it, so make sure to include your key search terms in a description tag that actually reads well.

I recently responded to a forum question, which went something like this: My site ranks number one for this term at this engine. The term is searched this many times per day, and the engine has this percentage marketshare. Can I expect this many visitors?

That's not an SEO challenge; that's a math problem: searches x marketshare = visitors

I responded with a few factors that override mathematics in the SEO game, including the site's title tag and description tag, as well as whether the term lends itself to scrolling. I also pointed out that it depends on the title tags and description tags of the competition, too.

Another factor that makes predicting traffic difficult is the abandonment factor - how many people click on none of the results because they get interrupted or confused, or abandon the search for a new one because they find themselves off-topic or searching too broadly.

It also depends on how many sponsored links there are and how they are marked. Often at Yahoo and Lycos, for example, there are so many ads that the average searcher might never scroll a screen or two to see the organic (natural) results.

And, of course, it also depends on the color of the walls in the room the searcher is clicking from, the weather outside and how well they slept last night. But there is little you can do about that.

What you can do is to work with your SEO consultant to choose the most effective search terms for your business and make sure he/she develops a title tag and description tag that sell to both humans and the search engines. Then make sure he is monitoring not just the rankings for your key search terms, but also the description used by each of the search engines.

A good ranking at Google and Yahoo is just one measure of your SEO consultant's success. A more complete evaluation is that he/she is your partner in building long-term, targeted traffic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Timothy Faasse` is an SEO consultant

E-commerce - Ingredients for success

E-commerce - Ingredients for success By James T. Faasse

1) Post Contact Information The following information should be posted to the website in an intuitive location: A corporate address Product return address An e-mail address A toll-free number 2) Hire Knowledgeable People to Take Phone Calls Consumers shopping online have the same number of questions as regular retail customers - perhaps even more. It is important to maintain a well-trained and knowledgeable staff of people to answer phones. The more these receptionists assist consumers the better the conversion rates and repeat buying. It is also important to provide incentives for your staff to cross-sell and up-sell products. 3) Big Fonts and Big Pictures Pay Off Isn't it frustrating when you click an image to enlarge an image and it loads the same size? Since customers can't pick up the item (like in a retail store) it is important to show detailed pictures. Large keyword fonts also assist intuitive navigation (and GoogleBot loves big, bold fonts)! 4) Be Prepared If you are trying to get on-line for the Christmas season, don't wait until November to build your online store. It takes months to earn solid positioning in Google. Once you are up and running, make sure you have allocated the proper resources for the Christmas season. Your site's traffic should increase 4-fold during peak Holiday months. 5) Befriend the Postman It is imperative that your e-business delivers packages on time. It's even more important that your products arrives in one piece. Nothing is more frusterating to a customer than late arrivals and damaged goods. 6) Make Return Policies Easy and Fair Maintain a return policy that benefits the end user. It is important to include return labels with the packaging, and provide refunds when requested. Repeat business is your best business. Do what it takes to benefit your customers. Next time they shop they will order from your shopping cart- not someone else's. 7) Simplify your Storefront Customers will wait, on average, no more than 10 seconds per page to download before they choose to shop another web store. Remove graphics that take forever and a day to download, and avoide animated clip-art and annoying music. 8) Intuitive Navigation Eliminate unnecessary clicks. By reducing the number of clicks needed to complete a shopping cart transaction your conversion rates will increase.

E-commerce - Reasons to sell online

E-commerce - Reasons to sell online By James T. Faasse`

1) Money- It's here folks! E-commerce sales total in the billions of dollars every year. Not millions. Billions! 2) The early bird earns market share. Those who are first to enter a market will most likely control it. You probably aren't the first in your field to launch an e-commerce business, or even the hundredth- the sooner the better. 3) E-commerce is affordable. Small businesses often fear they don't have the resources to compete with the big boys. Thanks to application service providers (ASP's), small businesses can sell product on the web for as little as $79/ month. Learn more about shopping cart software and ecommerce hosting. 4) Lower operating costs. Dealing with clients over the Internet reduces operating costs. A recent survey yielded estimates that $7 is saved every time a customer checks their order status via the web compared to calling. 5) E-commerce is conducted worldwide. Sure, orders can be taken over the phone and by fax, but e-commerce enables a customer from Bangladesh to conduct business with a company in Nebraska. 6) Affluent consumers shop online. Over 65% of online consumers have a household income that exceeds $52,000. 7) Items can be added to your shopping cart 24-7. E-commerce enables your businesses to operate 24 hours a day seven days a week (as long as you have a reliable e-commerce host, that is!) 8) E-commerce is growing and growing and growing. Thousands of homes add the Internet each day. E-commerce is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It's about solid business fundamentals and marketing strategies. With the proper mix and a lot of hard work, you can make your e-commerce dream a success.

Anchor Text Tips to Sky Rocket Your Search Rankings!

Anchor Text Tips to Sky Rocket Your Search Rankings!

Google/Yahoo bombing is the practice of placing terms you want a given page to rank for in anchor text that links to that page. Huh? Ok, here's an example: if I wanted this page to rank highly for the term "President of the Internet" I'd create a link like this: President of the Internet and have all my friends and friendly readers post that link and text on their sites.

Discuss anchor text optimization in WebProWorld.

With enough pages carrying that same text and link I'd knock the
current president from his perch. (He's also governing
in Yahoo , by the way...)

Google bombing is also effective on pages that don't want to rank for certain terms - Miserable Failure is one example.

The ability to manipulate search results this way indicates the weight that the two most searched engines give to the text webpages use to link to other web pages.

Matt Bailey of The Karcher Group believessearch engines attribute this value to the anchor text because it, "is very important to the user; it should describe the content of the target page and the subject
matter."

James Faasse of iNETready described the way text link works this way: "by identifying your pages through relevant keyword links you are "telling" the search engine which keywords the linked pagesrepresent. The rule applies for both internal and external anchor text."

"Proper use of anchor text," said James, "can help you show the relevancy of your web pages to key search engines to help rank for desired keywords."

I wrote to James, Matt, and two other SEO experts recently and asked them about their thoughts on anchor text and anchor text best practices.

"Anchor text is extremely important to rankings, especially in Google. I've seen some evidence in Yahoo, but not to the extent that Google rankings can be influenced," said Matt. James Faasse of iNETready said, "I believe in the value of anchor text."

Anchor Text Best Practices

Matt's anchor text best practices include excellent general guidelines for you to follow:

1. Do what's best for the user.

2. Make it easily understood by the user.

3. Don't try to hide your intentions.

4. Be honest about the anchor text. What it says is what you should get.

James's anchor text best practices offer some specific advice that will help you make anchor text decisions on your site:

Use Judiciously

1. Navigation maps (the text-links at the bottom of each page) Nav Maps are a great place to put keyword enriched anchor text. These text-links tend to be found at the bottom of each page in a site. An important note is that these links WILL be used by site visitors and MUST be created and phrased with live-visitors and SE Spiders in mind.

2. Links on the INDEX page

The INDEX page of a site is the most powerful real estate found that URL. Again, all work on the INDEX page MUST consider live-visitors before SE Spiders. When keyword-enriching text on the INDEX page, there are often ways to link into internal pages. This is a good thing as it pushes spider traffic while associating the keyword (anchor text) with the specific page

linked to. An important consideration is that the INDEX page often has a higher page rank than internal pages.

3. Links on Internal Pages

Links on internal pages are not as important to search engine rankings as on the INDEX page. Nevertheless, each internal page is terribly important to the clients and can add to a good internal linking strategy.

4. External Links

Links coming from other URLs should use effective anchor text. With larger campaigns we can mix and match the keyword phrases targeted through anchor links in order to associate keyword phrases with specific internal pages.

Fathom , a moderator from WebProWorld , offered these six suggestions to those who want their anchor text to work well for them:

1. Important link positioning top left to bottom right. (throwing tons of links at bottom helps little).

2. Exact anchors that best support the content on the link to page It's great to use tons of links where the anchor text suggest importance to "web design" however if the page is specific to "web development" then the use of "web design" link anchors will be less effective.

3. The use of "broad" has the benefit of aiding "broadly" e.g. using links to a website about "college degrees" where the link indicates "degrees" has the benefit of gaining associate degrees, bachelor degrees, masters degrees, as well as the specific subject matter for the degree itself link computer science degrees.

A link anchor however about "masters degrees" dilutes the value to other degrees e.g. bachelor degrees - so it is a game of tradeoffs.

4. If attempting to do item #3 for "web" to capture "web design", "website design", "web development", "website development", a text link anchor looks quite inappropriate.
Thus the value of image links e.g. where the broad term is less apparent and the image actually reads "web design".

5. Avoid "stop words" such as and, with, by, from etc.

6. Internal site linking structure has a significant impact of supporting and
propagating weight, relevancy, and PageRank to similar topical pages... e.g. Google's indented secondary results for a specific query helps show this. If you are listed (ranked) with only a single results listing - your internal linking structure is likely the cause, and fixing this can help improve overall results.

James Faasse of iNETready contradicted some of what Fathom said, however. "In terms of anchor text being found on relevant vs. irrelevant sites I have yet to see any substantial proof supporting the claim that relevant websites will yield a better return in the natural rankings." From a purely pragmatic perspective though, if you've got links on a page that's more relevant to your site you're
more likely to get foot traffic in that way rather than if you've got your text links up on unrelated/irrelevant sites.

Well, I imagine you're ready to start optimizing your text links. Remember to focus on those within your site as well as those your link partners use to mention you. Anchor text is an important way of showing the search engines, as well as your visitors, just what they're getting when they land on the page. And, for now, it's a powerful way to raise your ranking for particular keywords.

SEO Through Well Built Web Pages

SEO Through Well Built Web Pages

Search engines have moved beyond simply calculating keyword density and link relevance. More and more, the major search engines are mastering the ability to identify natural human language and evaluate a web page based on natural human language. AskJeeves.com was the first search engine to attempt to move to a natural human language system, although they focused on the user input aspect of search rather than evaluating the natural language of a web page itself.

By learning to identify natural human language, search engines are able to greatly reduce the amount of search engine sp@m. Search engine advances continue, especially on the heels of Google's suspected algorithm change which will enable Google to weigh the relevance of links against the content of their pages. Search engines will continue to look at the entire content of websites and continue to attempt to identify the real subjects and themes of any given site.

As search engines learn to better identify the natural language structure of websites, sites that are well formed will have a natural advantage. Although good search engine rankings will always depend on more than just the structure and content of a website, the content of a website will always be the heart of a page's rankings.

Make a Search Engine's Job Easy

Search engine spiders have a lot of work to do. Not only do they spider billions of pages every month attempting to discover new web pages and update already discovered web pages, these spiders need to parse through hundreds or even thousands of lines of code trying to distinguish between titles, content, structural code, and even the occasional keyword stuffing by search engine spammers. By simplifying your website, you make the job easier for the spider and allow the spider to index more pages on your site in a shorter amount of time.

Avoid Bloated Code

Unfortunately for the sake of design, many website owners have paid absolutely no attention to how efficient their code is. As a result, they may have a lot of extraneous, unnecessary code. The result of bloated code is a page that may be difficult and confusing for a search engine to decipher, or the spider may misinterpret the code.

Fortunately, HTML and CSS is quickly catching up to the design standards of website professionals. Using proper HTML and CSS, you can design extremely appealing websites that do not rely on tables for their layout. If you would like to see just how versatile and effective HTML and CSS is, look at the examples laid out at CSS Zen Garden. CSS Zen Garden is a website that displays the power of CSS and properly formed HTML. There are several different designs all using the exact same HTML, but through CSS they are able to build sites that look completely different from each other.

If you want to see something very amazing about what CSS Zen Garden is doing, follow these steps. View the HTML of their page. It does not matter what style you are viewing, the HTML is the same for every style. Then copy that code and paste it into your HTML editor and view the output. The page that you will see is an extremely basic looking page. More importantly, though, the page that you will see is a very well organized page which would be easy for any spider to understand.

Learn More About HTML

If you are like most website owners, you know very little about HTML. You may know a little bit of code, but it really does not seem worth your time to learn the inner workings of HTML. If you feel this way, then you are really missing out on great SEO opportunities.

HTML is built to naturally identify parts of your web page that are more important than others. It was built to be extremely organized. Using the organization that HTML provides, you can help a search engine spider identify the parts of your website that are more important. Below are some uncommon tags that HTML provides that you can use to help organize your content:

Alt Tag – Most website owners know about this, but including an Alt Tag on your images is actually required if you want to have a properly formed website.

- The acronym tag allows for a website to explain what an acronym stands for. For example, the acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. However, when the spider comes to your website, all it will see is SEO which may mean various things. The acronym tag will allow you to add this keyword to your text. The use of this tag should look like this: seo

- Although using tables to determine the layout of your website is becoming a practice that will soon be extinct, tables will still be necessary. The caption tag allows you to identify what a specific table is about. An example: Table 3.2. Raw Sales Data

- If you ever want to display programming code on your site, you should use the code tag which will set that text off as being programming code. Example:

The H Tags – H1 tags became popular in SEO circles once website owners learned that Google did pay attention to this tag. However, there are actually 6 different heading tags. The H1 tag is the most important while the H6 tag is the least important. If a search engine were to try to create a table of contents from a website, it should be able to do so from the H tags.

These are just a few examples, but HTML provides several tags for your content to help you organize your material, and help search engines know what to emphasize in your content.

The lesson from this should be that learning HTML is not an endeavor that has few benefits. There is a lot of HTML that can help you both simplify your code and add more content to help your rankings.

Consider Moving to a Table-less Layout

The demands of web surfers unfortunately increased faster than website technology could keep up. As a few website owners were able to present visually appealing websites through tabled layouts, web surfers quickly became used to the graphic rich and well organized content. Unfortunately with tabled layouts, HTML code became sloppy and full of information that dealt only with the layout of the site, not with the content.

Fortunately, web technology is catching up. It appears as if Internet Explorer 7, which was announced to be released this summer, will finally adhere to the CSS2 standards. If you are not familiar with CSS, just read that previous sentence as being a very good thing. As was demonstrated by the example of CSSZenGarden.com, CSS can be used to create a page that is as appealing, if not more appealing, than standard tables.

Most website owners know CSS to be a tool that they can use to edit the appearance of text and the colors of their site, but CSS is also a tool that can be used for the layout of your site. As CSS comes out with newer versions (CSS3 is in the works), layout will become a more important development.

So how do you move to a table-less layout? The answer is simple: learn HTML and CSS.

The Side Benefit: Accessibility

Did you know that blind people surf the Internet? That may not seem shocking initially, but consider that the Internet is a highly visual medium of transferring information. Blind people are able to use web readers and Braille machines that interpret HTML code.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of websites are not accessible for blind people because they are not well formed sites. By moving to a well formed website, you will be adding access for an audience who marketers really do not focus on.

Article Tip: Search engines love websites that adhere to W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Bringing it Back to SEO

Many website owners are reluctant to take the time, energy, and monëy to really learn HTML and CSS, or to learn how they can make their websites truly accessible. However, in the end, they could be hurting their search engine rankings once search engines move closer to identifying natural human language.

The creators of HTML have done a magnificent job in creating a structure that can be used to organize your content in ways that make search engine optimization extremely easy. As the owner of your website, you should take care to make sure that it is running the way it was intended to. You wouldn't purchase a car that fails to meet basic standards of quality, so why would you trust your company's income to a website that is based on code that does not meet the quality standards of the Internet?

Designing your site properly does take time and effort, but the rewards are numerous. Not only will you have the satisfaction of having a website that is both light in its code and efficient, but search engines will be able to identify the key points of your content much easier, thus giving you more control of your rankings.

[ ebusiness_small_business ] How To Find Your Best Niche Market Bob Leduc | Contributing Writer | 2005-02-23

What is your target market? When I ask business owners that question I usually hear something like...

* Small Business Owners

* Opportunity Seekers

* Doctors

* Homeowners

Do you define the targeted market for your business similar to one of these? If you do, you're working harder and spending more money than necessary to promote your business. And you're getting only a fraction of the sales you should be getting.

When you target a broad audience like those listed above, you're only targeting prospects who CAN USE your product or service. Your marketing efforts will be considerably more profitable if you target prospects who are LIKELY TO USE your product or service.

One of the best ways to do that is to find a "niche market".

What Is A Niche Market?

A niche market is a narrowly defined group that includes all of the following:

1. Individuals in the group have the same specialized interests and needs.

2. They have a strong need or desire for what you offer.

3. You have (or you can create) a compelling reason for prospects in the group to do business with you instead of with someone else.

4. You can easily reach individual prospects within the group.

5. The group is large enough to produce the volume of business you need.

6. The group is small enough that your competition is likely to overlook it.

Why You Must Narrow Your Focus

A niche market enables you to target your sales messages with great precision. The more narrowly you define your niche market the easier it is to cater to the specifically defined interests of people in that market.

For example, some businesses describe their target market as "opportunity seekers". But this is a broad audience. You cannot cater to specifically defined personal interests of individuals in this group because it may include all of the following:

* Executives who want to get out of the corporate environment and start their own business.

* New mothers who want to start a home based business.

* Students who want to generate some extra income.

Any promotional message to this group would have to be very general. But people don't respond to general talk. They respond only when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs.

Special Advantage: A highly defined, small niche market can insulate you from competition. Other small businesses are likely to overlook it. Large businesses will find the market segment too small to bother with.

How to Find a Profitable Niche Market

One way to find a good niche market is to evaluate your existing customers. Can you uncover a segment of customers with similar characteristics?

For example, I recently talked with a network marketer working with a health products company. About a year ago she noticed that many distributors in her organization were health or physical education teachers.

She now has a lot of success targeting a niche market of female physical education teachers who are married, have children and are members of the same professional association.

Another way to find a niche market is to work backward from the benefits you offer. Start by listing all the benefits provided by your product or service. Then list some of the characteristics of prospects whose current situation can be dramatically improved by those benefits. You should begin to see a narrowly defined group emerge as a niche market.

It's Your Bottom Line

How specific is your target market? Can you develop sales messages so sharply focused your prospects believe you're talking specifically to them?

If not, use the information in this article to help you find the best niche market for you. Then tailor your sales messages to the specific interests and needs of that niche market. You'll see an immediate increase in your sales and profits.

7 Crucial Elements Of Visitor Friendly Websites Peter Lenkefi | Contributing Writer | 2005-02-23

Approximately a decade has passed by since the birth of Internet commerce and online service users and shoppers have grown up.

They know what they're looking for, they know where to get it from and they grab it in an instant. They're in and out of your virtual shop in a second. They're fast and furious...especially if the can't find what they were looking for.

So how can we make them stick? How can we make them coming back?

Well, here are 7 crucial elements which can significantly help to solve this basic problem if applied properly.

1. Consistency in layout and navigation

According to multiple online surveys visitors prefer sites where pages have a white background, and the colour text is black. Consistency in navigation is a must.

People get used to the navigation system on your web page very easily. During their multiple visits they are looking for the same navigation points, and if they can't find them where they were at their previous visits, they get confused and leave.

Use the same colour scheme all the way through your pages. Try to match colours and design your pages simply but tastefully. If you are not a designer type, don't be shy to ask for help or to purchase a simple pre-designed template.

Nowadays lots of sites offer beautifully designed web page templates. They can be easily modified,handled and tailored to your needs.

2. Clear Copy, More Sales!

Try to be as clear as you can. Don't use jargon or complicated expert language. That would definitely scare your visitors away.

Highlight benefits but also show features if necessary. Write from the heart. You need to show your visitors that you are an expert, and also an authority. In other words, they need to feel that you know your stuff.

3. Fast Loading pages

Stay away from image heavy design, use text navigation and if your sales copy or page happens to be too long, break down your pages into small tables. This will significantly speed up your web pages loading time.

4. Headlines, taglines, logos : Brand It!

Use shorter headlines or calls to action on every page if possible.

Headlines will make your visitors read further down your copy.

Use taglines all the way through on your pages to brand your site and highlight your unique selling proposition.

Show your logo on each and every page to give a better chance to further brand your product, service or company.

5. Personal photos, addresses, phone numbers: Build Credibility!

Online commerce is a faceless process. People still pretty reluctant to pull out their credit card and give you a buck or two. You need to ease their reluctance as much as you can.

The easiest and fastest way is to put your company address and phone number onto each and every page. That would immediately show that they're dealing with a real company or person.

Put up a about us page and upload a personal photo of yourself.

That will definitely build instant credibility.

6. Audio greetings and customer testimonials.

With nifty little audio tools now you can create a short audio greeting and put it up to your web site. The human voice will significantly build more credibility ands help to turn visitors into buyers.

Collect testimonials from your previous customers and put up the best ones to you web pages. New visitors will see that you have been in business for a long time and made dozens even hundreds of people happy with your products or services.

7. Be available and answer enquiries promptly

Whenever you receive a customer enquiry via email answer as fast as you can. Fast prompt enquiries will convert to sales very soon and will separate you from the lousy pack. Collect generic enquiries write up the answers and put up a page as your FAQ center.

Copyright 2005 Peter Lenkefi