How To Harness The Power Of Email Marketing To Connect With Your Prospective Customers

Why do you have a website?

That’s a question you need to consider carefully in the age of e-commerce.

Almost every business has an online presence now. But few are making the most of their sites. Most are a virtual replica of the company brochure - with product and service information, photos and contact information.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But if it’s all your website does, it probably won’t repay the investment of time and money you put into creating it.

Smart businesses are now realising the most powerful feature of a website is to collect email addresses.

Think about it.

When someone visits your site, the chances of you getting the order the first time they land on your site are slim. They’ll have a look around and might be interested in what you have to offer - but they’ll probably go away and think about it before spending money.

What you need to do, before those visitors click away, is to get their email address so you can keep in touch.

You can follow up, establish a relationship and increase your chances of converting them into customers.

So how do you collect your visitors’ email addresses?

The best way is to offer something free. It can be free information, a free gift or a free service. When people sign up for the free offer, they provide their name and email addresses.

The culture of the Web is built around free stuff. It’s what the big-time Internet marketers have been doing for years. It’s known as the law of “giving and selling”. Now, small businesses are finding it works for them, too.

You need to be creative here.

Depending on your business, you’ll know the kind of free information or gifts your prospective customers are looking for.

For example, a restaurant could offer recipes or discount vouchers. A plumbing business might offer advice on how to avoid costly repairs. A garage could offer car maintenance tips. A small business site could offer a collection of relevant articles, sent out month by month.

The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

This whole process is easier if your website already provides some free information for visitors. In fact, people go online primarily to look for information, rather than to buy. So the more useful content your site provides, the better.

Okay, it takes a bit more work to provide information on your site. But it will set you ahead of your competition. And the investment will repay you many times over.

After visitors have read the useful information on your site, you are then in a position to ask them to sign up for more valuable information or special offers, in future. The idea is to turn that stranger into a friend, into a customer, then into a loyal customer.

The best way to achieve this is by a regular email newsletter.

You may be intimidated by the idea of writing a newsletter. But it’s not as difficult as it seems. The secret is to write like you talk. That doesn’t mean you can break all the rules of grammar or spell words wrongly. No one wants to take the advice of someone who can’t write or spell. But a casual writing style is the way to go with email newsletters.

If you really find it too daunting to write your own newsletter, you might want to seek out a professional writer to help.

Some business people are still wary of using email marketing. They confuse it with spam - the term for email messages sent to thousands of people who didn’t ask for and don’t want to read them.

But permission email marketing is totally different from spam. We’re talking about emailing people who have signed up to go on your list.

Don’t be afraid to email your regular customers, either

They won’t go away because you emailed them. They’re more likely to go away because you didn’t email them and they forgot about you.

The real power of email is that it connects you with people in an amazingly personal way - if you use it properly.

So to summarise, the keys to successful email marketing are:

- get the email addresses of people who visit your website
- send these people useful information on a regular basis
- over time, build your relationship to the point where they feel comfortable buying your products or service.

Do this, and you can’t help but grow your business.

How To Write Your Website In 60 Minutes

Dont be daunted at the prospect of writing your website copy. Here’s a simple outline that shows you how to compile the framework for a successful business website - and it shouldn’t take more than 60 minutes.

If you’re like most small business owners, the prospect of writing your website fills you with dread. You don’t know where to start and you’re not sure what to write. Or perhaps you already have a website and you’re wondering whether it’s really working to build your business.

Well, here’s some good news. Follow the simple steps below and you’ll have laid the groundwork for an effective business website that will not only turn visitors into customers but will also rank well with the search engines. And you can achieve this in just 60 minutes - maybe less.

The reason for a 60-minute time limit is that it forces you to focus on the key aspects of your business. Of course, in 60 minutes you won’t be able to write everything you’ll ever want to include on your website. But you will have the basic information that your customers need to do business with you. And you’ll have a website that’s already way ahead of most small business sites in terms of effectiveness.

Step 1

So let’s start. The first step - and one that most people overlook - is to think about the words and phrases a potential customer would enter into a search engine to find your site. Website designers and copywriters usually call these “keywords”.

For example, if you’re a dentist in Christchurch, you might come up with “dentist Christchurch NZ” plus other phrases such as “dental services”, “cosmetic dentistry” and any other field of dentistry that you specialise in.

Take a few minutes to think about these key phrases, as they apply to your business. Imagine you are searching for your business in a search engine. What words would you enter? Remember, people tend to enter phrases of two or three words into search engines, rather than single words.

Once you have selected three or four key phrases, these will become the foundation of your website content. This should only take 5 to 10 minutes. It is a vital step that most businesses neglect when writing their websites.

You will need to keep this list of phrases in front of you as you write your pages, and make sure your keywords are on every page.

Step 2

Now it’s time to start writing your home page. The first step is the headline, which must catch the attention of your readers immediately, otherwise they may click away without reading further.

Your headline should contain your most important key phrase. It may be as simple as “Bill Gummer, Dentist, Christchurch, New Zealand”.  But don’t just put your company name in the headline. It must tell the reader exactly what your business is about. So, another five minutes to write your headline (you can always tweak it later).

Step 3

The next step is to write two or three sub-headings. These must tell the reader what your product or services can do for them. For example, continuing the dentist theme, you might say: “Are you looking for a dentist who will ensure you feel no pain during your treatment?” Or: “Top quality dentistry at an affordable price”.  Or: “Cosmetic dentistry is our speciality”.

Okay, so far you’ve spent about 20 minutes and you have a main headline and two or three sub-headings. These are what most visitors to your site will read first. Only later will they get to the copy between the headings. This is why you focus first on the headlines. 

Step 4

Now it’s time to write the main copy for your home page. Imagine you are chatting one-to-one with your potential client. Tell them why they should choose your business over someone else.

Refer to your list of keywords as you write, and try to use at least one of them in each paragraph, with the most important phrase in the opening paragraph. Your home page doesn’t have to be long.  About 250 words is enough at this stage, to get across the essential facts.

Make sure you include vital information such as your contact details, street address and opening hours on your home page. You should be able to complete this in 10 minutes. Total time elapsed, 30 minutes.

Step 5

Next, you’ll need to write a page about your products or services. Start by making a list. This should only take two or three minutes. Then, take each item on then list and say a bit about it. Again, remember you a talking one-to-one with your reader, so don’t be too formal, but try to weave your keywords into your copy.

This is the page where you should also include prices, if appropriate. If you get stuck for words here, don’t worry. You can come back later. But at least you now have the basic framework of your page. Later, you can expand this page with more details. Don’t spend more than 10 minutes on this page.

Step 6

Next, write a page called ‘About Us’, or something similar. If you’re a one-person business, this can be similar to your curriculum vitae. If you’re a larger business, it will include the history of the company and its main achievements.

Again, don’t take too long over this. Just jot down the key facts, which should only take a few minutes. You should include photos of yourself and your staff on this page, too.

Step 7

Next, write a page called ‘projects’  or ‘clients’  or ‘portfolio’ or something similar, which outlines projects you have done. Make a list at this stage, without worrying too much about filling in the details. Again, try to work in your keywords.

If you’re a well-established business, this list may be quite long and you can break it up later into several pages.

Step 8

Next, write a page called ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ or ‘Questions and Answers’. This doesn’t have to be long. Think of the top three or four questions related to your business. Make sure one of these includes your prices. This should take another 10 minutes.

Step 9

Finally, write a page with all your contact details. This should take two or three minutes at most.

Step 10

Make sure you spell-check your copy. Read it through a final time and check for grammar. Double check that your main keywords appear on every page. Now, you have the framework for a basic six-page website, which not only tells your potential customers the vital information they need to know about your business but also is well placed to rank on the search engines.

You really can do this in 60 minutes. If you feel you need professional help to take your website copy a step further, you at least have the basic framework that a professional copywriter can polish up into really sharp sales copy.

What You Need To Know BEFORE You Hire A Website Designer

If you’re looking for a website designer it can be confusing trying to choose the right one. Go through the Yellow Pages in any town or city and you’ll find a long list of web designers. Look on the Internet and you’ll discover even more.

Perhaps you have a friend who knows a bit about web design and has offered to build you a site for free. Should you take up the offer?

Or perhaps you are thinking about building your own website. Should you take the plunge and buy some web design software? Or should you use one of those do-it-yourself website builders that many web hosts are now offering?

Well, it depends what you want your website to look like and, more importantly, what you want your site to achieve. If you are developing a website for your business, the ultimate aim should be to sell more of your products or services. If your website doesn’t help you sell more, why would you invest money in it? A website that doesn’t sell is a liability for your business. But a website that brings in new inquiries and sales, is a valuable asset.

As some businesses are discovering, the Internet can be a powerfully effective form of marketing. For example, one of my clients, who sells steel-frame kitset homes, is getting 90% of his business off the website I built for him. Every morning he opens up his emails and sees 20 or 30 new inquiries from the website. They come like clockwork, every day. He doesn’t need to do any other form of advertising.

So how do you find a designer who can build you a site that sells?

There are two main types of website designer - those who are primarily skilled in graphic design, and others whose main strength is in programming. Those with a graphic design focus will build you a nice-looking site, while the programming whizzes will build a site that works efficiently but may not have the same visual flair.

However, a third factor is needed in a business website. If this third factor is missing, your website will be like a two-legged stool. It will fall over. It won’t work effectively to build your business. It will simply sit out there in cyberspace looking pretty but will get few visitors and make few sales.

This third factor involves marketing. When a visitor arrives at your website, you have just two or three seconds to get across your key marketing message. It needs to be spelled out clearly so it hits your visitor right between the eyes.

Visitors don’t come to your website to be entertained by all the cool effects that your website designer has added. They don’t care how well the back end of the site works. They just want to know what your product or service is all about, and what it can do for them.

So your website needs to have a clear sales message. It needs to present your visitor with an irresistible offer that they can?t refuse. It needs to inspire your visitor to take action - either to purchase your product off the site, or to contact you for more details.

That’s why the ideal website designer needs to have a marketing brain. This kind of designer knows how to lay out the words and pictures on a page for maximum marketing impact. They understand how the human eye moves across a web page (scanning very quickly for anything that looks interesting).

They know how to write a compelling headline that makes your visitor want to keep reading. Successful web design is essentially about marketing.

So you need to bear this in mind when choosing your website designer. When you get to the heart of it, web design is not primarily about art. Nor is it about technology. Web design is essentially about marketing. It is about providing information to your prospective customers, so they will buy from you.

Will your site get a good ranking in the search engines?

If your website gets lots of free traffic from search engines, it can provide a huge boost for your business. There are some simple secrets for getting a good ranking in the search engines, particularly Google, for the main search phrases that your prospective customers are likely to use.

A good web designer will think about the best search phrases, known as “keywords”,  to build each page of the site around. For example, when I built the site for my client who sells kitset homes, the most obvious search phrase was “kitset homes”.  I used these keywords in strategic places in the site, such as in the title tag which is hidden in the code behind the site, which is what the search engines see.

I also used the keywords in other places throughout the content of the site. As a result, this site ranks very highly on Google and other search engines for the search term “kitset homes new zealand”.

What about the cost?
If you’re a small business on a tight budget, the cost of your website is vital factor. You want every dollar you spend to be effective in the prime aim of your site, which, as we have just discussed, is to sell more of your products or services. You may be tempted by cheap offers from designers who say they can build a six-page website for $300 or less.

These kind of sites are based on ready-made templates that, quite frankly, look terrible in most cases. I have re-designed sites for clients who have opted for these cheap offers and later realised their mistake. Generally the old axiom is true - you get what you pay for.

You may get a cheap site by getting your friend to build it. But will this site really help establish the professionalism and credibility of your business? Or will it look cheap and amateurish, and do your business more harm than good.

While a professional web designer may charge more than your friend, bear in mind the incredible long-term marketing power of the Internet if you have the right kind of site. You can keep a website online for less than $20 a monthly. Compare that with the hundreds of dollars a month you can spend on advertising in newspapers, magazines and other media.

In conclusion

As we have discussed, a successful website is one that ranks well in search engines and elicits the desired response from its visitors, and the secret to a successful website is persuasive, keyword-rich content. The layout, the colours, and the pictures are all very important, but the search engines and your visitors respond above all to the words.

This means when you are looking for a web designer, your top priority should be to find a designer who has a marketing brain.

Meta Tags … A Vital Part Of Your Strategy To Get A Top Search Engine Position

Meta tags are a vital part of your website. If you want to get a top search engine position, you must put the right content in your meta tags.

Meta tags optimisation is not magic. In fact, to get top search engine rankings there are just a few simple things you need to know. They set apart successful meta tags from the majority of unsuccessful ones. Do these simple things and you’re almost guaranteed to get a top search engine position.

First, it’s worth noting that many search engines now ignore meta tags altogether. But don’t get complacent because of this. The biggest search engine, Google, still relies heavily on meta tags - particularly the TITLE tag - when it ranks your site.

Given that Google provides more than 35 per cent of all search engine traffic worldwide, it’s important to optimise your site for this search engine above all others.

The all-important TITLE tag

So let’s start with the all-important TITLE tag. This is the key to creating successful meta tags if you want to optimize your site for Google.

(Before you can create your meta tags, you must select the right keywords for your site. If you haven’t already done this, you need to read the page on this site dedicated to keywords.

Once you have selected your keywords, you are ready to start writing meta tags that will get you a top search engine position.)

It is vital that you put your keywords in the TITLE tag. Don’t just put your company name. This is a mistake that many website owners make. You can put your company name as well as your keywords, if you like. (But if your title is more than 10 words, the last words will probably not appear in the browser bar.)

Sometimes the TITLE is the only information about your site that appears in search results. The TITLE is what people use for bookmarks. So it’s important to get it right.

Using your primary keywords in your TITLE tag is the most powerful thing you can do to boost your search engine ranking.

The meta DESCRIPTION tag

After the TITLE, the description is your second chance to persuade people to visit your website - or not. So it should be an accurate guide to what’s on the page. And it must be worth reading.

Ideally, you should use exactly the same keywords to start your description tag as you used for the TITLE. Then you can elaborate further on the content of the page.

How many keywords should you put in your meta KEYWORD tag?

The third meta tag is the keyword tag. A few years ago, people used to think the more keywords they could cram into this tag the better. They would list hundreds of keywords. Now, this is a waste of time. In fact, most search engines regard it as “spamming” and will penalize you if you repeat too many keywords.

So limit the number of keywords on each page of your site. It’s best to focus on just a few keywords for each page.

It is also important to use only lower case type in the meta keyword tag. This is because most search engine queries are typed in lower case.

As you can see meta tags are not rocket science. It doesn’t take much to create successful meta tags. And if you do it right, you are almost guaranteed to dramtically increase your search engine ranking.

Keywords … Use Them Correctly To Help Your Site Get Ranked In the Search Engines

Keywords really are the key if you want to get top search engine rankings.

Selecting the right keywords for your site is one of the most important areas of Web marketing - and one that’s sadly too often overlooked. When you combine the right keywords with well-constructed meta tags you are virtually guaranteed to get a top position on search engines.

And you don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune on search engine optimisation experts.

The key to search engine optimisation is to have good, relevant content on your website.

And how do you create good, relevant content? Well, first you need to lay the right foundation.

You need to find the right keywords

Pick the right words and phrases for your website and you are well on the way to attracting visitors. Pick the wrong words and you will sabotage your search engine optimisation efforts.

So what are keywords? They’re the words that people are most likely to use when searching for your product or service on the Internet.

You must pick popular keywords to get top search engine rankings. But you also need words for which there is not too much competition. You need to find a niche market.

Let’s say your business is selling golfing equipment. A potential customer for your products might type “golfing equipment” into a search engine. Or they might type a variety of other words or phrases. (People usually search using phrases rather than single words.)

They might type in “golf clubs” or “golf equipment” or “golfing stores” … or many other possible variations.

Or maybe your potential customers are not looking specifically to buy golfing equipment right now. They might just be surfing the Net looking for information on golf. Wouldn’t it be great if somehow they came across your website during their search?

They will if you pick the right keywords. And if your website also provides lots of relevant information about golf, based around those keywords, your potential customers have a good reason to stick around and check out your site.

If they find lots of interesting information there, they’ll keep coming back. And eventually they will (hopefully) buy your products.

So how do you pick the right keywords?

Now we’re getting to the heart of search engine optimisation. You need to select the right keywords to create a niche market for your website.

You can do this by guess work. But you run the risk of picking words and phrases for which there’s already a lot of competition. And that’s not what you want.

Fortunately, there’s a much better way. You can use a special service called Wordtracker to help select the best keywords. You’ll find words and phrases that are in high demand by web searchers but in relatively low supply.

If you’re serious about search engine optimisation, you really can’t do without Wordtracker. Using this service, you can experiment with lots of different words and phrases that are related to your business. Wordtracker will tell you which keywords have the best demand-supply ratio.

These are the words and phrases around which you will built the content of your website.

Sprinkle your keywords through your Web page

You must use your main keywords - or key phrase - liberally throughout your page. It helps, too, if some of the keywords are in bold. This is an extra bonus that will encourage the search engine “spiders” to give greater weighting to your keywords - and give you a better ranking.

Don’t forget to include your keywords in the TITLE tags in your meta tags to boost your chances to get a top position in the search engine rankings.

Your can read more about meta tags in a special page on this site devoted to the subject.

Five top keyword tips

1) If you haven’t already chosen your domain name, use your main keywords in your domain name. This is an important point that search engine optimisation experts don’t emphasise enough. It will give you an extra edge over your competition.

2) Use your main keywords in the TITLE tag in your meta tags.

3) Use your main keywords in the headline on your page. This is almost as important as the TITLE tag.

4) Use your main keywords in the first paragraph of the page.

5) Use your main keywords liberally throughout the page.

7 Ways To Build Immediate Trust With Your Website

When a visitor arrives at your website, you have just a few seconds to make a good impression. Otherwise … click … they’re gone, probably forever.

One of the biggest factors in whether your visitor stays or leaves is whether they think you site looks trustworthy.

People tend to be wary of what they see and read online. So, you need to make sure your website builds immediate trust when your visitor arrives.

Here are 7 ways to create trust.

1) You need to believe 100% in your product or service.

This is absolutely vital to building trust. It lays the foundation on which your whole business is built … and everything you say on your website will come across as genuine because you believe it.

If you’re not 100% sold on your own product or service … get another business! So, the number one rule in building trust is that you must BE trustworthy yourself.

2) Make sure your site looks professional.

You need a clean, sharp logo that creates the right image for your business. This is one area where it’s worth spending a little money to hire a professional graphic designer. It doesn’t have to be expensive. A simple logo is fine. Just make sure it looks professional.

3) Make sure your site design is simple, clean and uncluttered, so your visitor can easily find their way around.

Again, you don’t need an expensive site. Just a simple design with colours that reflect the image you want to present. Remember … you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So that firstimpression your visitors get when they arrive at your site had better be good!

4) Put a headline on your site that answers the biggest need your prospective customer has.

You need to think carefully about this. Too many websites have weak headlines … or no headline at all! Just the company name, or “Welcome to our website”. You need a strong headline that really speaks straight to the need your potential customer is facing.

It’s different for every business. Get inside your customer’s mind, think about what they need … and what you can offer them … and spell it out loud and clear in your headline.
You’ll build trust because your customer will know you are thinking about THEM … and how you can meet THEIR needs. And that’s all your customer is interested in.

5) Put a photograph of yourself on your site.

This is a great way to build trust. But make sure it’s a good photograph. You know, trustworthiness and integrity shows in a person’s eyes. It shows in your photograph if you’re a trustworthy person. So your customer looks at your photograph and sums you up immediately.

6) Write everything on your site from your customer’s viewpoint.

Everything. Don’t talk about you and your company (most websites make this mistake). Talk only about what you can do for your customer. Spell this out clearly. Tell your customer about all the BENEFITS they’ll gain from doing business with you. You’ll be amazed how your website sales will take off if you do this.

7) Put testimonials on your site from satisfied customers.

Genuine testimonials are a great way to build trust. Don’t be shy about asking your best customers for testimonials. They’re worth their weight in gold.

These are 7 basic principles I’ve found effective in building trust online. If you put them into practice on your own site you can?t help but see your sales increase dramatically.

7 Simple Ways To Build Traffic To A New Website

By Mike Tekula –

Got a brand new website? That’s great, but nobody cares.

OK, maybe that’s a little harsh. The truth, however, is that just having a website doesn’t get you much.

Many business owners I meet are surprised to find, once we look at the numbers, that the shiny new site they had built not too long ago gets little to no traffic on a daily basis. 

Many newcomers to the web make the mistake of thinking that just by buying a domain name and putting up your site, visitors are going to happen by - something like when you buy property and build a storefront in a busy part of town.

It just doesn’t work that way. The web is harsh.

You can have the best looking site in the world with great resources and content and go entirely ignored or unnoticed. It happens. It’s happening right now. Somewhere out there in the ether is a brand new gorgeous website loaded with great content, and nobody cares. Poor little lonely site.

But there is hope. Every website had its early days. Even sites that get hundreds of thousands of visitors a day started out with none.

Here are 7 simple things you can start doing right now to help drive traffic to your site.

1. Get Some Quick Links From Trusted DirectoriesLink building is a long-term process with long-term goals, but for brand new sites with no history you’ve got to start somewhere. There are a number of directories out there that provide free and paid listings (subject to editorial review, of course). Here are the ones I recommend: 

• Yahoo! 
• Business.com 
• JoeAnt.com 
• DMOZ.org 
• BOTW.org 

Ah, what the heck - here’s a great list of directories sorted by SEOmoz’s Trifecta score - bookmark it and get started.

2. Start Blogging

OK, blogging isn’t for everybody (especially you boring people), but it’s a great way to build relevant content at your site on a consistent basis. It also gives your visitors/ customers a way to engage with you. But please don’t make the mistake of being too “corporate” on your blog - do yourself a favor and check your Public Relations cap at the door. Don’t be afraid to discuss your mistakes, missteps you’ve made, and what you’ve learned from them as well as your triumphs. In short, be a human, not a brand. 
 
3. Consider Paid SearchFor new websites, the day when you receive all the traffic you need for free from search engines and other referrals is a long way off - if not just a pipe dream altogether. Often times paid search campaigns are a great way to get your site in front of your target market today. Be sure to keep your budget modest, though, until you’re confident in your ROI. Be sure to do your keyword research to find lower-cost “long tail” keywords - going after the big traffic keywords might be tempting, but it gets expensive and the ROI is often not the best. 

4. Use Article Marketing To Build LinksAs with any tactic, I’d recommend using this one in moderation. Article marketing is, essentially, trading words for links. It can help with link building, but the quality of the links it garners is usually less than stellar. 

Here’s how it works:

• Write an informative article on your site topic (or something related)
• Include an “about the author” section as well as links in the article that point to your pages using relevant anchor text 
• Submit the article through one of the many article syndication services (such as EZineArticles.com or GoArticles.com )
• The deal is, anybody can come along and publish your article on their website - provided they use the article in its original format including the “about the author” section. So when the article is published, any links you include back to your site are published as well.

5. Guest Post At Relevant Blogs

This certainly requires some up-front investment, mainly in terms of building relationships with bloggers in your topic (a little brown-nosing never hurt), but it can help get the flywheel turning for your site like nothing else can. Take the time to make your guest post remarkable and smart - your host blogger will appreciate it, and it’ll improve the likelihood of attention coming back to your site (which you’ll link to in your guest post, of course). Links from blogs are some of the most powerful editorial links you can get - don’t underestimate them for a second. 
 
6. Submit Your Site to Design Galleries

Is your website breathtaking to behold, beautiful enough to make angels weep? Yeah, sure it is. But seriously, if it looks pretty sharp there are plenty of web design galleries that accept submissions for new sites and link to the sites they feature. Particularly for CSS-driven design there are a number of galleries that will consider your site for listing (provided your site uses CSS for layout/styling - and God help you if it doesn’t) - including CSSElite.com, CSSHeaven.com, CSSBeauty.com and many others. Just search in Google for “CSS design gallery.” Unless your site is ugly - in that case, I can’t help you, and stop asking me to look at it.

7. Sponsor a Local Event or Charity

OK, I admit this is kind of a tired tip - but it works! Especially for local small businesses. Is there a local event coming up in your community? A local charity that has a website? Not only will sponsoring such an event give you all of the normal PR benefits (and self-righteous bragging rights) that are the byproducts of charity, but any web announcement for the event will potentially include a mention of your website as well as a link to it. And you can feel good about yourself for a change.

Bonus Tip: Be Patient

Alright, this one is cheap, I admit it. Not much of a tip. But it’s important to remember that you’re not going to see your unique visitors count skyrocket immediately for your new website. Most “overnight successes” actually take a few years to get going.

And if you find yourself checking your traffic numbers on a daily basis, please do us all a favor - step away from the computer, go toss the ball around with your kid, maybe take your niece out for ice cream. Contrary to popular belief, staring at your site traffic data has no positive effect on it.

Mike Tekula is the president of Unstuck Digital, a Web Design and Search Marketing agency based in New York.

Make Your Website Sell

Hundreds of new business websites are springing up every week. The owners of these sites are full of optimism that their venture into e-commerce will transform their business by bringing in new customers and boosting their sales.

But the reality is that most websites fail abysmally as sales tools. Why? Because the owners of these sites have spent a lot of money creating fancy graphics but paid little attention to the words on the site. And it’s the words on websites that sell. Your fancy graphics might entertain your potential customers but they won’t make the sale.

Take a look at many of the websites out there in cyberspace. They are full of spelling mistakes, poor grammar and cumbersome text that makes you want to do only one thing…click your mouse button and move to something else.

Read more …

Why Search Engine Optimisation Is Doomed … And Quality Content Is The Best Strategy For Your Website

If you have a website, sooner or later you’ll get interested in search engine optimisation.

It’s the art (or is it a science?) of tweaking your website copy and links, so your site ranks higher in the search engines.

There are many professional search engine optimisation firms (commonly known as SEOs) who will charge you substantial amounts of money to improve your website’s rankings for certain search terms.

It’s tempting to go down the SEO track, particularly when you find your precious site languishing far, far down the rankings on Google.

But I would never put my faith in the SEO industry, and I recommend an alternative, more reliable method of achieving a top search engine ranking in the long term.

The truth is, search engines are getting smarter and smarter at recognising sites that have been “SEO’d”.

The engines are constantly getting more sophisticated, to avoid some of the unethical SEO practices being used to trick them into giving a site a good ranking.

So SEO experts are on a continual treadmill to keep up.

Initially, SEO revolved mainly around keywords. Now, it seems to centre around building inbound links to the site, to get a higher ‘page rank’ on Google.

But I believe website owners are wasting their time and money by becoming too focused on either of these SEO techniques.

You’re better off simply adding more and more quality content to your website, to provide visitors with what they really want on the Web.

In other words: Make your content so good that others will want to link to you.

Certainly, bit of a push start by a solid, simple inbound link programme is a good idea but this doesn’t have to become an all-consuming pre-occupation.

All you need are a few popular sites, in your market sector, linking to you.

There are several ways to achieve this, including contacting the owners of sites you would like linking to you, and asking if they want to exchange links.

Once you have a few quality links to your site, that’s enough.

From then on, concentrate on adding more and more content to your site.

There is an important place for keywords on these new content pages. It helps to focus each page on one or two keywords (actually, it’s better to use key phrases, because these are what Web searchers typically use) sprinkle these keywords and phrases throughout your page.

You can find the best keywords by using a service called Wordtracker. This is particularly useful because it saves you from simply guessing which words and phrases people are searching on, and gives you the actual search terms being used  and how much competition there is for these terms.

I won’t go too much into keyword analysis here. Suffice it to say, if you focus mainly on writing content-filled pages that are of genuine value to your prospective customers or clients, you’ll be on the right track.

As the search engines see the content on your site continually changing, they’ll return more often. They’ll spider new content on your pages faster and faster. This is good news and helps your search engine rankings.

The only downside of this approach is that it does take time and commitment to keep adding content to your website. It may seem easier to pay an SEO expert.

But consider this. Even if you do achieve a good ranking in the search engines through SEO, if a visitor arrives and finds mediocre content, what’s the use. They’ll simply click away.

For most small businesses, with limited financial resources, the key to getting your website noticed in the search engines is a slow, steady approach of adding more and more pages with great, relevant content for your marketplace.

Then you can forget about SEO and every other trick.

Focus on building content and everything else will take care of itself.

Search Engine Optimization Made Easy - By Brad Callen

If you’re looking for the real facts about how to get your site onto page one of Google, I recommend this excellent e-book. It’s 90 pages long … and free! Parts of the book are a quiet sales pitch for the software the author sells. But whether or not you want the software, you can still get an excellent education in the basics of SEO from this e-book. 

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