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IMPROVING INTERNET POPULARITY |
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It is beyond
the scope of this website to provide
extensive information on Internet Marketing,
but we'll try and point out a few of the
essential ingredients and hopefully point
you in the right direction.
Marketing is
the sum total of all the efforts that you
put into bringing your product or service to
the marketing place. It includes
advertising, promotion, sales, customer
service, brand awareness, pricing, product
quality, store design, site design, etc. And
while marketing on the internet is not
dramatically dissimilar to marketing in the
brick and mortar world, it does have it's
unique peculiarities.
On the
internet, the end result of those marketing
efforts can be tracked - we can see how many
people visit a website through companies
like Alexa and Quantcast. We can see how
Google ranks your pages. We can see how many
sites have created a link to your web site.
We can see how many of your web pages the
major search engines have indexed. We can
look up keyword phases in the search engines
and see which sites come up first.
Are these
numbers definitive? Not necessarily. But
they are indicative. Alexa & Quantcast do
not not measure every single visitor on the
internet. Nobody does. Nobody can. But they
are, like political polling, a measure of
society that we use to extrapolate. We know,
without a doubt, that the art site Art.com
(rank 2,195) is enormously more popular than
Art of Metal (rank 2.3 million). Period.
That doesn't necessarily mean that Art of
Metal is a poor website. All it means is
that it is far less popular. That it has a
lot of work to do to get to the top.
But it give us
a base, a starting point, from which to
measure our efforts. And from month to month
we can monitor those efforts and see how we
are progressing.
So where do we
begin? How to improve our overall
popularity?
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WEB SITE BASICS |
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Web site basics include the fundamentals of
reasonable site design and proper
navigation. Is the site pleasing? Is it
professional? Is it interesting? Does it
load quickly? Does it turn people off? Does
it excite them? Does it offer worthwhile
information? Get some feedback from unbiased
people. Ask them to spend 10 minutes on your
site and provide feedback - positive and
negative. Put something on your site to
invite people to share their comments on
your site.
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In addition to the visual and practical
aspects of your site it also needs to be
"search engine friendly" Can it be spidered
easily? Are there glaring HTML defects. Do
you provide a robots.txt file to guide
search engines though your site. Do you have
meta tags that include the Title,
Description and Keywords? Do you have site
maps prepared for Google, Yahoo and MSN
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Don't overlook the obvious. |
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SEARCH ENGINE
OPTIMIZATION |
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Search engine optimization includes creating
quality, content rich pages that search
engines would be interested in indexing and
it involves the structuring of pages based
around keyword phrases and keyword density
(the number of times a keyword phrase is
repeated on a page vs the total number of
words on a page).
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Here is an example. Let's assume that you
wanted to be found in Google under the
search term "space travel". Let's look at
three web sites. Site number one is called
"Galactic Martians" and deals with a group
of travelling Martians. Now maybe that's
interesting in its own right, but as it
relates to "Space Travel" it is rather
limited. Site number two is called "The
World Beyond" and is a much longer treatise
on the planets and the solar system in
general. Once again, good but not quite on
target. The third site is called "Space
Travel in the New Millennium" and writes
about how space travel has evolved, the
forms of space travel, the science of space
travel and the future prospects of space
travel. Here's a tough question: If
you do a search on "space travel" which site
would you expect to see at the top of the
search results. Sounds obvious, doesn't it.
In practical terms it is not always that
easy to create such pages. It is, however,
the route to successful search engine
optimization
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This is not an area that is easy to master.
Either spend a lot of time experimenting or
find a good SEO expert who can help
you. |
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ADVERTISING |
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Just like in real world marketing, a portion
of your budget should be allocated to
advertising.
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Advertise on web sites that will appeal to a
similar audience as yours.
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Advertise in opt-in mailings.
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Pass on web sites that claim they'll send
you 2 million visitors for $49.95
Right! |
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BACK LINKS |
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Google and other search engines rely
significantly on the number of links from
other sites - pointing to your web site - to
calculate the value of your web site and
your positioning. It is, in effect, the
quintessential popularity contest. The more
people that mention your name - the better
your position - the more traffic you get,
etc, etc.
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However, it isn't simply a numbers game. It
is also about quality. In other words, if
the web sites linking to you are rated
highly, that link is worth more than a link
from a site rated poorly. You can get
an idea of the quality of a web site by
looking at their Google Page Rank. Rated
from 1 - 10 - the higher the number, the
more value Google assigns.
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Cultivate ways to generate links to your web
site. Either by having great content or by
offering something unique and interesting.
Alternatively, seek out other web sites that
might help you and create reciprocal links. |
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PAY PER CLICK
MARKETING |
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Not necessarily the least expensive but
certainly the quickest form of online
marketing, pay-per-click advertising gets
you traffic right away. While PPC doesn't,
by itself, result in sustained popularity,
the added exposure should result in new
customers, new contacts and, by extension,
new back links.
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In reality, there are probably only 3 search
engines you need to focus on: Google, Yahoo
& MSN.
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Start by developing a list of keyword
phrases that you want to bid on. There are
programs available to help you identify
keywords & keyword phrases for your
industry. There are also software programs
that can monitor your campaigns for you - as
well as competitor's bids. |
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BLOGS |
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Either start your own blog - if you have
enough renewable content to make it
interesting - or participate in other blogs.
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Make a list of a dozen or so blogs that you
routinely monitor and when there is an
opportunity go ahead and participate. But
only participate if you are offering value
to the exchange. Make sure your byline (and
web site URL) is included.
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Just like Articles (below),
the exposure itself will help drive traffic
but the bonus is the back link is also
indexed and adds to your arsenal. |
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ARTICLES |
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Demonstrate your expertise.
Write articles and submit them to article
directories (there are hundreds of them).
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If your articles are well
done, you will be perceived as an expert in
your field.
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The article, of course, will
have your byline attached and a link back to
your website. The
exposure itself will help drive traffic but
the bonus is the back link is also indexed
and adds to your arsenal. |
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OFFLINE MARKETING |
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Apart from the obvious about advertising
your web site in your media ads, don't
forget stationery, business cards, window
signs, flyers, invoices, cash register
receipts and mailings - every piece of
literature that leaves your place of
business should have your website mentioned
- and, if possible, a special reason to
visit the site. Maybe a link for online
promotions only.
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Collect email addresses from brick & mortar
customers and then send them special
mailings each month. |
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ODDS & ENDS |
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Get an Alexa tool bar
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Sign up with Quantcast
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Don't forget your email signature file - it
should have your URL included (and again
perhaps a special reason to click through) |
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