Archive for September, 2009

Here we’re going discuss why SEO copywriting is an excellent career choice for anyone who wants to make good money, work from home and get started almost immediately.

Freelance writing has a reputation for being a low-paying career where jobs are hard to come by. It’s almost like some type of professional caste system where some seem to make a lot of money effortlessly, while others scrape by on anything they can get (eg, $3 article writing gigs).

It doesn’t have to be this way because there’s a new type of writing taking over the web. And, if you know how to do it, you can easily make $100-$250+/day. What is it?

SEO Copywriting.

Following are three excellent reasons to train for this lucrative career.

1. Never Ending Need for Content: Anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 new websites go live every day. This means the web is an increasingly crowded marketplace. Hence, businesses have to find ways to increase their chances of being found online.

Smart business owners, webmasters and bloggers know that SEO content is one of the best ways to go about it. So they invest in this type of content. And, as they constantly need fresh content to stay ahead of the competition, this means freelance writers who know how to provide it stay busy.

2. It’s Flexible: Like freelance writing in general, SEO copywriting is a very flexible career. You can work from a coffee shop in New York, a hotel terrace in Jamaica, or a restaurant in South Beach, Miami. As long as there’s an internet connection, you can get your work done.

An added bonus in SEO copywriting is that there’s very little client interaction. Once they provide you with their keyword phrases, clients rarely need to be in contact with you. They give you keywords and a deadline, and you write the copy and return it via email. Beautiful!

3. Less Competition: There are many freelance writers — hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a few million. But, very few of them know how to write SEO content. This means there’s less competition for these types of writing assignments.

Just how important is an SEO copywriter to webmasters, bloggers, internet marketers — and/or anyone who wants to be found online?

ln the SearcheEngineWatch article, The SEO Copywriter: Wordsmithing the WebWillam Flaiz underscores the importance of the SEO copywriter. He writes:

The role of the agency SEO copywriter is unique because. . . . Suddenly, the writer must optimize press releases, craft articles for social news, monitor social network communications, and develop wiki content. . . . a strong SEO copywriter is adaptable and capable of internalizing a lot of new information extremely quickly. These unique individuals have fast become the backbone of many SEO engagements. If content is king, then they [SEO copywriters] are the kingmakers.

If you want a high-paying ($250+/day is easily possible), work-from-anywhere you please career, get SEO copywriting training — and be well on your way to running your own successful freelance writing business.

Is Twitter Killing Your SEO Campaign?

If you are not using Twitter as part of your website’s comprehensive search engine optimization plan, this new social networking community could be the death of your business. As more and more search engine marketers integrate the use of Tweets into their SEO campaign, the need to develop an active presence on the site grows. Failure to learn and embrace this growing community could have catastrophic results for your site – and make your competitor’s day.

Using Twitter to climb the ranks of Google is surprising simple, despite the site’s much touted “no follow” links. While other marketers view these no follows as a show stopper, this little trick will allow you to unlock the power of Twitter in no time.

To use Twitter for SEO:

? Define your keywords and keyword phrases

? Use these phrases repeatedly in your Tweets (standard keyword density)

? Insert back links to your Twitter page using your other social bookmarking profiles, Web 2.0 pages and article marketing campaigns

By following these simple steps, you can ensure your Tweets will appear at the top of Google’s search page for your desired keywords. More and more search users (and news organizations) are turning to Twitter as a source of breaking news, opinions, attitudes and trends. When your Tweets come up on the front page of Google, you instantly appear as an authority in your field. Although the links will not feed directly to your website, the name exposure you receive through the increased traffic will trickle down and contribute to your overall SEO campaign.

Knowing what search engine optimization services does is almost common knowledge these days, most people understand that there is a place in the market for companies that assist businesses in getting more exposure and getting ranked better for the main words that describe their services. With the fact hat SEO has become a known trade there are also some things that even business owner who use SEO services do not know or understand about SEO, mainly the potential of SEO to change a business with the information it gathers.

Search engine optimization, when done well, is a analysis of a certain term in the current market, a careful estimation of this specific keyword success level (mainly for ranking, but more importantly for money making) and an execution of a well thought of plan with careful monitoring and testing to follow. If this work is done by responsible professional there is a high chance that much of the information they collect before the work and during the monitoring could shed a new light on how people search for the services or products, and their attitude towards them.

Measuring is the heart of real improvement, if you want to have better search engine ranking or increase sales percentage on a particular page, you will need to test, and to do that testing as efficiently as possible (with just the right amount of energy invested into it) you need to measure what you had and what you got as a result of the changes you made, once you have enough numbers under your belt you could already start to make assumptions on the market you are dealing with. These assumptions could change a nature of an online business, sometimes it can change the whole set up of businesses.

Understanding when is the best time to sell to your costumers is one key point, if you monitor the traffic coming into the site, and you monitor the conversion rates on any given moment, you will end up having a best day (on average) and a best time of day for sales, creating a time sensitive special offer at the hours that precede that top sale time could increase the overall conversion rates, causing your best day to be even better.

Looking into your client base and understanding where they come from could also make a big difference in the way your clients think of you, imagine that you know that most of your clients come from 3 states, you could personalize their product or deliver faster (or free) to those three top destinations, when you do something like that the relationship between you and the client will become stronger, making your sales grow.

Most businesses that use SEO regard it as a one dimension service, push ranking to the top and keep them there, however with some extra effort a lot can be accomplished, and many different buying habits and personalization options might surface as a result of the work of a dedicated and professional search engine optimization team.

The Benefits of Sharing SEO Secrets With Clients

“No upfront cost”, “top rankings”, “risk free”, “incredible results” are all catch phrases thousands of SEO service companies use to snatch new clients. They flood the Internet with promises of incredible Search Engine Optimization techniques that will bring their customers fame and unbelievable profits.

Business people buying search services from SEO specialized agencies may indeed get the results they were promised. Search engine crawlers pick up their pages faster, Internet users return more frequently and online sales do increase. They have plenty of reasons to celebrate, yet some of them don’t. They feel their victory is overshadowed, because to maintain this high level of search engine exposure, they will have to continue depending on SEO agencies.

It is a sad reality, but many SEOs will keep their strategies and techniques under wraps and will not empower their clients with proprietary knowledge and skills that will allow them to become independent and search marketing savvy. What these seasoned SEO technicians fail to understand is that by denying their clientele SEO planning and implementation expertise, they may actually be missing out on the opportunity of closely working with strategic business partners.

What is in a secret?

SEO agencies believe they are solely responsible for their client’s search engine optimization needs. They are also convinced that if they reveal their strategies,

- Their clients will no longer need their SEO services
- Their tactics may be disclosed to their competition

Unlike what many SEO consultants believe, clients have the right to know what changes are being made to their website. The site belongs to them and every strategy that was implemented should be reported and explained.

Clients also have the right to know what they are paying for. This not only holds the SEO agents responsible to deliver what they promised, but it also provides the clients with a history they can reflect back on.

The advantages of sharing SEO knowledge

The Internet is an active entity and changes occur almost daily. Transferring knowledge and providing clients with valuable on-site SEO training will bring the providers and their clients closer together. They can learn from each other, share practical insights on advanced SEO tactics and exchange information when search engine marketing strategies or industry trends change.

It is a misconception that sharing information also means revealing all trade secrets and proprietary technology. Forward-thinking agencies have long understood that, despite strategic planning and tool sharing, they can still maintain their clientele. By offering in-house training sessions and keeping their clients advised on the latest hit generating strategies, SEO’s can keep their customers satisfied, loyal and coming back for more.

Keeping up with technology

An effective SEO campaign has to take all current SEO components such as keywords, link building, SEO friendly HTML, or site structure into account, as well as those strategies still being developed. To keep up with new optimization techniques, Web analytics tools are expanding, constantly growing more complicated and sophisticated. As a consequence, they are becoming more difficult to comprehend and only skilled SEO experts can fully understand and use them. This knowledge can be used to offer continued search training, a service probably greatly appreciated by their clients.

Knowledge-transfer partnerships

Clients who are eager for success recognize great opportunities that can help them reach their objectives. They also understand that online marketing strategies have become so extensive that basic SEO knowledge no longer is sufficient to consistently attract search engine bots. They need more professional know-how and consulting from capable agencies, people who keep their hands in the field night and day. In that case, who else would they go to, than the team that trained them in SEO procedures in the first place? These clients trust their SEO specialists, because they know that guidance services will be extended throughout their partnership. They can count on updates whenever content development, optimization and promotion techniques evolve, or when revolutionary technical progress has been announced.

In conclusion

SEO service agencies who share knowledge with their clients will create long-term strategic partnerships. Information can be exchanged both ways, bringing extended benefits and success to both the initial SEO provider, as well as their client.

If you know anything about the fundamentals of search engine optimisation, you will know that the experts opinions on what to do, what is now considered redundant and recommendations of the absolute necessary elements you must put in place on your website, change with mind-spinning frequency.

However, the bigger trends in search engine optimisation are easier to keep up with and most seem to be here to stay, as business owners become more attuned to just how important SEO is to their success.

SEO Trends 2009 And Beyond
The industry, and ‘bigger picture’ trends have become relatively easy to identify as the SEO world becomes more established – increased awareness of SEO in general being the first major trend. Search engine optimisation used to be an exclusive world, with only those practising it really knowing what it entailed and how it boosted a website’s visitor stats. Now, most people know what it means, and most business owners are aware of just how important the internet is and how SEO can help them gain more customers.

The next major trend and one which is definitely here to stay, is the rise and rise of Google – they have dominated the world of search engine optimisation for years, and their lead over competitors such as Yahoo and MSN is only getting bigger. When Google speaks, SEO consultants listen and if your business is not being found on Google, it’s almost certain it’s not being found at all – around 70% of user searches are done using Google.

SEO tools and automated processes are becoming an important part of the reporting of website results – individuals are focusing on developing these tools for companies to buy, who may be struggling to find or afford a good search engine optimisation agency. Such tools can offer good basic data, but it’s worth remembering that it’s still what you do with the data that’s important.

Dipping into the actual technicalities of good SEO practice, good content has been king for a while and remains so. As a business owner, if you write, or employ an SEO copywriter to write good quality articles and press releases, this will benefit your search results hugely, encourages links to and from your website – and links are extremely important as the ‘currency’ of good quality SEO.

Finally, a trend clear to all – not just those operating in the search engine optimisation world – is the rise and rise of social networking sites. Facebook and now Twitter are educating people to communicate in a whole different way, and business owners should be engaging these people in order to develop a whole new audience.

Keep Up With SEO – Your Business Will Benefit
There are many more trends in search engine optimisation, too many to mention here, but one thing remains clear – business owners small and large cannot afford to ignore SEO and must become well-versed in good SEO practice if they want to keep up with the ever-changing world of consumer web behaviour.

Everybody knows the power of back links in the search engine optimisation mix, back links increase rank and improve page relevance, they also allow PageRank to flow to your pages and however no one really knows about the ranking power held in out links from your sites pages.

Many have a negative association with out links presuming they diminish a sites PageRank, and give relevancy to other, sometimes competing sites, this is why a lot of page links in today’s market are marked with the no follow attribute.

The truth is out links can make a significant difference in your ability to rank for certain keywords, have you ever wondered why so many directories rank for significant keywords? These sites are filled with thousands and some times millions of outbound links, yet still out rank some highly optimised sites. It’s because relevant out bound links pointing to quality resources hold some substance in the search engine ranking algorithm.

So how should we be looking to link out? Well first of all let me start by saying, don’t simply go and create a load of outbound links from your page expecting miracles to happen, there are certain aspects you need to consider first.

The primary aspect of out bound links is, who are you linking to? You should look to link to relevant content from reliable resources. Linking to spammy or unethical sites will see your site penalised, so avoid those kind of links.

Secondly in order to increase relevance and your ability to rank, you also need to anchor the outbound links with the keyword you wish to target. If I was targeting the keyword search engine optimisation, then I would anchor an out bound link to a relevant resource with that anchor text.

The important thing with outbound linking is not to go overboard, only link when it is natural and of benefit to your users as this is ultimately what Google is trying to achieve. I like to stick to around 5 – 10 outbound links per page, anchored and targeted towards pages that are relevant to my own content. Wikipedia is another brilliant example of the power of out links, they link to hundreds and thousands of different resources which are checked and quality assured and how many keywords do they rank for?? Thousands probably, which results in millions of visitors every month.

Creating a great resource is not simply about hoarding link juice and PageRank, it is about creating something people can interact with, something that is of use to searchers, this ultimately is the kind of site Google will reward.

Day by day, new techniques are being developed to maximize the number of visitors to websites by enhancing your marketing strategy. So it is very important to stay up-to-date with the current market scenarios and strategies. Almost all of the information is available on the internet, but it’s really time consuming to find the methods that work and separate those techniques from the hype. With a billion sites around us, it is nearly impossible to check every website displayed for a particular keyword in your search engines. Furthermore, it is impossible for you to verify that information, unless you are an expert in that field. At some point we need to rely on the experts to present us with the best and most current information on effective internet marketing.

Some of the most effective web marketing techniques currently available are affiliate marketing, email marketing, article marketing, niche marketing, forum marketing and search engine optimization. Let’s have a detailed look at these techniques.

Affiliate marketing is leveraging the time of others to help advertise your product or service. The affiliates will go and find the market for your products. For this work, you have to share a percentage of the gross proceeds generated from the sale of your product. Most companies using this marketing method pay 25 to 75 percent of the profit to their affiliates. This method can reap the greatest amount of traffic while limiting the amount of net profit for the website.

Email marketing is a method used that capitalizes on a list of people that have signed up to receive special marketing information. The most effective email marketing lists are those where the members have agreed twice to be added to a particular list. This is also referred to as a double opt-in email list. Once the members are added to the list they receive the marketing information and decide if they want to purchase a particular product or service by clicking on a website link within the email.

Another marketing method is article marketing. This method can reach your customers within a timeline of some two or three days and remains on the internet indefinitely. This is considered superior to all the other marketing methods because this technique can be performed without spending any money. By expending a little creative energy, you can establish yourself as an authority on a particular subject matter. By putting a link to your website with the article you can drive targeted traffic to your website by spending no money and a little of your time. These articles with the link to your website provide the greatest benefit to your website advertising efforts due to the low cost and longevity of the link to your website.

Niche marketing refers to specializing in a small product category with a narrow focus. Specific examples of niche marketing include custom cat collars, designer jogging suits or herbal remedies that alleviate gout. These markets are small, focused and can be quite lucrative. However, by focusing on a single product group with a narrow focus can also limit the amount of money you can make because of the limited amount of interest in that particular category.

Another marketing technique is the blog or forum marketing. With this technique, it is easy to promote a single product. Blogs are shorter than articles and maintain establish a conversation on a particular subject. You can use blogs to promote several products by establishing a different blog for each product. Search engines are trying to stay on top of all the newest advertising methods and therefore are focusing more attention on blogs and sites that have a rapidly changing content. This new focus is giving blogs an advantage in their page ranking in the search engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an advertising method that can be used with any website. You can use SEO for almost all of the marketing techniques mentioned earlier. When optimizing your website, article, niche and blog you choose a list of keywords used to highlight your particular topic. Once you have the list of keywords, you need to use those keywords throughout the content of your website, article, niche or blog. The search engines will find your list of keywords and discover that the list agrees with your content. This results in your website rating higher within the search results for all of the keywords in your list.

This is just a small list of the marketing techniques currently being used to advertise web content. By taking advantage of the most current marketing methods you can drive traffic to your website and increase your revenue.

The internet has revolutionized just about everything in today’s world. It has brought in a new dimension towards communication, research and yes, even in business endeavors. The business world has adopted new means of making transactions and promoting their products and services. One means is internet marketing. More and more people are engaging in online advertising. It has been proven that internet marketing can bring you home millions of dollars.

Here are a few basic marketing techniques you can implement to build a good investment that will reap you tons of rewards.

1.Traffic Analysis

One technique most internet marketers use is to track and analyze their website traffic. This will measure the success of your online marketing campaigns and overall website performance. It will also tell you which campaigns are producing heavy sales conversions and those that are not; cluing you in on what your audience wants. Then, you can think of a different strategy that will help you boost the traffic in your less effective sites. These are some of the questions that will help you understand the status of your web ad campaigns:

?What pages are being viewed the most? The less?

?What search keywords are internet users use the most often?

?What topics are internet users more interested in?

The constant reviewing of this data analysis will help you see the effectiveness of the changes you have made in your marketing strategy. It is a long-term plan to get and maintain the optimum results for your campaign.

2.Ad Management

You should get advertisements and links that are related to your website. When internet users visit your site, they expect to get information and other related materials out of it. This will add benefits to your link building technique. It can get you a good boost to your link popularity and push you up the search engine rankings as well.

3.A Good Mailing List

This is especially important if you are using the e-mail marketing strategy. In e-mail marketing, you send electronic messages to potential clients that subscribed to your mailing list. The list can be obtained by generating information from forms in your website or using squeeze pages and social bookmarks.

A good mailing list comprises of the names and contact information (usually e-mail addresses) of readers who would like to know more about your products and services. One trick to build up your list is to create opt-in pages. Quantity is a factor but quality is the key. Make sure that you tend to your subscribers’ needs, answering their questions and giving updates and suggestions.

4.Quality Content

Content is key in internet marketing. Write informative articles about the products or services that you are advertising and make them available to the public. If you are marketing another company’s product, research on it. Make it convincing and entertaining. Include the edges of your product but do not be too full of yourself. Remember to polish your work in the end to maintain a sense of professionalism.

5.Call to Action

While you’re at it, create an action path for your interested visitors to follow. Your end goal is always to convert visits into sales. Call your readers to action. It could be a path to make a purchase, to subscribe to something, to fill up a form or to e-mail you. Make sure that your step by step process is clear to your visitors. Check for broken links and vague instructions to prevent lost sales.

6.Customer Interaction

Interaction with your customers is also a technique that can help you build good customer relations. Make it a point to answer as best as you can when someone e-mails you r calls you up to ask more about the product or service that you are marketing. After all, customer satisfaction is what drives these visitors to transact with you.

There are many other techniques that can help you give the best internet marketers a run for their money. Internet marketing is not an overnight investment that will turn into a cash cow the next day. It is a matter of combining the right strategies and techniques to convince your audience to buy your product or avail of your services.

Over the years, I have spoken to so many fellow business owners & internet marketers. I have seen so many mistakes, in fact, I can compile all the mistakes into a book. Here are 3 fatal mistakes that can destroy your business.

Not Tracking

At the minimum, you must place a small piece of conversion tracking code on our thank you page so that you can track either leads or sales. This is the most basic form of tracking & it must be done. Period.

No excuse for this! Almost all pay per click search engines would provide you with a piece of conversion tracking code for you to place on your conversion page. It is simpler than you think.

Not Testing Ads

You must always be rotating at least 2 pay per click ads if not how are you ever going to find your ultimate winning ad? With technology, now you have the luxury of rotating ads evenly in real time, so take advantage of it, test it!

The ad that gets the most response is usually not what you expect so keep testing until you find it. Even after you find it, what makes you think you cannot create another ad that beats your current best performing ad.

Not Testing Landing Pages

What is the point of a super responsive, super high click through rate pay per click ad when your landing page sucks! If you do not test your landing page, how are you going to improve your leads or sales conversion rates?

With free tools such as Google Website Optimizer, you got no more excuses! Not only it is free, it is so easy to use. Good landing page conversion rates can often turn a losing campaign into a winning campaign.

Summary

In short, always be testing, never stop testing. The money is made in tracking your results, testing variables & then tweaking it accordingly. Nothing sexy, nothing new, just plain old direct response marketing.

If you’re ready to enter the exciting world of online advertising, congratulations! Pay per click ad sponsorship through Google AdWords especially is a cost-effective way to promote your Web site, and if run well your campaigns can increase traffic and customers to your business. Knowing the steps to running a successful ad program will assist in getting the most for your daily spends – that means not only creating quality ads but knowing where to present them and through which keywords you wish to advertise.

For novices in the PPC game, there are several Web sites available for detailed instructions on launching an eye-catching campaign. Ultimately, though, most advise on good paid marketing boils down to these five important tips to ensure you get the most out of your money.

Maintain focus on Google’s search network – To attract the people you know are searching for your relevant keywords, you want to be sure you place your ads where the search happens. Buying space through AdSense, where ads are placed on similar Web sites, can increase visibility and awareness of your brand, but ultimately the bulk of your referrals are going to come from where people are actively searching for information. Concentrate on the search network to build your audience.

Know your target audiences and how to sell to them – Think about your business: do you cater mainly to the people in your immediate geographic area, or do you serve a broader base that extends throughout the country? If the latter, more than likely you create different ads for print campaign to attract different demographics. The same practice should apply to your PPC ads. Campaigns for local, regional, and national audiences should be created separately because you will use different keywords to attract customers and clients.

Separate Ad Groups for maximum performance – If your business deals in multiple services, for example a restaurant that also caters events and retails food products, you will want to separate each facet of your company into its own ad group on AdWords. Each group should focus on one aspect, and perhaps further split the available services – a group for dining in, a group for catering weddings, a group for catering reunions, and so forth – to better draw in traffic from paid search. Be sure, too, to have a proper landing page prepared for each group to increase the quality of your ads.

Generate keywords! As you prepare your campaigns, you may have a specific number in mind. Here is where you can have some fun and take advantage of Google’s keyword tool to help you generate multitudes of probable searches. Don’t limit yourself when you make your bids, for even the most obvious search phrases may not bring in the traffic you’d expect. The more keywords you use for an ad group, the better you can test what works and what doesn’t for your advertising.

Test different ads for effective marketing – You wouldn’t use the same ad over and again for different print campaigns, so the same rings true for AdWords. Create at least two different ads per group and study their performances, tweaking as necessary to build click-throughs.

Take note of these tips as you begin your PPC advertising, and make good use of the free tools available through Google AdWords to help with your success. You just may find online advertising will quickly pay for itself.

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