Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most discussed methods for improving traffic to your website.  Search engines, such as Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and others are all trying to help web surfers find what they are looking for.  This is harder than it sounds.  Search engine companies are always working on their advanced algorithms in order to produce better results for web surfers.  It is a very competitive industry.  SEO experts work very hard to keep up with the changes in the search engine industry.

I strongly recommend you use a professional SEO consultant for all of this.  It is a lot of work and there are special tools that make all this much easier.  You can do it yourself, but is it worth your time?  Only you can say.

Know your baseline – Make sure you have statistics enabled on your site.  I recommend Google Analytics.

Know your objectives – Are you selling something?  Looking for phone calls?  Or do you want people to sign-up for your newsletter.

Keyword Analysis – Keyword research tells you what keywords you should target in your SEO strategy.  These should be consistent with your objectives.  I recommend Word Tracker

Competitor Analysis – Search the major search engines using the keywords from your analysis.  Learn who your competitors are.  You will want to out-perform them with better keyword densities, more inbound links, etc.  I recommend Web CEO.

On-Page SEO – There are a number of on-page things to do.  Here are the most significant areas to optimize:

• Pages should have keywords in the filename. These keywords appear in the address bar.
• The page TITLE should have keywords. These keywords appear on top of the browser.
• META Tags (keywords and description) should have lots of keywords in them as well.
• All graphics should have ALT tags with keywords in them as well.
• Page content should include heading tags and emphasis tags to draw attention to key words and phrases on the page.
• Page content should have a high density of critical keywords.
• All links on your site to other pages on your site should have keywords in those links. Avoid using [click here]. Use keywords in the link.
• Create additional site content if necessary. Make sure you have all your keywords optimized somewhere on your site.
• Update your site regularly. The more updates the better. This is why blogs are so popular.

Off-Page SEO – There are many off-page SEO techniques.  We can only cover a few here:

• Write keyword-rich articles and submit them to free article sites. Write a lot of articles. Use an article submission service to get your articles out to more websites faster.
• Write comments on blogs and social networks and include links back to your site. Make sure your links always include keywords.
• Post ads on craigslist.org, ebay.com, and anywhere else you can place ads promoting your products or services.

Your ultimate goal is to have as many pages on your site as possible and for those pages to be keyword optimized.  Then you want as many links to your site from other sites and those links should have keywords in the clickable part as well.   This is a never-ending process.  Always add more content.  Always produce more inbound links.  It is a lot of work but it can pay off big.

It can take a while for your SEO efforts to be fruitful.  Just keep at it.  Watch your website work its way up the rankings.  You will thank me when you are #1.

Desirable domain names are a hot commodity and the prices are going up, up, up!  Have you tried to register a domain name just to find out it has already been taken?  Desirable domain names, also called Premium Domain Names, are being marketed more aggressively than ever and people are paying a fortune for some of them.  We are not talking about the multimillion-dollar domain names here, we are talking about every day names that you might want to use for your business.

If you have a company name or product name and that name is available already, that is an obvious choice.  This article is about what to do when your first choice brand name is not available.

What Makes a Good Domain Name?

There are two important goals for most websites.  First is to be memorable to visitors.  Brand recognition and stickiness is very important.  Second is to help train Google.com in order to get more visitors redirected from the search engines.   To be clear, your domain name is a very small part of your overall search marketing strategy, but it is an important one.

To train Google.com, your domain name should include useful keywords.  If you are an attorney that specializes in divorces, some of your keywords would be:  divorce, attorney, lawyer, custody, settlement, alimony, etc.  You could choose a domain name by combining good keywords, such as: DivorceAttorney.com, DivorceLawyer.com, etc.  Those are very memorable and include great keywords.  Of course, someone else already registered those names.  What happens if you use more keywords, such as DivorceAttorneySettlementChildCustodyLawyerSpousalAbuseAlimonyFamilyLawOffice.com? That has many keywords in it, but it hardly solves our first objective of being memorable.  Well, it is very memorable, but not easily memorized.

What Variations Should I Try?

If you have decided on an one or two ideal domain names and they are no longer available, what do you do?  The first thing to do is to try a few variations.  Try and stay with .com style names.  Avoid adding dashes.  Add things like "Houston", "Texas", "My", "Your", "Offices", "Blog", "Store", etc.  This gives you a lot more options.  Using our example domain, DivorceAttorney.com, we have a lot more options: HoustonDivorceAttorney.com, MyDivorceAttorney.com, DivorceAttorneyOffices.com, and so on.

There are many alternatives to the .com extension.  These are less desirable for several reasons.  Mainly that your customers will probably go to the .com version.  It is not as big of an issue as it used to be, but .com names are still considered the premium choice with .net, .us, .biz, and .tv as decent second choices.  Do not choose .org unless you are a non-profit because that is what people expect from a .org site.

How do I Buy a Premium Domain Name?

You can easily determine who owns an existing domain name using a service called "WHOIS".  The "WHOIS" data is available from many places including most companies who provide domain registration services.  Send an email or call the official contacts associated with that domain name and see if the domain is for sale.

Many domain names are registered for the purpose of being resold at a profit.  You can usually tell from what happens when you try to visit the website.  The site looks strange and there is a link to inquire about purchasing the domain name.

Once you contact the domain owner, they will either say "not for sale" or they will give you a price.  Negotiate that price.  I’ve talked down every domain I’ve ever purchased.  One domain was offered at $5000 but I paid $1000.  Another domain was $1800 and I paid $800.

You can also purchase a domain name appraisal from GoDaddy.com for a few bucks and that will give you negotiation ammunition if someone’s asking price is too high.  There are a number of factors considered in pricing a domain name.  Use of popular keywords, extension, and many other factors influence the price.

How do I Pay and Not Get Ripped Off?

Never pay someone for a domain name without protecting yourself.  Many domain sellers are overseas and taking legal action against someone in another country will not be worth the trouble.  If you are buying from a reputable company such as GoDaddy.com, then there is little to worry about.  But if you are buying from an individual, you MUST use an escrow service.  I suggest www.escrow.com .  They charge about 3% and they manage the transaction.

An escrow service takes your payment, but will not release the payment to the seller until the domain name is properly transferred.  It also protects the seller because you cannot get your money back very easily either.  There are dispute resolution processes if necessary.  Generally both parties feel safer with an escrow service holding the money during the domain transfer process.

Transferring the Domain Name

Finally, there are some administrative headaches in transferring a domain name.  This takes an attention to detail and a little experience is helpful.  You should get the help of someone technical just to make sure everything is properly transferred and to confirm you have 100% complete control of the domain name before releasing escrow.  There may be several steps to the process.  The exact steps will vary from registrar to registrar. It is usually a process.

Once upon a time, it was easy to email total strangers. All you needed was their email address. Most people would give you their email addresses and were excited to hear from you, even if you were sending a marketing letter. Times have changed. People are inundated with spam, scams, and more.

If your business relies on sales or leads through the internet, your mailing list is a critical part of your business. It is common to have thousands of email addresses in your marketing database. If you are sending emails to your list, you need to know that the people on your mailing list are actually receiving your email. This affects your newsletters, account notices, and personal emails. You want to be able to contact your customers. How do you break through the spam filters and reach your clients?

So what is the problem?

Every spam filter program uses a complex set of rules to filter out spam. The rules keep getting stricter, so more emails end up in the spam folder than ever. Users rarely go through their spam folder looking for emails. If they do, then they can white list your address.

It is more than just convincing your customers to "want" to read your emails. You have to make sure they will actually receive your email in their inbox. You cannot count on them to do this on their own.

NOTE: If you use a spam filter, please go through your spam folder periodically and add any valid senders to your white list or to your address book. Spam filters will not block anyone from your address book.

The Solution

There are several methods for improving your delivery to your clients. Choose any, or all, of these strategies based on your own needs.

Use a Newsletter Service – Newsletter services have already taken the necessary steps to comply with the CAN-SPAM act and have already had their mail servers added to the white lists on all the major internet providers. This helps with newsletters. You will still want to take extra steps to ensure your other emails are making it all the way into the inbox.

Choose Your Words Carefully – Search engines look for emails with web addresses in the message, the word "free", graphics, and other triggers. To make sure your email is getting delivered, create a test email account on Yahoo.com, MSN,com, hotmail.com, gmail.com, aol.com, and other major domains. Enable spam filtering on those accounts. Send a test email to those accounts and see what happens. Do not add your sending address to those address books or white lists. The object is to use that test to determine what words to put in your email so that it gets delivered to your list.

Instruct Your Visitors to White List You – Display a message on your site that tells users how to white list emails. Basic instructions that simply say, "Add the following address to your white list," will usually do the trick. Most users will follow that advice. Send them the same info in your very first email to them. Be sure the very first email to them has a subject line that encourages them to open that first email.

TAG Your Subject Line – Every email from your newsletters and account management services should include a tag in the subject line. This makes it easy for them to identify your email. I like to put square brackets around the tag. Emails from my newsletter service might say, [AI News]. Then instruct people to watch for that tag in the subject line.

White List Your Own Address – Most people do not know this, but you can actually get white listed at the major email services. They all have a process. You can go to each of the major email providers, fill in a form, make a few promises, and they will add you to the list of white listed senders. You will have to promise to comply with the CAN-SPAM act. It is important that you learn the requirements and follow them carefully. It is not difficult.

The bottom line is that email is a permission-based marketing system, but permission is not enough. You need to educate them so that they actually receive your emails. You need to know that email is NOT a reliable delivery system. Never assume your emails get to the recipient. If you have something important to say, you should put the important message on the web page and then you can programmatically determine who read the message and who did not.