Tips For Bringing People To Your Web Site

There is a great mystery out there in the world known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This is the Holy Grail for web site owners. It is the phantom that they try to capture in their attempt to bring more people to their web sites.

SEO isn’t hard. It is time consuming and, if you don’t know what your are doing, can be a real headache without a lot of return on your investment. No one ever built a successful web site and did nothing with it. The good news is there are ways that you can help your web site yourself! Below, you will find some very good answers to having people find you online:

Building Your Web Site. When you begin to design your web site, the first thing you should consider is how SEO will factor into your marketing plan. What keywords and phrases will you use? How will content urge people to come to your web site and link to you?

Content. This is the single most important factor to any self-serving web site. Your content must have good keywords and phrases – the same ones you want people to find you on when searching the internet. Search engine spiders love that text!

Renew Your Content – and often! The search engines love it when you start making changes to your pages. If you cannot do this, then you can always blog. Blogging creates an RSS feed that allows spiders to find your web site. Make sure you follow proper anchor text linking in your blogs and tag keywords to help find your web site.

Longtail Keywords. Short, common keywords won’t get you anywhere. There are other web sites out there using the same keywords for a lot longer than you. If you have a web site that does video production, you might find it hard to get onto the first few pages of Google with words like “video”. Instead try Cincinnati Video Production. This will help you get your business found more easily. Remember: Be precise in what you want your keywords to be. They will help bring people to your web site.

Links. Right behind content, you have to build up a group of links back to your web site – using those keywords and phrases that you are using in your text. Another important thing about links: If it is on a page that has nothing to do with your web site – it won’t really work that well for you. Make your links relevant! For example: If I wanted a link to my web site from this article, I’d put it as Web Site Design and Marketing.

Anchor Text. When you create links within your web site between pages, make sure the links are using specific keywords in which you want to be found. For example: I might put the following as a link - Web Site Hosting.

Title Tags. First, make sure you have a title tag on each page. Then, make sure it doesn’t say HOME PAGE. Your title tags should contain relevant keywords that will bring people to your pages.

Avoid Flash. I know. It looks nice. It is cool. Search engine spiders find this inedible. They hate it! Why? Because Flash is pictures and they like text. If you must use Flash, use it sparingly. Also note, not everyone has the latest update of Flash, so all that fancy design work may look like nothing on some people’s browsers. If you just have to have Flash, make sure you add some text below the movie frame. This is known as “below the fold.”

Javascript. OK, while you’re avoiding Flash, avoid drop down menus, too. The search engine spiders just don’t see it. Use it at your own peril.

Alt Tags. Every picture you use should have text associated with it to let the search engines know what it is about. These should be keyword rich words, as well. The text is referred to as an Alt Tag.

Social Networking. Use it. What is it? It is mySpace, Facebook, sta.rtup.biz, Linked In, and many others. Make sure you put your link back to your web site and make sure you comment on as many other member’s pages as possible. Social Networking will help your web site tremendously.

So, is that all there is to it? Nope. This will give you an excellent starting place, though. In addition to these things, look into a strong Pay-Per-Click marketing campaign. Some people will tell you that Organic Search Engine Marketing is the only way to go, but a homogenous blend of SEO (what we’ve been talking about) and PPC (pay-per-click) will give you the most bang for your buck. Additionally, PPC offers the most obvious way of tracking where your money is going, so your accountant will love it too!

Good luck on this endeavor. It takes time, but it will definitely help you build your web site’s success.

Web Sites are Green

by Jimm Fowler
www.mywebsource1.com

Living in the United States today, people are acutely aware of the need to “Go Green” in their everyday lives. We are all trying to shrink our carbon footprint. We’ve heard the news. We need to conserve if we want the planet to be inhabitable for our children. This method of thinking would have been unheard of 40 years ago. Today, it is “trendy”.

One way of going about this is to have a web site and be online. “He’s a web site designer”, you are probably saying to yourself, “of course he feels that way.” But it is true. By going online, you are shrinking your carbon footprint everyday. Technology is helping to forge a better tomorrow. Let me explain:

Paperless Society
F.W. Lancaster, the Informational Scientist who coined the term “paperless society” in 1981. With a paperless society, we would stop using print media and find everything online.

Is it a reality?

Not now, but as more and more web sites become interactive and better allow you to access information online, this thought process helps us to conserve our planet.

Online Literature
In the old days (circa 1989 or even yesterday), you hired a graphic designer to create a brochure and you sent it to a printer who would charge you around $400 per thousand to print and fold your brochure so you could hand it to your customer. The ink they used was then discarded and entered our waterways, harming plants and aquatic life. A simple solution to this is to cut back on printed literature and put it on your web site. Not only does this save you money, but it also helps the environment.

Now, think about the cost savings when you apply this same thought process to your hundred page catalog! You are saving money on printing costs and mailing costs. Your catalog is now in the hands of anyone who would like to view it and what is best, you are cutting back on waste for those who don’t want your services. Add a simple form to access your catalog and now you know exactly who was interested enough to look at your wares!

Conserving Gasoline
By putting your goods online, people can find what they are looking for without having to get into their vehicles and drive to different stores. You can join comparison shopping engines, use pay-per-click ads and organic optimization methods to get people to your site and show them what you have to sell. Less people driving on the roads means less energy wasted which helps in lowering gasoline prices.

Other ways of getting people through your front door is to blog, use social networking tools and sending out online newsletters. Most of these are free to use and won’t waste our natural resources.

Casting Out The Clutter
Everyday we are interrupted in our lives with advertisements. We see them on billboards, on television, in the newspaper and we hear them on the radio. We are so bombarded by these interruptions that we tune them out – unless they are really good or that we’ve heard or seen them so many times we can’t help but notice. In today’s world of marketing do these methods even work like they used to in years past?

Direct marketing works ONE PERCENT of the time – if you are lucky. This means that if you send out 1000 direct marketing pieces to customers, you might get 10 responses. If the item you sell is worth $100, you probably broke even. Most likely, 990 people just added to the excess of trash that we throw away each day. How many of those do you think recycled the paper?

Here are some facts:

• 50% of all junk mail (i.e. your advertisements) is thrown away without being opened.
• Junk mail wastes an average of 8 months of every American life.
• 100 MILLION trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail.
• 28 BILLION gallons of water are used to produce the paper each year that makes junk mail.
• The yearly creation of junk mail equates out to the emissions of 3.7 million cars.
• An estimated $320 million in local tax dollars are used to dispose of junk mail each year.
• About $550 million dollars is used to transport junk mail to your mail box.

Why would you want to contribute to this?

Instead, try online advertising with either a pay-per-click campaign. This is really an ingenious method of advertising. You set up an ad. You decide which keywords will work best for you. You set a geographical location to place your ads and PEOPLE find you by typing in something related to your keywords. The PEOPLE come to YOU. These are people with an interest in something you are selling. You aren’t interrupting them. You aren’t filling up their mailboxes and lives with a deluge of unsolicited garbage to be tossed aside into our landfills. You are letting them come to you.

I do not pretend to believe that all paper advertising and marketing will stop. I don’t even believe that it will decrease to the point where junk mail is an occasional present in our mailboxes. But, if everyone started to move just 5% of their business away from the old, familiar ways of marketing – ways that don’t work anymore – then maybe we can help to reform our planet into a better place to live.

Go online. Sell online. Become a part of the solution for a better world.

WHAT WILL $5000 IN ADVERTISING GET YOU?

WHAT WILL $5000 IN ADVERTISING GET YOU?
Playing it by the numbers…

NINE THOUSAND BLACK AND WHITE MAILERS. These have a 1% - 5% chance of NEVER being opened.

or...

TWO HUNDRED CLASSIFIED ADS - one every three days for one year. These have about a 3% chance of EVER being read.

or...

ONE HUNDRED THIRTY SECOND RADIO SPOTS in Cleveland. Are you targeting the right audience and are they listening? 95% will never remember…

or...

FIFTY 10-SECOND TV ADS mixed throughout the day on a local cable station. Did your audience get up and go make a sandwich? Again, 95% will never remember…

or...

SEVEN NEWSPAPER ADS – 3 columns x 3” (a little more than half the size of a note card).

or...

TWO TRADE MAGAZINE ADS in which you advertise TO your competition.

or...

A YELLOW PAGES AD about the size of a drink coaster for one year.

or...

ONE WEB SITE.
A web site professionally designed and online 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, no holiday pricing changes.

Located on a place that people actually go to get news and information – their computers.

A web site that will allow you make changes to your text and pictures when YOU want the changes made…

AND the best part of all…it won’t cost you $5000 to have a web site. You’ll have plenty of money left over to use on other marketing endeavors: Pay-Per-Click, Search Engine Optimization, your web site added to your business cards, letterhead, and invoices.

You’ll have money left over to advertise in other traditional marketing methods or even have a video made of your products and services. Why wouldn’t you want a web site that attracts customers to you? For more information: www.mywebsource1.com

Commandments of a Startup

The Commandments of the StartUp

This isn't mine, but from a usergroup I belong to on Facebook. It is helpful if you are starting your own business and want to know what other people are going through. It was put together by a group of people who have been there. Done that. If you are starting out on your own, this is good to read. Some of this is aimed directly at us computer geeks, but some of it can be helpful if you are just thinking about opening up a corner store.

Here are the "Commandments of a Startup":

1. Your idea isn't new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

2. Stealth startups suck. You're not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

3. If you don't have scaling problems, you're not growing fast enough.

4. If you're successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you're in that position, and hope that you're smart enough to not fall for it.

5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that's really the case, you shouldn't be doing your startup.

6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

9. You don't need business development people. If you're successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you're not spending any effort trying to get them.

10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

11. Starting a company will teach you what it's like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

12. Your startup isn't succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What's it going to be?

13. If you don't pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

15. You're doing a web app, right? This isn't the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor's most polished software application.

16. You will have at least one catastrophe every three months.

17. Outsource effectively, or be effectively outsourced.

18. Do you thrive on stress and ambiguity? You'd better.

19. The best way to get outside funding is to be successful already. Stupid but true. But you, cheapskate, don't need money, right?

20. People will think your idea sucks. They're even probably right. The only way to prove them wrong is to succeed.

21. A startup will require your complete attention and devotion. Thought your first love in High School was clingy? You can't take out a restraining order on your startup.

22. Being an entrepreneur requires a healthy amount of ignorance. Note I did not say stupidity.

23. Your software sucks. So what. Everyone else's does also, and re-architecting is the kiss of death for a startup. Startups are no place for architecture astronauts.

24. You do have a public API (application programming interface), right?

25. Abject Terror. Overwhelming Joy. Monstrous Greed. Embrace and harness these emotions you must.