Ways To Promote Your Business
A business, more often than not, has a very limited budget when it comes to advertising. The business owner needs to make the public aware of his or her product or service at the lowest possible cost.
There are many ways. A pet breeder in a large city was struggling for several years-until he came up with a novel idea. He started giving away customized “birth certificates” for the pets he sold. Almost immediately, his sales rose more than 10 percent.
The owner of a new home cleaning service was trying to attract clients. She couldn’t afford much advertising, so she began offering “home cleaning seminars” to civic groups. After two months of seminars, she was swamped with inquiries and clients.
Promotion often makes the crucial difference between business success and failure. Customers or clients must know about a business or product line before they’ll buy and they must have a reason to buy.
GIVEAWAYS. People love to receive “free” items, especially items they can use to gain knowledge or improve their lives. You can base an entire promotional campaign on this desire. If you’re running a furniture repair business, for instance, you could give away a furniture repair brochure, free furniture planning guides, or color swatches. Once you begin giving away authoritative information, customers will begin to perceive you as an expert in your field.
NEWS CREATION.Want to get your business in the local newspaper or TV? It may be easier than you think. If you don’t have any news to report to the local media, create some. One man hired a team of beautiful girls outfitted in skimpy bikinis and had them waving signs in a busy part of town announcing his new Web site address. Did it get attention by the media? You bet it did!
EVENTS.You may be able to attract the attention of the media or a crowd by staging a special promotional event. If you run a fitness classes, for instance, you could stage a celebrity instructor day. If you’re promoting a new real estate business, you can offer tours of a model home in the area. If you’re selling children’s products and it’s springtime, you can offer lunch with the Easter bunny. Get the idea?
CHARITY TIE-INS.Are you launching a new product? Trying to increase visibility among a particular segment of your community? Offer your product to one or more local charities as a raffle prize or for use at a fund raising event. You’ll receive lots of exposure among people who buy tickets or attend the event.
CONTESTS. Offer a desirable or unique item-or even several items-as contest prizes. First, find a contest theme that tiers into your business. A caterer might offer a quiche-eating contest. A photographer might offer a young model contest. A mail order craft firm might offer an “Early American” handicrafts contest. Invite contest submissions and offer prizes to the winners. Do contests attract attention? You bet. All it takes is a few signs, a small press announcement or two, and the word will spread throughout the community grapevine.
COMMUNITY SERVICE.Nothing brings you to the attention of the people faster-or more favorably-than community service. Ask yourself how your enterprise can be a “good neighbor” to your community. If you’re running a lawn care and gardening service, perhaps you can offer one season’s services at no charge to a needy charitable organization or nursing home in your area. Hundreds of people will hear about your work in the process. Volunteer for various community causes. If appropriate, you can step in during community emergency, offering products and services to help an organization or individuals in need.
COUPONS. Americans are very coupon-conscious. Test the market: at what level will coupons increase the volume of various product or service lines? When you get some tentative answers, start distributing coupons that offer a discount on your services. Distribute them to area newspapers, on store counters, in door-to-door- mail packets (which can often be quite inexpensive), at the public library, at laundromats, at any location where people congregate.
BADGES AND NOVELTIES.You can easily and inexpensively produce badges, bumper stickers, book covers, and other novelty items for distribution in your area. You can imprint your business name and the first names of the customers on many of these products at little cost and distribute them for free. Or you can tie your novelty program into a contest: once a month, you can offer a prize to any individual whose car happens to carry one of your bumper stickers or badges with peel-off coupons, redeemable at your place of business.
CELEBRITY VISITS.With a bit of persistence, you may be able to arrange to have a local media celebrity, public official, or entertainment personally-even a fictitious cartoon character or clown-visit your service. The celebrity can sign autographs, read stories to children, perform cooking demonstrations, or perform any one of a hundred other traffic-building activities.
By all means, advertise in the media if you can. But don’t neglect your greatest promotional asset-your mind. Ponder the products, services and events you can offer the community and devise a creative promotional strategy around them. You’ll have to invest a bit of time and energy in the project, but the payoff will be worth it. You’ll save hundreds-or even thousands-of advertising dollars and better yet, you’ll travel a well-worn shortcut to profit.
I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.
Author Bio:
Serge Daudelin of WSPromotion.com is a top Marketing Agent Regulary putting on marketing seminars and working for one of the largest Advertising Agency in Canada.
What is Link Popularity?
Link Popularity refers to the number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on the web. The Search Engines consider your site important and rank it higher if several other sites link to your site.
You can search for the sites that link to your site by typing the following command in Google Search
For a detailed Link Popularity report, you can use our Link Popularity Analyzer Tool, which checks the link popularity of your site across various search engines like Google, MSN, AltaVista, HotBot, Yahoo and AlltheWeb.
History behind Link Popularity and Google PageRank
Web, by its very nature is based on hyperlinks, where sites link to other prominent sites. If you take the logic that you would tend to link to sites that you consider important, in essence, you are casting a vote in favor of the sites that you link to. When hundreds or thousands of sites link to a site, it is logical to assume that such a site would be good and important.
Taking this logic further the Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page formulated a Search Engine algorithm that shifted the ranking weight to off-page factors. They evolved a formula called PageRank (named after its founder Larry Page) where the algorithm would count the number of sites that link to a page and assign it an importance score on a scale of 1-10. More the number of sites that link to a page, higher its PageRank.
Google’s PageRank is important because it is one of the primary off-page factors that influences your page’s ranking in the search engine result pages.
PageRank in Google’s own Words
Google explains PageRank as follows (http://www.google.com/technology/):
PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”
Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.
For more information on Google PageRank, go to
http://www.google.com/technology/
http://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html
Benefits of Building Link Popularity
Building Link Popularity is one of the most important and critical aspects of any effective Search Engine Optimization campaign today. The ‘off-page’ factors such as link popularity, PageRank and Anchor Text in incoming links play a major role in your site’s ranking in the search engine results pages (SERP).
Search Engines consider your site more important if more links point to your site. Building link popularity improves the PageRank of your web pages (Read more about PageRank). The higher the PageRank of your website, the higher its importance for search engines and higher it gets ranked in the search engine result pages. Search engines also take into account the PageRank of the pages that link to your site and its industry relevance to your own industry. Links from higher PageRank pages and industry relevant sites give your site a higher value.
Note: Search Engines need to ‘learn’ all the links you have created pointing to your site, in order to reward your website. Patience pays.
Types of Links
There are two types of links you can establish on the web. One way is to trade links (Link Exchange), where you give a link from the links Page on your site to the partner sites. The second method is to establish ‘only-incoming’ links also called ‘one-way links’ or ‘Non-Reciprocal links’.
Only-Incoming Links
Only incoming links are the links established on the other websites where you do not need to link back to them.
There are various compelling reasons and methods to establish such one-way links which include linking back from a different website that you may own, publishing articles on sites, content syndication, listing in trade directories and giving out press releases in news networks.
Link Exchange
Link exchange is an easier way to establish links from other websites to your website. In link exchange process, you trade links with prospective partner sites by offering a link to their site from your own site. This method is faster and a good way to establish several hundred links to your website without big efforts.
Only Incoming Links vs. Link Exchange
Google developed the PageRank algorithm to provide authentic and quality information while making it difficult for webmasters and site owners to contaminate the search results by artificially inflating their PageRank.
The new algorithm came into effect with the launch of Google in 1998. Google’s PageRank was based on the logic that more the number of sites that link to a page, higher its PageRank.
As Webmasters realized the importance of PageRank, they found ways to artificially inflate their PageRank by manipulating direct link exchanges. This defeated the very essence on which the Google PageRank algorithm was build. To counter this, Google has constantly been fine-tuning and updating its algorithms. Read about Google’s latest algo updates.
The search engines are aware that a large number of sites are deploying link exchange campaigns to boost their site’s PR. Search engines are working towards fine-tuning their algos to discount direct link exchanges in order to preserve the effect of their link popularity related algorithms and rationalize artificially inflated links popularity of sites.
While the algos are yet to reflect this change, we believe that it may happen soon enough. In the long run, we recommend investing your resources in an ‘only-incoming links’ campaign for your website which is likely to benefit your site more as opposed to a direct link exchange campaign.
Important Parameters to Consider while Building Link Popularity
Some of the important parameters that you need to consider while establishing links with any website are discussed below:
PageRank or PR of the Linking Page
PR of the linking page is one of the most important factors. PR of the linking page determines how much value of importance is passed on to your page. Higher the PR of the linking page, higher the value you get. The home page PR is not as important, but it is an indicator of how much PR a linking page may jump to, in due course of time. For instance, if the PR of the site’s link page is 0, but the home page PR is 6, then, there is a bright possibility that in a month or two, the link page PR may also jump to a PR of 4 or even 5 due to the internal linking structure of the partner site. While sites would be happy to give out links from a PR 0 page, you can estimate that in two months time, this link page can jump to a high PR, giving you great value in the future.
Identifying Total Number of Links on the Link Page
The value your web page gets from a linking page is equal to the total PR value of that page divided by the total number of outgoing links on that page. Getting a link from a PR4 page that has only 20 outgoing links is much better than getting a link from a PR4 page that has 60 outgoing links. With the same philosophy, it is better to get a link from a PR2 link page that has only 10 outgoing links than getting a link from a PR4 page that has over 100 outgoing links. It is therefore as important to evaluate the total number of outgoing links on a links page, as it is, to evaluate the PR of the linking page. This is where many people often falter, as they usually insist on getting a link from a high PR page, but if that page has 100 outgoing links, your page would only get 1/100th of that value.
Industry Relevance
Search engines give high importance to links pointing to your site from your own industry segment as opposed to those from an un-related industry. For instance, a hotels and reservations website is likely to benefit more from links pointing from a related industry site like travel, vacation packages or cruises, than those from an unrelated industry like a drug site.
Industry relevance also needs to be given a high weight while creating resource directories. For example, if you have a site related to hotels, then you can create a resource directory related to your business that could be pertaining to travel, tourism, cruises, vacation rentals, vacation packages, car rentals, food and beverages etc.
Page Relevance
Most sites offering links have several categories listed on their sites. Try and get a link from a category that closely matches your own industry. For instance, if you have a site related to hotels, then, on your partner site, a tickets site for example, try and identify a resource directory pertaining to hotels, resorts, reservations, vacation packages, travel, tourism, food and beverages etc. If the concerned site has a directory on hotels, you should request a link in that category, as a link from that page would be relevant to a hotels site, thus getting you more benefits. An algorithm called ‘Applied Semantics’ determines the industry relevance of a page within a site. Applied Semantics algorithm studies various keywords on a web page and tries to determine the industry or business segment of each page. Applied Semantics estimates the industry segments that are relevant to a particular page. If the link to your page is coming from your business specific segment, then you are likely to draw more benefit.
Anchor Text
Anchor Text is the visible hyperlinked text on a web page. Since anchor text is very important, make sure that your most important keywords appear in anchor text from the link pointing to your site. You should try and work with at-least 10-20 keyword and link text options. If you are creating a large number of links using only one standard link text, then the search engines are likely to detect a pattern. It is possible that future algo updates may do away with all repetitive and similar looking links to your site.
You can also refer to our article on Anchor Text Optimization for more details.
Pre-Indexed Pages
Try and find link partners in Search Engines like Google and Yahoo, and check if the links page is already indexed in the search engines. Search Engines frequently re-index the pages in its database. They are likely to detect your link faster on a page already existing in their database as compared to a ‘yet-to-be indexed’ page. The safest way to check is to copy the prospective link page URL and paste it into Google Search. If the page is indexed, Google would show a result in response to your search, otherwise it would respond with a ‘no result found’.
The robots.txt file
robots.txt is an exclusion file that contains specific instructions for search engine robots regarding the content they are not allowed to index. Links placed on a page that the search engines robots are not allowed to index, would not benefit your site. Considering the importance of robots.txt file, it is a good idea to study a site’s robots.txt file to identify the excluded pages before approaching a site for establishing links with your site. Read our article on Working with robots.txt file.
Dynamic Link Pages
You should also watch out for any link pages that are generated dynamically. Chances are that such pages would not get indexed soon enough, which means that a link from such a page would not benefit you. Some dynamic link pages are intentionally generated in such a way so as to prevent them from getting indexed. Some unscrupulous webmasters do this to trick you to prevent any PageRank leaking from their site to yours. Links from such pages therefore do not give you any benefit.
Java Script Link Pages
It is also important to identify pages that are generated through Flash or a Java Script, as Search Engines cannot read flash pages or the links embedded within flash. These are some of the tricks unethical webmasters use. While a site can claim to have placed a link to your web page, in effect they are not giving you any benefit.
Re-Directed Links
A link that is first re-directed to another page within your partner site before pointing to your site is a re-directed link. You should watch out for such links, as search engines do not give weight to re-directed links. It is very unlikely that your site would draw any benefit from a re-directed link.
Frame Sites
Avoid getting links from framed sites as search engines cannot read texts within frames. A link placed on a frame site would not get your site any benefit, as search engines would not be able to recognize such a link.
Directory Depth
It is important to evaluate the depth of the directory of the linking page. Avoid getting links from pages that are embedded in a very deep directory or pages that are more than two directories deep (e.g. www.domain.com/dir1/dir2/dir3/linkpage.htm is not a good link page). Deep directories seldom earn high PR. They are also slow in getting indexed, if at all.
Building Link Popularity is a great way to help your site gain competitive PR. Links from other sites also sends direct human traffic to your site. Observing a little care in developing links will go a long way in getting your site rank high in search engines.
Author Bio:
Harjot Kaleka is an SEO Copywriter at www.SEOrank.com, a leading Search Engine Optimization services company. She has a Masters degree in Mass Communications and Copywriting.
Gmail privacy concerns?
I’m sure you’ve already heard, but Google is getting into the email business. We speculated about Google email a few months ago, but were unsure about the whole mail thing. It seemed to be a change in a direction that Google wasn’t used to. After all, Google is search, and nothing more. They build services on top of search (such as news, Froogle and so on) but essentially, everything is driven by search.
So when it was confirmed that Google was getting into email, we were a little surprised. Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. One of the strongest assets both Yahoo! and MSN have is web based free email. From a competitive point of view it kind of makes sense. And search, as you will see, is built into it.
Google mail is still in beta testing right now, so you can’t get a new address. You can put a request in for one, but there are no guarantees.
So when people start complaining about privacy being violated with Google mail I get a little surprised. How is it that a beta product can be invading your privacy, especially when you request to use the product? If you haven’t heard, privacy advocates are saying that Google is invading mail user’s privacy because they will be scanning your personal email and offering ads which correspond to the body of the emails. This is where the Google search comes in.
Further, you won’t be able to delete old emails; they just keep building up apparently. I can understand not being able to delete them, especially if Google is trying to serve ads matching the email bodies, and I can see the point of privacy being violated (somewhat). However, it is a free service which you are requesting. You have to agree to their terms of use (which I’m sure addresses the whole scanning emails issue) in order to receive your free email address, so what is the problem?
I could see if it was an ISP who gave you email and did this, because you’re stuck with it, but to go after a free service which you are explicitly requesting to use? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
It’s kind of like when you go to a major sporting event. When I go to see our local hockey team, I don’t give express permission for the TV broadcaster to use my face during their broadcast (such as when they are showing the crowds reaction) yet I expect it, and I don’t consider it a violation of my privacy. I am at the event of my own free will as I chose to be there. If I were concerned about someone seeing my face on TV I wouldn’t be at the game.
Maybe I’m taking a simplistic view on this, but I really don’t understand what the fuss is about. Perhaps, if they added the scanning feature after I signed up I would be concerned, but otherwise, if I have previously agreed to it, then I’m stuck with it in exchange for having the ability to use 1 gigabyte of free email storage space.
I guess if I was really concerned, yet I still wanted to use Gmail, then I’d ask all my friends to send images to the Gmail address, and everything else to one of my other addresses. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about Google scanning my emails, because they wouldn’t get much useful text out of the images and I’d be able to keep all those pictures that get sent to me.
Author Bio:
Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Searchengineposition.com
Search Engine Positioning Specialists
Different results in Altavista/MSN/Yahoo!
A team member of ours did some checking recently comparing results between Yahoo! and its search subsidiaries and found some interesting results. So much so that it begs the question: Why are there different results between the sites?
I am talking about the differences you may have noticed between Yahoo! and the sites it provides results for. Namely Altavista, Alltheweb and MSN. If you do the same search across these different engines, chances are good that you get different results. This doesn’t make sense considering that Yahoo! is supposed to be supplying the search results to these sites. If this is the case, you would expect that all four sites should have the same results, right? Wrong.
Why you ask? Well, it comes down to the algorithms.
When we were checking results against the sites, we were finding differences not only in the rankings, but also with the number of pages indexed and the number of pages per site indexed. But we are only going to be dealing with rankings here.
As you may already know, all of the major search engines have different algorithms. The algorithms determine how the pages will rank depending on a variety of factors including OTP (On The Page) factors, such as title tags, descriptions, body text, page length etc. as well as other factors including link relevancy and inheritance to name just a few.
The combinations of these factors, along with the weightings each engine puts on them, coalesce to make up the ranking algorithm which determines where pages will show up in the search results. These ranking algorithms are controlled by the independent engines. And this is why the search results appear differently across multiple engines.
What is happening is that Yahoo! is merely providing the index, or list of sites. They are saying, “Hey MSN, here you go. Here is the list of sites we have added in our index, now it is up to you to rank them the way you see fit.”
It would be like giving someone a deck of cards. Usually, if they are not new, they are in random order. Now if you handed the cards to 3 different people and asked them to organize them, chances are each person would organize them differently. You could organize them by suit, or by face value, or by some combination of these. Ultimately each person would likely organize them differently. If you then asked them to pull the 20th card from the deck, there is a good chance that they would each draw different cards as the decks are organized different.
This is how the algorithms work. Each engine determines how to order the results based on the factors mentioned above. Therefore while the Yahoo! index may be the same across the board for each site, the final search results will be different.
Just so you know, in our test of about 50 sites, there was sometimes over 1000-page differences in rankings. That means, for example, that a site could rank in the top 10 in MSN and not even be in the top 1000 in Altavista (or vice versa). There were some results displayed where rankings were within a few positions, while others were thousands apart. This difference is due to the ranking algorithms.
So, if you think your site will do well in MSN or Altavista just because you are doing well in Yahoo! don’t be so sure. Conversely, if you find you are ranking lower than you like in Yahoo! don’t assume that you are also ranking low in one of the other engines because it is entirely dependant on the engine.
Author Bio:
Rob Sullivan
Production Manager
Searchengineposition.com
Search Engine Positioning Specialists
Email Marketing
When you own a website, you can do a lot more with it besides being up and running on the Internet. One powerful website “add-on” is the ability to collect the email addresses of visitors to your site, and “stay in touch” with current and prospective customers by means of an email marketing system. Email addresses collected at your site can be combined with email addresses collected by offline means, and through an email marketing system you can communicate in one easy step with everyone on your list. The system is easy to set up, very affordable, and often yields profitable results far in excess of your investment.
Email marketing has come a long way in recent years, and now, through a managed system, you can send messages out to your list in an attractive, graphics-enhanced, email format. An email marketing system is useful for just about every business. Some uses that come to mind include newsletters, new product or services announcements, special offers and promotions, changes in your business, advice columns, and so on. It is a rare business that cannot benefit from improved communication with clients, and professional email marketing is one of the easiest communication methods available.
On your website, you need to set up a short form that collects visitors’ email addresses, and each new email address is automatically added to your email marketing list. Email addresses gathered offline can be added manually to your email marketing list. You then prepare your newsletter, or other communication, input it into your chosen template, and you’re ready to email everyone on your list, with a professional looking html-enhanced email. Each communication that goes out through the system is formatted into whatever graphic “look” has been designed for your system. Typically, it will echo the look of your website. One of the best features of the email maketing system is that it recognizes the settings of the recipient’s computer, and if they are not set up for graphic emails, it will simply arrive at their desktop as a plain text email. No longer does the sender have to worry if the recipient can “see” their email correctly.
Not only does this system let you send as many messages as you want in one step, it lets you do some tracking, also. You can track how many recipients actually opened the email, and how often. This can be of help in measuring the interest level in a particular communication. Finally, it is very easy for a recipient who does not want to be on the list to “unsubscribe.” Email marketing has gotten a bad rap in recent years, as the lines have been blurred between valid marketing and spam. But when properly used, it is a powerful marketing tool, that allows a website owner to “keep in touch” with many clients and prospects with no more effort than it takes to compose a single email.
Author Name: Neil Street
Author Bio:
Neil Street is co-founder of Small Business Online, LLC, based in Wilton, CT., a website design, management, and promotion company dedicated to the Internet needs of the small business. His website is at http://www.smallbusinessonline.net. Send email to neil@smallbusinessonline.net He can also be reached at(203)761-7992
Were You Bamboozled by Google?
It’s still happening. “Florida,” “Boston,” “Ginger,” and “Brandy” are just a few of the many Google updates that have hit within the last few months. And Google is still issuing periodic updates as we speak. No one can say for sure what’s going on or what to expect. One thing is for sure, unless you want to get bamboozled by Google (again!), you’d be wise to take action to prevent it now.
So many people were screaming (and still are) about losing tons of business due to Google’s updates. Some have reported 30%, 50%, or even total losses. What can you do? After all, you’re at the mercy of Google, right? WRONG!
Why Do Rankings Keep Changing?
Google, like many other engines, changes its algorithm (formula for calculating who ranks where) from time-to-time in an effort to filter out spammers and deliver the most relevant search results possible.
Google has had updates since its very beginning. But now, depending on which theory you choose to believe, they are making more advancements that require more updates. This means, even if you rank at #1 this week, you might not make the top 30 next week.
How Do You Protect Yourself From Updates?
Diversify! It is never a good idea to have all your income generated by one source. You wouldn’t depend on having all of your retirement savings from one source (that’s exactly why mutual funds are so popular), and you wouldn’t have all of your money in one bank. I mean, really! What if that one source went under? The same principle applies to Internet marketing.
While search engines are a phenomenal way to drive traffic to your website, they are most certainly not the only way. In order to ensure you are protected should Google (or whoever is the next “big” search engine) change their formula yet again, you need to create a diversification plan.
Think of all the outlets that reach your target audience. Investigate each one to see how feasible it would be to market your site through those channels. Then implement a plan that includes several advertising avenues (including search engines) that – as a whole – generates as much (or more) business as you originally received from Google. That way, should one of these channels go down, your business would only be slightly affected.
Don’t stop there! Twice a year you’ll want to go over your plan and be sure that everything is working, as it should. If one outlet begins to dwindle in its response, look into finding a replacement. This way you are never taken by surprise.
Once you have your diversification plan working for you, you will be in a much better position to be rest assured that the business you receive will be there for the long haul. You will also feel more comfortable that no one organization can cause the tremendous damage Google has caused and could cause again.
Author Bio:
Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com
FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful) Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business Into A Tower of Profits! http://madmarketer.com/diane
How to See What Pages of Your Site Google Has In Its Index
There is a lag time between the indexing or updating of your site, and the time it takes to show new results in the database. Depending on your site, where it was linked from, who it was linked from, and who knows what other factors, the amount of time varies.
With the method I teach in my book it seems to take two to four days on average for the Googlebot to stop by initially, and then another two days to one week to appear in search listings for the first listing.
(You can read more about the book here: http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com/book )
But even if it takes more than four to seven days for the Googlebot spider to show up at your site, or to return, if ever, there are several ways you can track the results.
First, you can use Google itself.
Go to www.google.com and type in site: then your domain name. So for yahoo.com, you’d type in ‘site:yahoo.com’. The results will show you which pages of your site are showing up in Google.
If you know you won’t have time to check on a daily basis, you can use a site called Google Alert, which you can find at http://www.googlealert.com.
The great thing about this site is that it will track up to five terms per email address and have them sent to you via email on a daily basis. Using this you can track your ranking for your most important terms, or see how often your competitor’s site comes up versus yours.
To use this to see when pages of your site come up, create an account, then in the search terms section, type in, as one word, whatever is between ‘www’ and your site’s suffix (.com, .net, .org, .biz, .uk, etc.) and you will start getting emailed results.
The only problem is that the resulting page is sometimes a day behind Google’s actual indexing. But for a free automated resource, you really couldn’t beat it. Until now.
Google’s new Web Alerts just came out on the 29th of March. You can access it here:
http://www.google.com/webalerts
You can use Google’s new Web Alerts service in much the same way. It’s currently in Beta development, so make sure you save the information sent to you. Since it’s so new, you’ll probably want to sign up to both services and compare the results.
My favorite use for this is finding out when people mention my name or re-print my article at their sites, so that I can link back, or email to thank them. A big advantage Google.com’s in-house version of the web alerts system is that they have a news version that you can subscribe to, which will help you stay on top of your niche in whatever industry you’re in.
Currently I use the Google Alert’s site for several on-going searches, and Google’s Beta Web Alert’s for my most mission-critical, time-sensitive news.
There’s yet another way to use Google to track how your site is doing in Google. It will tell you the cached version of your page, which Google stores. Sometimes the date posted next to the listing of the cached page can help give you a good estimate of when Google will be back at your site.
For example, at the moment, I seem to see the spider most predictably every day between midnight and 6 am EST since my home page began to score a PR of 5, then periodically at other points in my site during the day. I figured this out by looking at Google’s cache of my home page over a period of one week.
This search will tell you pages that Google considers similar to yours. It will also show sites that it considered linked to you, and show sites that carry your full url, hyperlinked or not. It’s not 100% accurate, but it will give you a much better idea than you’d get from guessing – and it’s free.
Go to Google’s home page – www.google.com – and type in info:yoursitenameandsuffix. So if your site was ExactSeek.com you’d type info:www.exactseek.com. You can also use site:yoursitenameandsuffix to find out which pages have been indexed by Google’s search engine spider.
Curiously, Google used to show different results for info:www.exactseek.com and info:exactseek.com ‘ instead of including results for exactseek.com in the www evaluation. I haven’t seen this much anymore, but if you see one permutation showing up in results for the other, you may want to do both.
You’re going to want to bookmark this page and visit it on a weekly basis. The best day to look would be the one week anniversary of what day Google last cached a page at your site. The date will often be shown next to the word ‘cached’ on one of your page results. If the cached page date is the same, that means Google hasn’t been back to your site.
Marry this information with your study of your web stats to get more ideas on getting the most out of your weekly or daily exercises involving search engines and links from other sites, not just Google.
Author Bio:
Subscribe to Free Traffic Secrets to find out how to get the Googlebot spider sooner at ftdsecrets-subscribe@topica.com or visit http://www.freetrafficdirectory.com to get more time-tested information on getting Free Quality Traffic to Your Site.
Meet the new “G” operating system
As most of you know, the Windows operating system is the most popular and the most utilized personal computer operating platform in use today, and has been for a good number of years. Windows has made Microsoft the powerhouse it is today, thanks to its user-friendly interface and a number of other features that greatly simplify your daily life.
However, there is now a new computer operating system that is taking over, and it’s not coming from inside your personal computer, and it’s not from your company’s LAN (Local Area Network) or intranet network either. What I’m referring to here is the ‘G’ operating system, better known as the Google operating platform.
If you feel that for the past couple of years Google has managed to transform many people’s lives, you are not alone. We are witnessing a trend that will probably increase and will become even more widespread in the coming months and years.
Thanks to many of its PHD’s and engineers, and using its vast research labs in Mountain View California, Google is building a gigantic information system, complete with its own computer operating system that anybody can use, 24 hours a day.
How it all began
Almost without warning, engineers at the Googleplex have designed and built an extremely sophisticated computer network. What really boggles your mind is that this whole project originally took place as a simple idea, just a research initiative at Stanford University in the late 1990’s.
Google’s original founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page came up in 1998 with an experimental search engine they had developed. Using the Page Rank’ search algorithm that Larry Page had designed, Sergey worked with Larry to give birth to what is today one of the most exciting projects that ever came out of an American university. Of course, nobody knew at that time the success this simple idea would ave until today.
To make its search engine operate smoothly, Google is utilizing more than 10,000 (probably a lot more) servers, located in many of its data centers, situated mostly in North America. You could say that Google runs its own operating system. Its search engine now looks more like a huge information platform, a large data warehouse if you prefer, than just a simple computer cluster that would have been optimized for one single application.
With Google’s monthly update ‘dances’ and cycles, Google even makes its operating system even faster and more powerful each and every month, while at the same time drastically lowering the overall cost of all its operations, through revenue-generating contextual ads programs, such as its AdWords PPC (Pay-per-Click) and its AdSense initiatives.
What makes Google even more powerful?
Through its complex computing platform, Google has access to a gigantic map of the whole Internet, and it is now fully aware of how people ‘travel’ around in the virtual world it operates in. What makes Google even more powerful at this is it’s getting better and better at analyzing this large map. Furthermore, it is finding more and improved ways at ‘data mining’ all that precious information it collects from millions of users located all over the world and living in many different time zones.
Through its Blogger.com subsidiary, on any given hour of the day, Google knows exactly what people blog about. Through its vast search engine, it knows what topic or subject people are searching for. Thanks to it’s AdWords program, Google knows who wants to advertise and what for and exactly how effective those advertisements perform in real life and, in real time. Oh, and now, thanks to its Orkut portal, now Google knows about how people communicate with friends and loved ones.
If you are beginning to think this is a lot of information, it is! Today, information is power.
The parallel with the Windows operating system
In terms of worries, Google isn’t too concerned about Yahoo or Microsoft’s research projects, although the news media’s attention on that subject could eventually be to their own advantage. Only time will tell for sure.
Of course, Microsoft’s intention is to combine a search engine, right inside its new version of Windows, dubbed Longhorn. However, that version may not be ready until late 2005, early 2006. Light years away in terms of Internet speed.
Microsoft’s idea of such a search engine is to look into your hard drive for the keyword you typed in. If it can’t find it there, it is assumed your query will ‘go out on the Web’ to find it’ somewhere. Where exactly will that somewhere be is not known at this time’
Working in favour of the Redmund company of course is the fact that it is sitting on about 54 Billion of cash, enough money to feed many developing nations for years. Microsoft’s search engine project is still uncertain and leaves some observers perplexed as to how it wants to do it and what will happen next.
Search is what Google does best
So you might ask: who needs a local search engine in Windows or on your hard drive when anybody can have free and unlimited access to information residing on some of the world’s fastest computers? Can the ‘G’ operating system be the fastest and the most powerful when it comes to the information age? At first glance, it would appear to be so. After all, search is what Google does best, and it has certainly proven its ability to innovate in that field.
And let’s not forget all those people on the move out there’ People wanting to access information on mobile devices don’t need large or cumbersome operating systems. All they need is a fast and convenient way to search for information, using tiny LCD screens which are getting better, smaller and cheaper.
Such applications will be perfect if they can run on the ‘G’ operating system. Google could start developing such small and hybrid systems, using parts of Linux for its simplicity, low-cost and ease of use. Linux is also of the open source code, meaning that a whole set of additional applications could be developed around them, giving even more power and credence to the ‘G’ operating system.
All these systems and ‘apps’ would all have one thing in common: they would all query the Google database, whether it be Google’s large pool of information directly in its own search engine, or other sources which are close to Google’s heart, namely Blogger.com or the Orkut social portal that is still in its beta version.
Have you heard lately that Google wants to implement its free email system? Gmail is Google’s answer to free email offerings similar to Microsoft’s Hotmail and Yahoo, except it will offer up to one Gig of storage space, with a few more features to be announced at a later date. Again, this initiative is indicative of more things to come and more applications running on the ‘G’ operating platform.
Conclusion
Whether Google goes public or not this year or next, one thing is certain: similar to Microsoft in the mid to late nineties, Google now has become a real powerhouse. Its main asset is of course its huge database, which constitutes the sheer computing power of its fast search engine, used by more than 200 million people everyday.
At last count, Google’s index had over 4.2 billion pages in it, and it is rapidly growing everyday. It is estimated there are anywhere from 6 to 10 million new Web pages added to the Internet on any given day, and these numbers are said to be conservative.
The ‘G’ operating system might be closer than we think. It could happen faster than some are led to believe. If anything, it is to Google’s full advantage to do all of what’s in its power to help promote it’s new “operating system”, by providing the industry and the development community with all the tools it can offer.
Cooperation, planning and concerted efforts will go a long way towards achieving these goals. In fact, for the past 2 and a half years, Google makes available a set of developer tools called the Google API’s (Application Programmable Interface), further helping the development community get up to speed on the ‘G platform’.
With all it has going for itself, I predict that Google will probably double, maybe even triple in size over the next five years.
The next twelve months will be extremely interesting, both from an observer’s point of view, as well as in the user’s perspective of still new things to come, new developments that will take place and innovative new technologies being developed everyday.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
Understanding the value of inbound links to your website
Besides search engines, the next most common way people move from one website to another is through links on other sites.
The reason that the Internet is often refered to a the *Web* is because it exists so much as a web of links running from one site to another in a maze more complex than the spider web from which it is named.
Getting your links on other sites
If you submit your site to search engines, provided you get good results on the keywords being searched for, you will get good results.
If you write articles that will be published by ezine publishers and webmasters, then the externally placed links to your website through your resource box can be very profitable. The resource box is an *about the author* paragraph, that you will attach at the end of your article.
If you are willing to share a certain amount of your profits with others, you can set up an affiliate program for your offerings, and then you can rely upon your affiliates to provide your inbound links for you.
If you participate in online forums dedicated to a certain topic, then your links placed with your post can be very effective.
If you leave reviews for others to read on sites like Amazon or Cnet, then you will find a certain number of click-through’s (CTR’s) to your website.
If you sign guestbooks with your own link in place, you might be a little disappointed by your results.
If you use Free For All (FFA) pages, you will certainly be disappointed. The reason for the failure with FFA pages is two-fold. First, your link will be placed on an external site that rotates links. Your link may only be in place for ten minutes or two hours. Secondly, your link is often placed on a page that will likely never be seen by human eyes.
The Yin & The Yang of the Internet
The Internet is a prime example of the benefits of the Yin and the Yang. What goes around, comes around.
The truth is that if you help others, others will help you.
If you provide outbound links on your site to resources that are not on your site, people will flock to your site to find the resources they are looking for.
What is more, if you provide a good resource to others, then webmasters, reviewers and publishers will be lining up to tell their people about your website. Thus, giving you more inbound links.
Beware of the dead end
If on the other hand, you construct your website as a dead end, you are bound to fail.
People who do website reviews and publish ezines do not tell their followers about dead end sites. The value of a single website is drastically reduced by a lack of outbound links.
After all, no one person is so brilliant that they can deliver everything their visitors want.
By the very nature of dead end sites, they will not be linked to by others, so their success or failure is entirely reliant upon search engine and email success.
If the owner of the dead end site does not send out tons of email advertising and it does not have good placement in the search engines, then the site will not turn big profits.
Google PageRank
Besides traffic earned by inbound and outbound links to a website, one should also consider ranking schemes like the Google.com PageRank scheme.
Because Google wants to provide their users the very best in information from their search results, Google employs a program called the Google PageRank. The basic premise is to provide a rating for a given website, based in part on the value of the content on the website, and more so, based on how many external sites with a PageRank of four or higher actually link to the given website.
To review the Google PR for any one domain, one must use the Google Toolbar ( http://toolbar.google.com ) in their Internet Explorer browser.
Inbound links are crucial
In order for a site to get a good Google PageRank, the site must have inbound links from other rated sites.
Let us return for a moment to the dead end site. We have already shown that the dead end site that has no outbound links, will very likely have few inbound links, if any.
When a site can boast of no inbound links, then the webmaster can rest assured that their likelihood of getting a good Google PageRank is almost nil.
In order to build one’s inbound links, they should strongly consider employing outbound links also.
Protecting your internet assest
Most people who build dead end sites do so from a fear of sending their hard earned traffic to another domain.
Given the short attention span of many surfers, we always have to be concerned that redirected traffic may never return to our websites.
In order to protect your hard work by losing the distracted surfer, you should always place a *target=_blank* inside of the href tag for all outbound links on your websites.
This ensures that a person who clicks on an outbound link will see the new page in a new browser window. So, once the surfer has reviewed the new site, they will have to actively shut down the browser window that your website still resides in.
This is extra special good news for people who have provided a great resource for web surfers. The more valuable a website is considered to be as a resource, the more likely that the web surfer will bookmark the website for future use.
Broken links are no good
Some people have ventured to provide reviews of external sites or to publish articles that are targeted to their marketplace, but they have provided the information with broken links to the external sites.
This method serves no real protection for the webmaster, since the search engine spiders and publishers know that all of the outbound links return a *404 error, page not found.*
A phony resource is not really a resource at all.
Building your inbound links
To ensure the success of your website, you need to get to work building both your inbound and outbound links for your website.
Remember. What goes around comes around. Honor will bring you many rewards.
Author Bio:
Bill Platt owns The Phantom Writers, a company committed to helping people to establish an Internet presence & promote their businesses through the use of Free-Reprint Articles and Press Releases. Articles are distributed to 6,000+ publishers & webmasters as part of the package. http://thePhantomWriters.com Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you.
Why are keywords so important?
Open Wordtracker [ http://www.wordtracker.com/ ] and you’ll see following proclamation by Brent Winters, President, FirstPlace Software, Inc., the makers of award-winning web promotion software, WebPosition Gold [ http://www.webposition.com/ ]:
“Target the wrong keywords and all your efforts will be in vain.”
Why are keywords so important? And what indeed is a keyword? To an occasional web visitor, *keyword* wouldn’t mean much. But for a practicing webmaster, the term *keyword* is perhaps more dear than anything.
The way we search
The term *search* implicitly suggests that search engines will return the most relevant results corresponding to the search-term used. A search-term or keyword is basically a word or a combination of words – usually latter – surfers like you and me use to get results we’re looking for. People, hailing as they do, from diverse backgrounds, have typically individualistic ways to express search-terms, that differ from one another, yet aimed for identical search-result. Evidently therefore, a website wanting to occupy top positions in search-results, needs to *optimize* for varying combinations of keywords. For an idea on how searches are made using keywords, Philip Morris’ this page [ http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/search/search_help.asp ] provides a handy reference, albeit for their site.
In a press release Feb 2, 2004 [ http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox27.html ], OneStat reports that of all keyword searches on the web, 32.58% uses 2-word phrases, 25.61% 3-word phrases and only 19.02% uses 1-word phrase. According to OneStat [ http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox27.html ], global usage of both 2-word and 3-word phrases has increased over the last year, and that of 1-word phrase has actually declined during the same period.
To give another example, WebSearchWorkshop [ http://www.websearchworkshop.co.uk/stats.htm ] quotes an earlier NPD survey to show that out of an online sample of 30000 respondents, *45% search by using multiple keywords or key phrases, 28% use one keyword, 18% search by a pre-defined option (such as browsing through a directory category) and 9% search by typing in a question*.
Since achieving top rank is culmination of many efforts working in tandem, it is all the more necessary that keyword targeting is done in planned manner to remain in reckoning.
Importance of search engines
Notwithstanding growing complaint that search results are steadily loosing relevance, statistics tell us web surfers are increasingly opting for search engines as a main web activity. WebSideStory in a March 12, 2003 press release [ http://www.websidestory.com/pressroom/pressreleases.html?id=181 ] reports that search engines’ share in global internet usage has nearly doubled in the past 1 year from 7.1% to 13.4%. If a survey is done today, that figure will undoubtedly be much more impressive.
A birds-eye-view of importance of search engines can be had in this narration at iProspect [ http://www.iprospect.com/web_site_promotion/optimization_analysts.htm ]. Some pertinent points are given below:
1. A Georgia Institute of Technology study finds 85% of likely web customers prefer search engines to find their choices, and a study by RealNames reveal as much as 75% web surfers use search engines while journeying through the web.
2. 57% of net surfers are recurrent users of search engines — a popular web activity, next only to emailing.
3. Convenience is a major factor for many to locate the ideal information resource through search engines.
When seen with Global Reach [ http://glreach.com/globstats/ ] estimate of *online population* reaching 940 million in 2004, it’s fairly obvious there’ll be continuing surge of internet marketing efforts in order to attain search visibility. Innovative starategies coupled with intelligent marketing will be the hallmark of efforts to achieve prominent search rankings. In this connection, do have a look at Global Reach’s invaluable data on “Evolution of Online Linguistic Populations” [ http://global-reach.biz/globstats/evol.html ].
Keywords matter most
Though not the only weapon in webmasters’ arsenal, using relevant keywords is a must to increase possibility of prominent search rankings. The reason is rather simple. Search engines gather and collate texts in webpages and store them in databases. As a web user searches for a website like yours, it is important that the keyphrase or the keyword he uses to do so appears in your webpages. Otherwise your webpage will not show up in search results.
This underlines the need to know various keyword combinations relevant to your website, and at the same time popular. Which is to say that these are keywords mostly used by web users cutting across geographic locations.
Web searchers’ fickleness
Dr. Jim Jansen, an Assistant Professor in Pennsylvania State University�s Information Sciences and Technology (IST) in the article *Impatient web searchers measure web sites’ appeal in seconds* [ http://live.psu.edu/story/3364p ] observes “A page has to be well-designed, easy to load and relevant to a searcher’s needs.” Else, within 3-minute interval, 40% searchers will abandon the website and move over to another. 7Search (link provided under the heading ‘Keyword Tools’) provides an interesting estimate about percentage of searchers visiting your site vis-a-vis its ranking. It says a first rank is likely to fetch about 7% of search traffic, and a 10th rank just 0.35%.
The estimate above drives home another oft-repeated opinion that mere top ranking won’t translate into better sales. For that to happen, a website should be able to invoke sufficient interest among its viewers to make them stay longer.
Nevertheless, as search engine marketing gains popularity compared to other forms of advertisements, it is easy to see why good ranking in major search engines is so vital. But then, search engines bring results based on keywords or keyphrases. Without doubt therefore, the first step for success on the web is the ability to select the most relevant keywords and use them properly to derive maximum advantage.
What emerges
To summarize from the foregoing, we find that:
1. While internet population is growing tremendously, a majority of web surfers use search engines as starting platform to meet their online needs.
2. Web searchers do not want to waste time for a website if it fails to meet his expectations, even though it would have ranked high in search results.
3. A majority of web searchers prefer using multiple keywords to find their choice of websites.
Piecing facts together, what emerges is search engines’ popularity is on the rise (if not usefulness; but that’s a different story). And so too searchers’ preference to use multiple keywords to find their choice of websites.
The way forward
If convinced that keywords are lifeline of your web venture, next comes planning your keyword targeting strategy. The web is now a global phenomenon, and the potential market is no longer confined to a single location or country. That being so, a prudent approach would be to know what would people of other regions/countries look for in search engines if they want to view your site. Fortunately, there are ways to find that out.
To begin with, start querying yourself, your colleagues, friends, relatives and others as to what search-terms would aptly describe your website. Collect thereby a hundred or so keyphrases. Next, arrange at least two brainstorming sessions, spaced over a few days, in which to participate all who suggested those keyphrases. The aim will be to closely watch relative importance of keyphrases chosen and then trim the list by half, leaving out those that appear less important.
Scott Buresh in the article *Search Engine Keyphrases And The Power Of The Modifier* [ http://www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/seo/wpn-4-20040206SearchEngineKeyphrasesandthePoweroftheModifier.html ] suggests using descriptive adjectives, nouns and other suitable modifiers to appeal to wide cross-section of search traffic. And Jayde’s *Keyword Selection* [ http://www.jayde.com/set/keyword.html ] process lays down certain ground rules in order to bring in more relevancy in your keyword selection exercise.
Work out your keywords
Once your initial keyphrases are ready, comes the most important step. Take help of one or more keyword tools. With a good keyword tool, you can ‘weigh’ relevance of each of your keyphrases with actual search-terms used. In fact the keyword tool will itself suggest many other popular keyphrases, relevant to your keyphrases, some of which you wouldn’t probably have thought of. Since the keyword tools keep track of virtually all searches made on major search engines worldwide, feel assured that you’ll get the most relevant search-terms used by aggregate viewers.
Finally, armed with keyword tools’ suggestions, you’ll be ready to further prune the big list to something you feel comfortable using. Perhaps another group discussion might help to thrash out a shorter list. Remember, it is better not to use more than 4 to 5 keyphrases in one webpage, lest the *weight* per keyword (keyword density) becomes thin and not sufficient to attract search engines’ preferred attention.
At this stage, if necessary, take assistance of qualified SEO specialist or content writer to appropriately configure your webpages with selected keyphrases. Be aware that like keyword selection, keyword placement too is equally important, if not more. According to Robin Nobles [ http://www.seo-news.com/archives/2004/jan/29.html ], search engines like Google is known to pull *snippets* from any one or combination of 9 different areas of webpages in response to search queries.
Keyword tools
Keywords tools come in different hues for different applications. The most important of course are keyword selection tools. My first choice is Wordtracker [ http://www.wordtracker.com/ ], which offers free trial to get a feel of how it operates. Their paid service opens up exciting ways of *discovering* your keywords. While Wordtrackers’ is a do-it-yourself service, SEO Research Labs’ [ http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/ ] is a package offer for what they say *Keyword Research for Bottom Line Results*. Another fine tool is Web CEO’s ‘Keyword Popularity Research’, which is offered as a part of Web CEO Suite [ http://www.webceo.com/pricing.htm ].
Among other keyword selection tools, Good Keywords’ [ http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/gkw/ ] is a free software from Softnik Technologies that queries several search engines to enable you find your best choices. Yet other popular sources are:
Overture Inventory [ http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ ]
Google AdWord Keyword Suggestions [ https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox ]
7Search [ http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/keywordsuggestion.aspx ], etc.
GlobalPromoter [ http://www.globalpromoter.com/keyword_suggestion_tool.cfm ] too, among many others, provides free searching of Overture network for your keywords.
Some other useful keyword-related tools and resources are given below:
1. Marketleap’s keyword verification in search results [ http://www.marketleap.com/verify/ ]
2. KeywordStats toolbar [ http://www.keywordstats.com/ ]
3. Webjectives’ Keyword Density Analyzer [ http://www.webjectives.com/keyword.htm ]
For more resources concerning keyword research and many other web promotion topics, consider owning writer’s ebook, *Sure Web Success with 1001+ Top Web Promote Links*.
Summing up
As with any set-up where there’s a close and constant interaction with visitors, it is necessary to keep your website in top-shape, relevant, interesting and inviting. Keyword research is a vital part of website management and a continuous process. It’s worth staying glued to happenings around, and keeping track of keyword-usage pattern from your web-logs. For, who knows where you stand tomorrow in search results for your chosen keywords!
Author Bio:
For more information on keyword planning and also other web promotion resources, consider owning Partha Bhattacharya’s highly informative ebook, Sure Web Success with 1001+ Top Web Promote Links, that bridges gap between possibility and certainty of your web success. Partha’s website, EzyPost, also offers nicely-designed ready templates for websites.
