http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/ 2008-09-22T22:23:13-06:00 Sympozeum_searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com Facts and opinions from the search engine optimization / search engine marketing teams at Zunch Communications, Inc. http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/The_Amazing_Usefulness_of_Search_Engine_Analysis_Tools.html 2008-09-22T22:22:00-06:00 SEO is not something that happens by accident. Certain experts have been able to fine tune their abilities to generate results almost on a guaranteed basis. They can predict results based on actions take to optimize a website. This is not a surprise, nor is it some kind of magic, it is a matter of calculating search engine rank based on experience and exact tools.  Using search engine analysis tools can be very useful. In fact, they can mean the difference between receiving thousands of visitors and having none at all. Certain analysis tools are more useful than others, but if more tools are used, your SEO efforts can be multiplied 10 fold.  With an analysis tool you can predict how many visitors your website can potentially receive. In addition to SEO, this is can help in the market research stage of your business. Imagine making a website you planned on using SEO to promote, before doing research of the search engines. If there are no searches for the niche of your website, you will fail miserably. Many beginners fall into this trap and wonder why they are not receiving visitors even after months of effort. If the initial search base does not exist, their will be no search traffic even if your website is ranked number one.  Some search analysis tools include different data for you to study. For example, wordtracker offers not only searches per month, but also the amount of competition for the search. This makes it easy for you to see if you want to enter a market or not based on its saturation.   Another useful component of these tools is that they allow you to “dig” and find low competition key words you would never have been able to think of yourself. Finding these low competition key words quickly in many niches, will allow you to build a powerful website by building traffic from thousands of tiny traffic sources. When competition tries to inch into your niche territory, it will be too late and very difficult to beat you in ranking.  The problem with these tools is that they can sometimes be off in their analysis of searches. In some cases they can only be used as a guide to certain low competition key phrases, however, they cannot always be trusted for the exact numbers. In an attempt to fix this problem, you can use a clever tactic of finding out the true worth of a key phrase by promoting your site through adwords or any other search marketing PPC program on the Google, Yahoo, or MSN search engines.  By advertising using adwords or the other 2 search marketing programs, you receive accurate search information. If in a week you see that your advertisement was visible to 2,000 individuals, then you know that is how many visitors you can expect for your website when it is ranking number one. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Successful_Search_Engine_Marketing_is_Not_Free.html 2008-09-20T04:01:00-06:00 Many beginning Internet marketers are sent in the wrong direction when they are told that they can generate traffic and increase their search engine ranking for free. At the very least you will have to spend countless hours writing articles and submitting them to search engines. Imagine you were offering your SEO services for a client’s website, what would you charge, $15, $20, or $30 an hour? Many companies charge much more than those prices for their SEO expertise. If you were to work for 40 hours to increase your site’s ranking you “salary” would be $500 at the least.  The problem is that many new marketers think that they can get away with increasing their traffic through search engines for free with their own work, but when they finally decide to expand their organization and offer the work to others, they have trouble with the high fees many search engine optimization companies charge. In most cases search engine marketers charge at least $5,000 for any substantial amount of work. This can be hard to handle, but it is a reality.  After the internet marketer sees this price they might try to find another search engine marketer to grow their business and if they do find someone who is willing to work for $150 a month of so, it is usually a scam or the person will do poor work.  Is it even possible to receive quality search engine optimization without this high price tag? Planning is one of the best possible strategies. If you have all the aspects of SEO you want to put into action, you can hire freelancers to do the work of a single search engine optimization specialist for about one tenth of the cost.  If you have 10 key words you want to optimize on Google, to rank well, you would need to submit articles to directories, build links from many websites through link trades, social bookmark your content, post on forums, and perhaps create a free blog or two.  Many freelancers are willing to work for $8 an hour or less and work very hard for you. You can hire a different person to write articles, submit links, social bookmark, etc. Have them set to a weekly schedule and you will have a neatly organized list of freelancers working with just as much diligence and sometimes more than the $5000 SEO specialist. Many times the price tag comes from their knowledge. In this case the freelances are using your knowledge, so you cut out that extravagant fee.  On the Conversation Marketing blog Lan Lurie wrote an article titles, “10 Rules for Setting Your Internet Marketing Budget“, in which he states that SEO marketing will cost $5,000 - $50,000, but the truth is that this does not have to be. Yes the freelancer route requires a bit more monitoring and tweaking, but in the long run you can get it to work in your favor, which will pay off in the end. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Spying_on_your_Competitors.html 2008-09-18T10:34:00-06:00 For a novel marketer, spying on your competition may seem a little unethical, however, it can be a great way to learn new techniques. One of the best things about working on the Internet is that you can learn from successful sites, study the techniques they use and apply them to your own websites. This may take some time and research, but in the end, it will definitely pay off to learn the skills that can get you ranked on the top of search engines.   The most important thing when competing for the top ten spots on search engines is to know what key words to build your sites around. Before you begin, you will want to research key words and phrases and how many sites have been created around them. It is important to know who your competition is because well-known sites may be highest ranked. If you try to go against sites such as Wikipedia for key phrases, there is really very little chance of you doing better on a search engine.  You will want to be very specific about the key words that you choose. This will help you rank higher for these phrases, especially when the phrases that are searched for are in quotations. In order to beat out your competition, you will want to make sure your site accommodates exactly what people are looking for.   If you feel confidant enough that you can take away the number spot from a competitor, than by all means, go ahead. However, it is important that you proceed with caution and make sure you have knowledge on your side. In the world of Internet marketing, there is really nothing wrong with using key words that have made other sites successful, but if you are going to compete with them, it is important to know how to go about it in the right way otherwise, you may be wasting your time.   The more familiar you are with your competition and the more you know about the techniques and tricks they use, the more prepared you will be. It is important to know what they are doing so you will be able to counter it or use it, but in a better way. Thinking this way does seem a little unfair, but it is also likely that the competition is using techniques in the same way to hold the number one spot. Of course, this will take a lot of research, but there are tools available that can make the process much easier.   Using tools over the Internet is a great and free way to keep on eye on what your competitors are doing. Many times, this is the only way to successfully watch them, see how your own website is doing as well as any new information that comes up about a topic. To ensure success with Internet marketing, not only will you want to know the information your competitors are working with, but you will also want to beat them to it. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/How_Search_Engines_Rank_Websites.html 2008-09-17T12:56:00-06:00 As an Internet marketer, you know how important it is to get your site ranked highly on search engines. When people search for key phrases, search engines instantly search all websites and rank those that are most relevant at the top. Since search engines cannot be as specific as we often hope, they have to rely on websites that use the key words and hope they can deliver the sites you are looking for. The sites on the top are most often visited and so, as an Internet marketer, you will want to work towards getting your website on top.  The easiest way to do this is to use key words that are most often searched for and create websites around those words. It is important to pay attention to competition because it is likely that many other people are using the same key words. The best way to do this is by submitting articles with links to your site. The articles should relate to the key words so when search engines scan them, and quickly pick up on key phrases. Search engines can analyze how many times the key words are used and rank accordingly.     When using articles to help you to get to the top of search engines, you will want to make sure your content is fresh and original. Many people have trouble coming up with their own content and copy and paste from other highly ranked sites. This is a common mistake novel marketers make because they think if that content ranks well, their site will as well. However, when search engines rank websites, they look for copied content and sites with duplicates will not do as well as the original site.   When search engines rank sites based on the key words, the HTML title tag is very important. You will want to include relevant phrases in the title tag because when search engines scan sites, usually they rank those that have key phrases in the title tag because they are most likely relevant to the topic. Adding the key phrase in the title tag can be done through coding when you first begin creating the site.   Link popularity is another method search engines use to rank websites. Link popularity is measured by the amount and quality of links pointing to your website. This can be hard to measure, but as a simple method you can assume that links from websites on the top of Google are considered high quality for your situation. Google’s algorithm assumes that websites that are linked to by sites that are known as relevant in their niche are important themselves, which increases their ranking.  It can be very important to your success as an Internet marketer to know how search engines rank sites. If your sites do not get on the first page, it is less likely customers will see them. Once you understand how the sites are ranked, you can work around these methods. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Multiplying_your_SEO_efforts_by_10X.html 2008-09-16T11:42:00-06:00 Search engine marketing can be seen as an equation. You either have to equate man hours or money into the effort. SEO is something that can only be done by a person. There is no machine that generates search engine optimized content with all relevant links pointing to it. Search engine marketing requires a marketing professional who knows different aspects of SEO and can utilize their knowledge to increase a web site’s ranking. Even if there were a machine that could carry on SEO endeavors, it would surely cost money to operate.  So, now that SEO can be broken down into a simple to understand notion of either money or time, the best way to improve efforts is to either lower cost or increase the productivity of the time. By lowering the cost, you will probably lose quality of your SEO efforts, so it may be better to stick with the idea of increasing productivity.  SEO has a very complicated meaning and there are many different activities you must involve yourself in when trying to increase search engine ranking. You might want to submit articles to article directories, create a blog with links pointing to your website or post in a forum with a link in your signature.  In each aspect of SEO you can increase productivity. You can, for example, purchase software to automate your forum posting, article writing, and blog posting in order to increase productivity. They require some time to set up and monitor, but they greatly increase your efforts. Additionally, you may want to increase your output by adding a labor force to your efforts. This may cost you money instead of time, but you will have time freed up for more promotional activities.   Finally, one of the best methods of increasing efficiency can be found in your efforts with article marketing. When submitting your articles, make sure you have more than one website to promote. More than one website can mean 15-20 different free blogs or websites all about the same topic.   All these blogs and websites should link to your website. Each article you post to the article directories allows more than 1 link, so you can post links to 2 different blogs or websites with every article. Google only counts so many links coming from one website to count towards your link popularity, a major aspect of search engine ranking.  At the end of just a few short months and at least 100 articles, you will have a network of blogs and websites that will boost your main website’s ranking to the top of any search engine and you will have never had to do any work with your SEO efforts. Each article takes the same amount of time and the resource boxes take the same amount of energy and money to complete. The only extra effort was the initial building of the blogs, but in the long run you can see that it was worth it.   Increasing efficiency is the best strategy for boosting your search engine marketing efforts. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Basic_Search_Engine_Marketing_Tips.html 2008-09-12T15:43:00-06:00 Search engine marketing is a must for Internet marketers. For novel marketers, these tips can be crucial to the success of your website. When first starting out Internet marketing, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself before you can ensure the success of your website. Many marketers go into the business unprepared and this can severely lower the chances of getting the website noticed. Questions to Ask Yourself Actually being noticed by search engines is the first place to begin; you cannot be successful if search engines do not pick up your site. Ask yourself, can my website be found? If you cannot find it, no one else will be able to either. One of the most important things to know in order to be successful in search engine marketing is your competition. You should know the tactics that are being used so you can create your sites in a way that will be ranked higher than your competitors. The number one question you will want to ask yourself is if this is something you want to do. The whole point of search engine marketing is to rank on search engines and have your sites noticed and the only way to do this is to put a lot of time and effort into your work. Once you are set on what you want to accomplish, you are ready to apply these tips. Search Engine Marketing Methods There are many practiced methods that have proved successful to search engine marketing. A few of these methods include search engine optimization, paid placement and paid inclusion. When done properly, these methods can help your website become easily available on search engines. Search engine optimization is increasing the amount of traffic driven to your site and can help boost your site on search engines. Paid placement is a method used where the marketer will receive money every time advertisements linking to their site are clicked on. The more they are clicked, the more money you will make and the more popular your site will be. Paid inclusion allows search engines to charge a fee for website inclusion, but your website will be seen more often and will lead to you ranking on the search engine. Of course, you may have to put in money in the beginning of your Internet marketing, but it will pay off in the long run. Staying on Top Once you get your site visible to search engines and consistently attracting customers, it is important that you keep this spot and your popularity. You will want to make sure your site is the best by keeping new and fresh content, staying knowledgeable about your competitors, and keeping your website interesting and eye catching. These tips are basically the beginning in your Internet marketing. Remember that it may take time for these tips to actually yield results, but if done correctly, they can help you to become very successful. Finding the right tips that will earn your site income may also take some time and research. As with any business, there is much more than a few simple tips and methods and it will take work and perseverance. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/SEM_Marketing_Tips_Three_Easy_Ways_to_Get_Selling_Online.html 2008-09-12T15:41:00-06:00 Many people struggle when it comes to SEM marketing or Search Engine Marketing because they fail to properly understand how the system in place works. Another common mishap along this often trotted upon and grossly overlooked avenue to making money online, is that people fail to realize the SEM system in place actually works in their favor. And let’s be honest. Most people who are interested in learning about SEM marketing are only interested in it because they want to get online and start selling products and services to make money. But there are easier ways that you can go about doing this as opposed to overpaying for a local web designer to build you a custom website, holding and tracking your own inventories and then trying to find traffic and get good rankings. There are some really easy ways that you can garner lots of web traffic and high search engine results rankings without going for broke in the process. So without further ado, here are some candid SEM tips that will allow you get online and start selling fast, and see those search engine results you have so desired. Use a store hosting company. The best SEM marketing tips that I can offer you is to save yourself the hassle, time and money and open a store on an existing site that hosts them. This way all you do is add your tags and your products and boom, you are in business. All you pay is a monthly fee and their SEM system will automatically garner you high rankings in the search engines. Buy targeted traffic. Once you do have your website or online store active, buy targeted traffic. There are a number of really well know and rather large search engine optimization firms that specialize in SEM marketing, who can easily sell you targeted consumer traffic for a lot less money than you think that it may cost. This will splurge your website with unique hits and we all know the more hits, the more sales. Start a blog and use articles for added content. The most effective way to go about promoting your website online is by offering relevant and recent content. You can do this by adding a blog that has an RSS feed (Wordpress is great) or you can even go the extra mile and add an article database. Optimize your keywords and you will start to see SEM results in short period of time. Index your website and add a sitemap. Another surefire route to SEM success is assuring that your website is indexed with all of the major search engines. You can usually buy packages online for relatively cheap that will get you indexed with all the good engines for about a hundred bucks. Finally, get a sitemap and implement it to your website so that all of your pages with relevant content are mapped by the major search engines, greatly increasing your rankings. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/5_Biggest_Lies_of_Internet_Marketing.html 2008-09-12T15:37:00-06:00 Many entrepreneurs feel that they have to build their Web site first and then decide who to market their products or services to. That’s like a restaurateur deciding who their going to market their winning dish to on the week of their grand-opening. Imagine a restaurant that specializes in fine cuisine advertising to a burger and fries market. See, how ridiculous it sounds. The same thing goes to marketing your business on the Internet. Your Web site should clearly describe your specialty and the benefits of your product or service. Your web content should to be so tight that it clearly explains to your visitors why they should do business with you. In addition, your site should contain useful articles related to your product or service and samples in relation to your expertise. The following are five popular myths about Internet Marketing: All you need is a great web site Having a ten thousand dollar Web site with flash and spectacular graphics created by the best design team in the industry will not guarantee you sales. Your primary focus should be on building service that’s second to none. In order to achieve this, you must know exactly who you are marketing to even before you build your Web site. More Web site traffic equals more profits Before dipping into your marketing budget for pay-per-click listings, web directories and banner advertisements, have your current customers and business associates critique your Web site. You want to make certain that your future visitors will actually want to buy your product or service once they enter your site. During the critique, your current customers and associates should know exactly what you are offering right off the bat. They should be able to clearly describe the benefits of purchasing your product or service. Ask them if they felt motivated to do business with you after viewing your Web site. Build your mailing list from any source Building your mailing list from promotional gimmicks may bring temporary traffic to your site but it will not lead to sales—trust me on this one. You should acquire your opt-in mailing list from qualified leads. For instance, have your site visitors join your mailing list and invite people you network with off-line. Another way to build a client list is creating a well-written blog related to your products or services. Having "salesy” copy will boost your sales Your web content should exemplify professionalism. Your prospects will get turned off if your site is riddled with salesy content. If writing web content isn’t your cup of tea, by all means, hire a professional copywriter to write it for you. When hiring a copywriter make sure that they specialize in web content not just print media. Follow the get-rich-quick-on-the-Internet of the month scheme Your web message should never scream ‘desperate for a quick buck’. The only way that you can build wealth from your business on the web is by focusing on building a long-term business relationships with your customers. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/How_Lack_of_Marketing_Can_Place_Your_Business_in_a_Slump_.html 2008-09-09T19:18:00-06:00 Most business owners are extremely cautious with their online marketing spending habits.  The first thing they do before investing any money into marketing and advertising, they plan a solid online marketing campaign.  As a result of their efforts, they reap good “benes”.  On the flip side, however, there are those business owners that totally abandon the idea of effective marketing all together.  Many figure:  There are over 1 million potential customers online – I have a great Web site to draw visitors – the money should start rolling in at any moment...10, 9, 8, 7…And two years later they’re still counting. If you fail to develop a marketing plan, you are simply setting your business up for failure. The following will be the end result of your marketing efforts if you avoid careful planning: You will have low sales and conversion rates You will rarely receive requests for your products or services Wasted bucks on traffic leads will offer no conversion from your traffic Your business will more than likely flop So, what do you need to do in order to get your business out of a slump? You need to develop an effective Internet Marketing Strategy that will ultimately point you towards hitting your target market.  So, basically, you need to sit back, relax and create a short-term and long-term strategy.  For example, a short term strategy is one that will bring you a temporary traffic to your Web site (purchasing advertising, web directories and search engines).   Your long-term strategy is one that brings your Web site a consistent flow of targeted traffic over a prolonged period of time. This consists of strategies that will produce continued results for 3 to 5+ years. An example of this would be offering your visitors opt-in lists and giving away freebies, etc.  When you have a strategy, your end result will be a constant flow of targeted traffic to your Web site. Try a New Product Feature to Maximize Your Marketing Campaign Now that you’re finally headed in the right direction (hopefully you are) there are a few online products currently available on the Internet to help you accomplish this goal.  For example, this week, Microsoft announced a new feature added to their Dynamics CRM Online product.  If you’re a CRM customer, you can now monitor your marketing campaign's effectiveness.  You can capture sales leads from your Web sites, view click-through rates, and much more.  Before this product launched, there was no way of truly monitoring the value of your online marketing efforts, so, now you can.  With this product, you can determine which marketing techniques bring in the most sales and which techniques do not. See, this is the reason why so many business owners enjoy Internet marketing as opposed to off-line marketing. Today’s innovative online marketing concepts are fully loaded with a variety of options to help you not only advertise your business but to manage it as well. Robert Njonjo http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Cut_Marketing___Advertising_Dollars_in_Half_with_SEM.html 2008-09-05T16:19:00-06:00 What is one of the most popular marketing programs available on the Internet at the moment? Affiliate marketing.  With this program, there’s no need to invade your savings account because unlike traditional forms of marketing and advertising, you save thousands.  The average small to medium-sized business owner doesn’t have to place expensive ads in glossy magazines or spend thousands of dollars on billboard advertising – in most cases - you only receive a few leads.  Plus you do not have to open a call center and hire telemarketers to promote your products or services.  With affiliate marketing, there’s absolutely no financial risk involved.  Entrepreneurs and business owners have fallen in love with this program because you only have to pay for the results. Basically, how this program works is that you pay your affiliate partners a fee for each sale that they make.  So, even if a partner doesn’t make a sale one week, you don’t have to pay for their time. And with traditional marketing, you have to foot the bill regardless of whether or not you received a lead ---I don’t know about you, but that is just a little too risky. When choosing affiliate marketing, keep in mind that the Internet is saturated with affiliate marketing programs.  So, if you want to have a successful campaign, it's crucial that your affiliate program is unique and captures the attention of professional affiliate marketers. The following are a few tips on how to create an affiliate marketing program that will separate you from the rest of the programs out there: First, you must have a niche market. When a prospect enters your web site, they should know exactly what you are selling.  If you are selling timeshares, you shouldn’t sell a selection of items that aren’t related. Keep it simple and stay focused on one market. Next step - find niche partners who own web sites that has visitors that are interested in your niche market. Don’t do business with flakes. Find people who are motivated and already have experience with affiliate marketing. So, your affiliate partners should already have traffic.  Find new partners by advertising your program on your web site or advertise in affiliate marketing directories, there are several available online. Even though you may have a team of partners, always search for new partners just in case one decides to quit. Always send out updates to your partners on a consistent basis.  This will keep them up to speed on your new products and services or any changes. Also, you should supply them with tips on how they can be successful in marketing your products and services.  Make your affiliate partners marketing job as simple as possible. You should provide them with attractive promotional material - this will save them time. Establishing a successful affiliate marketing program will help increase your sales in a big way. Just keep in mind that having a successful program takes time and patience to build. Robert Njonjo