Suggestions For Generating Traffic!

Suggestions For Generating Traffic!

Everyone who owns a web site wants and needs to get more traffic to their site. Getting traffic is one thing....keeping that traffic coming back to your site is still another chore.

The first consideration for our site is to optimize our site for the search engines. If we construct our web site with the potential customer and the search engines in mind we can have a well balanced site that the search engines will link and then the engines will point future clients to our site for free. This is accomplished by optimizing our site with keyword rich content. The engines then will position your site with a good page rank which will help us to be seen by the general public.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is still the most powerful way to get traffic. You need to learn and understand what SEO is all about so you can take advantage of the benefits of a quality, optimized web site....and the traffic that it generates.

Once you have built that good looking site and optimized it for the search engines, don't just let it set there. Frequently update the content of your site. As your knowledge grows about online marketing...update your content to reflect that knowledge. Content is King with the search engines. By updating often and keeping your site current with fresh helpful content you will build a loyal customer base and an audience of people coming back to your site knowing they will get quality information they are looking for. The search engines love this new content as well and will reward you with higher page ranks.

Bookmarking sites are gaining a lot of popularity these days and is another way to promote your business opportunity for free. This author does not recommend any one bookmarking site over another. Each of these venues have different guidelines so my suggestion would be to do some basic research and find which of these sites would best serve your marketing needs.

Social networks can also work to your advantage when looking for free traffic. Some are reporting that they get more traffic from the social network site than from the search engines. This process may take a lot of time, however, most individuals using this type of traffic generation feel it is well worth the time invested for the results they enjoy from this type of media.

The key to getting traffic is to use any type of contact you can to promote you business opportunity. Free traffic from free promotions is always welcome, so don't neglect this avenue of promoting. You may want to consider other forms of promotion as well. There are a number of methods I use on a regular basis. Free classified ads, submissions to web directories, writing and posting to blogs, message boards, submitting articles to article directories has all worked well for me. Investigate some of these methods and see if they might work for you.

Many times you can drive traffic to your site by offering something useful or for free. As the popularity of your site grows more and more people will make it a habit to visit your site and may look at some of your products and make a purchase. These visitors may start recommending your product or services to their friends. This is what it's all about.

When you start seeing results from the scenario we just discussed, then you will see your content spreading like a virus...this is referred to in the online business community as viral marketing. You will see your popularity starting to grow, article directories will start picking up on your articles and the distribution of your content will become a massive information center that will be published by several different sources for distribution. Having other individuals or companies distribute your information is an excellent way to become a recognized leader in this information era.

Make sure you continue to use the offline methods of promotion as well. Put your URL on your business cards, bumper stickers, souvenirs, T-shirts and any other methods of advertising you are already involved in. Make yourself and your business well known so when a person thinks of your product or service they think of you. Name recognition is vital for online success.

Make it a habit to include your URL in your signature with everything you do online. People like to know a little bit about you and your business opportunity. Make it easy for them to click on a link in your signature to learn more about you and your business. Point it to your web site or wherever you want, but make it convenient for them to get hold of you. Put your phone number in the signature if you want. This is an excellent way for people to contact you for additional information.

If you have additional questions or need some personal mentoring you can contact the eBiz Solutions Team at the contact information listed below. Call today for your free 30 minute consultation.

"Lets's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

New Domains vs Aged Domains!

New Domains vs Aged Domains!

There are many things that Google, Yahoo, MSN (Bing) factor into their algorithm when considering page rank of your web site. One of those factors is the age of the domain. The older the domain the better....it will give the search engines an appearance of longevity thus giving a higher relevancy score with the search engines. People put more faith in a business that has been around for awhile...so does the search engines. One good idea would be to purchase your domain as long in advance as you can.

There are two factors that are considered when the search engines are looking the age of a domain. First of all the age of the web site. More times than not the search engines will put your domain in a holding cell known in the industry as the "sandbox". The sandbox theory can last for 3-4 months or longer. We will talk a bit more about that later in this article. The other factor is the length of time your domain has been registered.

The age of the web site is based on how long the site has been on the web and how long the site has actually had content included on the site. Another factor is how long the site has been promoted or when the last update on a site has occurred.

The search engines will also take into consideration when the domain was registered and for how long. The longer the registration time (two, five or even 10 years) the more the search engines will give relevancy to your site. Little things which we would normally consider as unimportant can accumulate into either a good thing for recognition or a bad thing because we didn't pay attention to these little details.

Recently Google made some additional changes that will affect our page ranks. They now look at the incoming links and how old they are. They take into consideration the age of the web site content and the date the domain was registered. There was a lot of other things that was changed, however, we won't discuss those changes in this writing.

We mentioned earlier about the "sandbox effect"...this is one way the search engines uses to minimize search engine spam. By giving a waiting period this will allow the search engines to see if your site is going fall off line or is your site going to stay around for a while.

If you are in the sandbox there are some things you can do while your waiting to get out of the sandbox. You can hone your writing skill by writing articles about your opportunity and post that information to blogs, forum, ezines or article directories. You can also concentrate on links and back links to your site or maybe even some pay-per-click. If you continue promoting your site during the sandbox penalty phase, when you emerge you may come out with a respectable page rank.

Don't get discouraged here, this is just part of the process. Keep on working as if you had a high page rank and everything will work out to your advantage in the end. You many have to work a bit harder than you like, however, the reward will far outweigh the efforts you put into this part of the process.

You may want to consider a domain name that was registered before and let go for whatever reason. This may help you to avoid the sandbox effect. Most pre-owned sites with a page rank will cost you more than a new domain. Depending on your situation the extra expense may be well spent. Your renewal per year will revert back to normal renewal rates.

Keep track of your domain age so you can compare your site to your competitors web site age. If the competitors site age is much older than your site they may have a bit of an advantage with the search engines.

In Summary....make sure you register your domain for as long as you can afford. I recommend five to ten years if possible. This will indicate to the search engines that you plan to stay around for awhile. This will help to increase your score with the search engine regarding your domain's age. Register your domain name as far in advance as you can.

There's not one single factor that regulates this process....so do your homework and understand the various aspects of search engine positioning. There are many factors in the algorithms the search engines use to position your site on the interent. Understanding as many factors of how the search engines look at your site for ranking....this will help you in building your opportunity for the maximum efficiency....now and in the future.

If you have additional questions or need some personal mentoring you can contact the eBiz Solutions Team at the contact information listed below. The Team is standing by to assist you in your "quest for online success".

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

How Do Spiders See A Web Site!

How Do Spiders See A Web Site!

When we set out to do a marketing campaign, we never know for sure how receptive the search engines are going to be when reviewing your web site. There are no guarantee that the search engines will index the site or whether our web site will earn that coveted page one ranking we all strive for. We do know for sure that if we don't follow some basic search engine guidelines we will definitely fail. On the other side of the coin we do know that if we follow those basic steps our chances are good we will earn a respectable page rank with Google, Yahoo and MSN (Bing).

All search engines send their spiders to a web site and all the spiders follow the same basic principles. The spiders function is to crawl your web site and index the pages of that site. The information gathered is stored in a database and then the search engines will use their secret algorithms to make several determinations. Some of the things they will rule on is the keyword density, keyword stuffing, relevancy, linking and more.

What we want to talk about today is what those search engines are interested in....to make the determination of your page rank. It is imperative for us to know what those robots, spiders and search engines are looking for so we can include that information in our web site. If you don't know what these rules and guidelines are all about, then do your research and learn what this process requires for gaining recognition of the search engines before you do something foolish.

Search engine spiders are robots and don't view a web page the same as a human being would. They only read text and are blind to Flash, JavaScript, scrolling text and the list goes on and on. There is nothing wrong with having a good looking site with lots of eye appeal because all the flash etc. is for the human observer. Just remember without your site being indexed with the search engines, your site may never be seen. Therefore, it is important to give the search engine spiders what they are looking for so the algorithms of the search engine will work to your full advantage.

When optimizing your web site keep in mind that Frames is a train wreck waiting to happen. Frames may be good in terms of design but the search engines doesn't like frames so avoid them when building your web site. If you question this statement, then find a Spider Simulator Tool and see just how many inbound and outbound hyperlinks the search engines picks up. The report page will be almost blank in every case. If the search engines don't like frames and don't recognize them, then why put them in your site at all. Good relevant content in HTML code is the what the engines like.

Search Engine Spiders are a lot like text browsers...they don't see anything that is not part of the text. Having an image with text in it means absolutely nothing to the spiders....they will totally ignore it. If you know a bit about source codes and ALT attributes there are ways you may be able to make a workaround in this situation. Too many keywords here can get some deductions and penalties due to keyword stuffing.

Make sure your hyperlinks are all live and lead to the right place. A dead hyperlink or one leading to the wrong place can become the turning point for the spiders to index your site....or not. Make sure any link exchange that has put a link on your site is genuine. Many of these links may be in javascript using mouse overs to make the link look genuine, however, since the search engines don't like javascript the won't pick up the link and will not display the link. I am always very cautious regarding reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is great but make sure you monitor those links to make sure they are not fake. Make sure your link stays on the other site you've exchange links with. Many will get your link on their web site and very soon pull your link off of their site. If you don't catch it, then you end up with a one way link from them to you only.

If you are uncertain on how to do any of the suggestions listed above, "Google It" and do some research and understand the concept before experimenting. Spending a little bit of time and understanding what the search engine robots, spiders and search engines are looking for will save you a ton of headaches in the future.

If you have any questions, or need some personal mentoring, you can contact the eBiz Solutions Team at the contact information listed below. Our Team is standing by to assist you in your marketing challenges.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

Web Directories!!

Web Directories!!

Web Directories are distinctly different than search engines and have a totally different function in the use of each of there aspects of Search Engine Optimization. Most SEO organizations don't consider the value of posting your opportunity in web directories, link directories and classified ad directories. It is the opinion of this author that, a great deal of positive results and search engine recognition is missed by neglecting the use of this powerful method of creating links, back links and reciprocal links. Many of these links become permanent links for your site.

Let's look to Wikipedia (The Free Encyclopedia) and see their description of Web Directories.

"A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.

A web directory is not a search engine and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords; instead, it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness."

There is a definite place in search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO)for this valuable method of earning link popularity. Another form of an effective directory would be the RSS Directories. These directories contain RSS feed links that are extremely powerful when promoting your online opportunity.

Most all directories are human edited, so you may or may not get your listing in a particular directory. The human editor may even place your listing in a totally different category or sub category which may better serve your link relevancy. Be patient when looking for your recent post because the human edited sites may take 5 or 6 months to get around to approving your site for submission. Depending on the directory and the author...you may not get listed at all. Don't get discouraged here, there are plenty of other directories you can post to.

Most links once submitted become permanent links. Permanent links are great, since these links just set there and work for you day in and day out. Some directories are free, however, some do charge a small one time charge for the submission. You can choose to have your links as a premium link which will cost you a bit more money to be positioned at or near the top of the category you choose. Which ever method you choose, it is well worth the small investment in comparison to the value you will receive for your efforts.

Many of the directories have a limited amount of categories and are somewhat general in their overall scope of the categories offered. Most will have twenty to twenty-four categories with various sub-categories for your convenience. Sometimes you can find a niche directory that will fit your opportunity better than the general type of directory. When you find such a directory, placing more than one classified ad, links and RSS feed links in that directory. This should enhance your promotion efforts for your business.

Some Open Directory Project directories may also be powerful and assist you in your marketing efforts. This type of directories have hundreds and thousands of categories and sub categories so you can pick and choose where you prefer your information to appear. With this type of directory you can be specific not only in the category but in a specific area of the category such as a particular State, County, City or Town that you want to target. This type of laser focusing is great, however, the amount of response may be little to none because of the narrow area of interest regarding your online offering.

There is much talk in the SEO community of how effective these directories may be. It has been my experience, if a person is cautious about where they put their listings, and make a blend of the various types of directories, this type of promotion can evolve into an extremely powerful method of creating links, back links and reciprocal links to your web site. Experiment with this concept a little and see if this method is right for you. Each marketing campaign is uniquely different to the last project, so the more you know....the greater the chances are you might stumble onto something that will click and result in a profitable outcome.

Since there are numerous types of directories being offered in todays market we can not cover all the differences of what they do....both good or bad. If this type of marketing appeals to you....then I would recommend you do some home work and understand what each type of these directories does and....then make a choice of whether you can meld this part of SEO strategy into your business opportunity. Whether it's a free submission, a paid submission or a reciprocal link exchange you need to understand before you include this process in your overall campaign strategy.

If you have additional questions or need some personal mentoring, you can contact a member of our eBiz Solutions Team at the contact information listed below. Call today for your free 30 minute consultation.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

Helpful SEO Tips!

Helpful SEO Tips!

SEO Campaigns are a necessary part of marketing successfully on line. Choosing the right keywords can make your marketng campaign a success, however, choosing the wrong keyword can be a total disaster. Without some knowledge of what the search engines are looking for you probably won't use all the correct keywords to give your web site the edge you need to earn top positions on Google , Yahoo and MSN (Bing).

You may feel you know the great keywords that will make the difference in your web sites success and failure. Well, maybe or maybe not. You should consider investing in a good keyword suggestion tool that will help you find the right keywords. Google's Keyword tool is free and will give you the most searched for keywords and keyword phrases.

Another common mistake is people leave the title tag in their source code empty. This is one of the crucial areas that needs to be completed because what you put in the title tag shows up in the search results as your page title. The title tag being constructed properly is one of the important parts of search engine optimization.

A lot of web site builders will include a lot of flash, pictures and scrolling text. This is fine for the viewers of your site, however, the search engines only read text. If you want to use flash in your site and you want the search engine to recognize it at all, you must provide an html version. The search engines do not like flash because the spiders can't read flash content....and therefore can't index it.

The search engines do not read JavaScript either. However, you can use JavaScript for navigation as long as you understand the search engines don't like JavaScript and build your web pages accordingly. By building a sitemap or putting your links in a no script tag, your links will be crawlable to the search engine spiders.

Don't be mislead that once you optimize your site you never have to look at that part of the site ever again. To keep up with the ongoing changes and be successful with your site, please understand you need to be consistently optimizing our site. The changes in the algorithms of the search engines changes on a regular bases, so keep up with the changes. Your competitors are probably keeping on top of this process, so should you, otherwise you'll get left in the dust.

A good strategy is to do your research on the meta keywords, meta tags and description. Doing a partial job here is going to cost you a lot of page rank in the future. There are no shortcuts here. This is where the search engines acquires their information to show people your site.....when a person does a search query for your product or service in a particular category. This is also where the person searching gets a brief description about your business opportunity. I think you are beginning to see the value of this information to both the search engines and the general public.

Another concern is that many people think an image is more attractive in the header than text. An image may be all right, however, this could be a big mistake because on headings and menus you should be using the heading h1 thru h6 tags. Using the heading tags instead of images is important to any search engine optimization effort. If you insist on using an image, you should modify your source code and use style sheets.

A good keyword rich URL will also help you with the search engines. A dynamic page name will work but not as well as a URL with a couple of keywords mixed in the URL. By having some keywords in your URL will give you an advantage over your competition. It appears that MSN (Bing) and Yahoo are more particular on this issue than Google. Even with Google their relative weight is still very high. If at all possible just make it a standing rule to include some keywords in your URLs.

A few quality back links is a far greater value than being linked to a series of ffa farms, forums, newsgroups and questionable message boards and smut sites. Being linked to some of these sites could ultimately get you banned with many of the search engines. What you need is quality back links with high ranked web sites for the maximum effectiveness. This is one area of your site that more is not better. Here quality back links is more important than quantity.

Last but not least is the use of your keywords. It is imperative to have your keywords in your source code, but equally important is the keywords in the content of your site. Blend the keywords in the content where they make sense. Do not overdue the use of the keywords as we pointed out in one of recent articles your keywords should be no more than 5-7% of total words in your site. Spread the keywords thru the content rather than using the same keyword over and over in a sentence. This will avoid being accused of keyword stuffing. An acceptable way of pointing out keywords is to highlight them, bold or italic the word or both.

If there is a segment of this article that doesn't make sense or you just don't understand, then study that part and become totally clear on how to put your site together for maximum exposure to the search engines and the general public. The time you spend here is well worth the effort.

If you have any questions or need some personal mentoring, the eBiz Solutions Team is standing by to assist you in your marketing needs. Call today for your free 30 minute consultation.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller 121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

Setting Realistic Goals!

Setting Realistic Goals!

Goal setting is an personal issue. When setting a goal it should be a very specific, measurable objective. One must have a time-targeted thought in mind when setting such a goal. Setting Realistic Goals is important for a positive outcome of any goal.

Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia says:

"Effective goals should be tangible, specific, realistic and have a time targeted for completion. There must be realistic plans to achieve the intended goal. For example, setting a goal to go to Mars on a shoe string budget is not a realistic goal, while setting a goal to go to Hawaii as a backpacker is a possible goal with possible, realistic plans."

Work on the theory of goal-setting suggests that it's an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants in a group with a common goal are clearly aware of what is expected from them if an objective is to be achieved. On a personal level, setting goals is a process that allows people to specify then work towards their own objectives - most commonly with financial or career-based goals."

There are a number of well know speakers who have made their living suggesting various types of goal setting. When we think of goal setting, the first thing we normally do is write it down and hang on the frig or mirror so it can be observed several times a day. The purpose of this of course is to keep a constant reminder in front of us as a remindere. There's nothing wrong with this idea, however, most of us soon forget why we made such a goal in the first place.

To achieve our goal we must do something more than just the norm in our lives. Each of us will follow a different path when pursuing our goals and as a result will have a different outcome.

In a recent article I had the priviledge of reading and I quote; "Goals provide a sense of direction and purpose" (Goldstein, 1993, p. 96).[vague] Locke et al. (1981)[vague] examined the behavioral effects of goal-setting, concluding that 90% of laboratory and field studies involving specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than easy or no goals".

In a business environment, there is somewhat of a competitive spirit when the management encourages the employees to put forth additional efforts. Here the goals are being set by the employer in an effort to challenge all the members of a specific group and knowing full well that there are going to be some in that group who will lead the way because of their competitive spirit. This will make the over achiever look superior, however, it will make the person at the bottom of the list look bad.

"Some managers would believe it is sufficient to urge employees to 'do their best', Locke and Latham have a clear contradicting view on this. The authors state that people who are told to 'do their best' will not do so. 'Doing your best' has no external referent which implies that it is useless in eliciting specific behavior."

When goals are set by someone else, it is human nature for or natural goals and ideas to be suppressed. In order for an employee to effectively be motivated then....would be for the goal(s) to be challenging above and beyond the normal scope of their duties.

Let's talk for a moment about our personal goals. We must believe in ourselves that we can attain our goals. Unrealistic goals will quench the desire to fulfill our goals. If our goals are realistic, then it will act as an energizer; higher goals will induce greater efforts, however, setting lower goals will encourage lessor efforts.

In summary: Believe in yourself that you are able to achieve your goals. Set goals that you are confident you can attain. Put forth the extra efforts to attain your goals. Keep track of your performance....without some form of feedback it is impossible to adjust for over performing or under performing. These aspects of setting goals and fulfilling those goals then becomes a unified effort with positive results.

If you need assistance in this part of your business life, the eBiz Solutions Team is standing by to assist you in your marketing goals. You can contact a member of our team at the contact information listed below.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!

Best Keywords!

Best Keywords!

Keywords are an important part of every aspect of marketing on line. From the time you set down and design a web site....build the site and publish to the internet.....then signing up a new client, keywords have played the critical role in that process.

When you decide to promote your web site....again keywords and keyword phrases are the first thing we look for. Without good keywords there is no direction for the search engines to find your product or service and to show your site to potential clients.

When doing an email campaign, keywords play that all important role once again. If you write an email advertisement for your next project and you don't specify what your offering is all about no one is going to pay attention to what your trying to promote....therefore the email campaign is not effective.

Keywords refers to a search term that an individual would type into the Google search bar trying to find a product or service. Put yourself in the role of that person looking for your product. What would you type in the search bar? Search the keyword you just submitted and see what comes up in the search results. Do this with several keywords or phrases and then do research on those words by using some keyword checking tools or services and see how popular that phrase may be. Do this several times until you have accumulated a dozen or so specific keywords and then build your keyword list using the most popular keywords and phrases. Having 300-500 characters in the source code of your site is acceptable. Less keywords than that of course.....for an article or email.

This process is tedious and time consuming for most of us, however, without this important process you will never gain the knowledge of how to build an effective web site or build an profitable marketing campaign. Keywords can refer to a single word or you can use a keyword phrase. Sometime long tail keywords are more powerful than just one word, however, with a single keyword you can laser focus your information to a narrow segment of individuals on line. If someone responds to a single keyword search, that person becomes about as good a sales lead as you can generate.

Your keywords must be specific - but they must be 1) relevant to your business opportunity 2) be relative to your product and/or service your promoting 3) be relevant to your target audience 4) relevant to the industry. If you keep these four items in mind you will end up choosing some powerful keywords for your next marketing campaign.

Identifying keywords that will convert to sales is the whole purpose of this exercise. Therefore, keywords are the most important part of any successful online venture. Laser focus your attention to finding those all important keywords and don't be afraid to add new keywords as they come to mind and do the research of their relevancy to your web site or marketing campaign. If the new keyword applies, then add it to your source code of your site and use that word in further campaigns.

There are a number of helpful sites specifically designed for generating keywords. One of the most helpful ones that I personally use is the free Google Keyword Tool. There you will find keywords and phrases that are the most popular keywords on just about any subject you could think of. There may be a couple of hundred words that Google will offer that may trigger your thought process for exactly the right one for your particular campaign. Google will not offer content for your site but they can help you narrow your keywords search rather quickly. You can visit some other high ranking site regarding your product or service and see what buzz words they may be using to promote their opportunity. This will give you some additional ideas that may work for you....Use your imagination here and see which combination of keywords and phrases works to your advantage.

There are two types of keywords we must consider. There are Research keywords which are rather general. Research keywords is what an individual may use when looking for information about a product or service. One example....would be "puppies" as a general keyword, however, if your interest was for a particular breed, then your keywords become more focused on the Buying side of this process. The general keywords here will generate a broader type of client where the specific breed query will focus on a narrower segment of the puppy market.

Keywords and Keyword Phrases are in my opinion the most important part of effective search engine optimization and search engine marketing. Without good relative keywords your marketing campaign will be less than successful. Choose your keywords and phrases wisely and then use them effectively in everything you are promoting. Good luck in research and marketing endeavor.

If you have additional questions or need some personal mentoring, the eBiz Solutions Team is standing by to help you find what works for building your online future. Call today for your free 30 minute consultation.

"Let's Build Your Business Together"

Larry L Miller SEM/SEO Consulting

Private Line: 321-594-4405
Skype: larrylmiller121

The Most Powerful Link on the Internet!