Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Here’s an article about the idea that search engines like “fresh” content, which is true. Some people react to that by making changes to content on existing pages. Changing an existing page doesn’t help. It confuses the search engine at best. They explain what “fresh” content really means for SEO.
The real opportunity with “fresh” content concerns adding new content (new pages) on a regular basis. Adding new pages provides a number of benefits: Each new web page added to the website creates a new entry point and a new destination for links from other websites. Creating topically specific pages with text, images, video or other media provide a better user experience and gives other websites interesting content to link to. Of course a quantity of quality links from other relevant websites increases direct traffic and can positively influence search engine visibility, sending even more qualified visitors.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/07/seo-telephone-game-fresh-content/
Posted in SEO |
Monday, June 28th, 2010
The 10 for 10 Challenge
The easiest and fastest way to build traffic to your site is to post comments on other sites, using your web address.
This does two things. First, it builds inbound links to your site, boosting your SEO and ultimately getting more traffic from search engines. Second, there’s an immediate effect of having the site owner, other readers, and commenters become aware of you, which might lead them to check out your site, using the link in the comment.
This works for both other blogs and for forums. It also works on Facebook and Twitter, but I’m not convinced that it works as effectively there. Maybe you can prove me wrong on that point. There are a lot of people who read this site that have Etsy shops. Their forums are a great place to post.
I want to help you out, my precious readers. I want you to have a direct benefit from reading this blog. So, here’s what I’m going to do.
The Challenge
I’m announcing the “10 for 10 Challenge”.
Post at least 10 comments on other people’s sites for 10 days in a row. That’s a total of at least 100 comments.
Document the number of visitors to your site on the day you start and at the end of the 10th day. That’s 10 full days of visitors.
The Prize
Whoever has the greatest increase in those 10 days will get a promotional article on my site, including an interview with you, a review of your site and your products, and a link in the sidebar on walton.com, (which is great for your SEO.)
The Rules
You need to have Google Analytics installed on your site, or another statistics program that can be verified.
The 10th and final day must be on or before July 12, which is 2 weeks from the day this article is published. That will give you a couple days to get the statistics program installed if you don’t have it already and you can do a little research for where you want to leave comments. If you want to start now and pick the best 10 days to get your maximum number, you can do that too.
Send me a screenshot of the statistics program, show the number of visits for each of 10 days in a row. The site with the greatest increase in the number of visits between the first day and the tenth day will win.
That’s not a percentage, it’s the number. It’s not the number of page views, it’s the number of visits. It’s not just the 10th day either. It’s the first day compared to any other day within 10 days. If you have a bump on the 7th day, then it declines, take the number on the 7th day. We’re looking for the greatest increase.
The actual comments that you leave are not verified. The only thing we’re counting to win is the increase in the number of visits.
Email me with your results. Show me a screenshot. The winner will be determined based solely on my judgement and my decision is final.
The Strategy
The way to make this work is to know your market. Research where they hang out. Search Google for your keyword and the term “forums” to find forums related to your product. Use your keyword and try searching for “best keyword blogs”. You can search for just your keyword, note the top 10 results, and see which are blogs or places that accept comments.
Once you have a good list of places to leave comments, hit them all, every day. See what people are talking about first. Don’t just jumps in with “Please visit my site”. No one cares about that. You need to be helpful. Answer questions. Be an authority. Give solid information. Ask great questions. Be that interesting person at the party that everyone wants to talk to.
The Benefits
If you are not using a stats application now, you should be, and this challenge might push you into doing that. Going through the process of looking for sites to leave comments, then actually leaving them, will get you into a great habit that will SEO your site for the long run.
If you leave 10 comments a day for 10 days, you WILL have more traffic, regardless of this challenge. You may not win this, but you will have more traffic. Everyone who attempts this challenge will have more traffic.
At the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Posted in web traffic |
Tuesday, June 8th, 2010
Here is the post that inspired this post. Thanks to Laura Roeder.
On video there’s nothing to hide behind. It’s your verbal stumbles and nervous laughter and futzing with the neckline of your shirt. It’s your face, your wrinkles, the miscombed part in your hair. Your crooked smile and teeth and glasses. Your weird mannerisms. Your messy office.
You’re not doing videos, because video is you.
But let me tell you my secret.
Letting everyone see you naked, in all of your imperfections, is exactly what make video so delicious.
I’m naked in every video I’ve posted online. In all of my dorkyness, everything I would love to improve via diet and exercise and a few intensive sessions with a voice and acting coach. Every bra strap foible, the phone ringing in the background, the fire trucks sirens on the street outside my apartment, the way I keep forgetting my train of thought, the annoying way I play with my hair.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.lauraroeder.com/2010/05/let-them-see-you-naked-on-video/
We watched the new Food Network Star TV show on Sunday. They picked a bunch of people that might be good for TV, then make a TV show about giving them challenges, and eliminating them one by one, until they get down to the one person they will give their own TV show on the Food Network. Everyone wants to be a star.
It was great to see all these fresh faces, trying to do a promo to a camera. I mocked and laughed as they stumbled and got nervous in front of the camera. I love watching reality TV, just to judge people, and to feel better about myself, while they fail.
Then I decided that I could do way better in front of a camera than they did. I’d make my own video for this blog. Ha!
Videos can help bring more traffic to your site. The technology is easy. That hard part is getting in front of the camera.
Here’s my first video blog post. Wow. Way harder than it looks.
Mock away. (Please tell me if you have problems playing the video.)
You can watch it on YouTube here.
At the end, I ask you to leave a comment and tell me what the most valuable thing I ever did for you was. I told you to ask your customers what their needs, wants and desires are, so I figured I better ask you that same thing.
The tribe has spoken. Please leave a comment. Thanks.
Posted in marketing |
Monday, May 10th, 2010
This is a great way to post your articles to ezinearticles.com, which is a great way to get links to your site, which is a great way to build your SEO, which is a great way to get more traffic, which is… OK I’ll quit now.
If you have an account with ezinearticles.com, and you are using WordPress, then you should be using this plug in to create more content. Good stuff here!
With the introduction of our new EzineArticles WordPress Plugin, experienced WordPress users will be able to submit their WordPress posts and blog entries right to EzineArticles.com!
Read the entire article at:
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2010/03/articles-directly-from-wordpress.html
Posted in SEO |
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
Click Here
For The ''walton.com''
Facebook Fan Page!
Like everyone else, I’ve used Facebook to friend people from High School that I never liked and find relatives that I’ve never met. Not that it hasn’t been fun, but it was a black hole of witty comments and annoying Farmville requests.
I listened to a seminar recently about the advantages of having a Facebook fan page for your business. It’s a place to interact with people and allow them to interact with each other. You can build your own little community around your business.
It allows you to update every one who “likes” you. You can send messages to everyone, which you cannot do as with a personal profile. Because it’s based on your business, people who join it have essentially raised their hand and said “I’m interested in your business. Tell me more.”, so you don’t have to feel funny about trying to sell stuff to your friends.
It should be a party, not an Amway meeting. People should feel free to hang out and talk to each other. You should have chips out and some music playing to make it more comfortable for everyone. Be a good host.
That’s what I am trying to do.
Please check out out my Fan Page for “walton.com” at www.facebook.com/waltoncom. I have a bunch of my personal friends there now, but if more SEO, small business, and Etsy people show up, that will make things more interesting for all of us.
If you’re not sure about Facebook fan pages, or how they could help your business, you can play with this one and see what they do.
I hope that by seeing there are other people just like you, dealing with the same questions and issues, that we can work together to help make us all more successful. If you feel like you’re out in the cold, all alone, come on in and meet some interesting people.
I’d love for you to stop by and see what’s happening. Leave a comment. Meet a new friend. Hang out.
Please click here or on the icon, then click the “like” button when you get there.
I’ll see you there! Thanks for stopping by.
Posted in marketing |
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
Everyone on Etsy wants more traffic. You can get more traffic from search engines if you optimize your site. That’s called SEO, “search engine optimization”, by all the cool kids.
Etsy published the “Etsy Guide to SEO”.
SEO is generally divided into “on site” factors and “off site” factors. In their book, they detail the things that you can do to your Etsy shop and products pages, all of them “on site”.
What they don’t tell you about are the “off site” techniques. “Off site” is everything that is not on your site. It generally refers to building links from other sites to your site, which is the biggest factor in SEO.
They only devote one page to link building ideas and only one paragraph to any task that is not on the Etsy site. They want to keep all of your attention focused on their Etsy site and not necessarily the absolute best ways to get traffic.
Let’s gaze off into the distance and see if we can build some inbound links another way, without anything to do with Etsy.
Before you do anything else, you need to define your keywords. I’ve written a few posts about that and cover it in the SEO book.
When you have your keywords picked, we’re going to create a new website, for FREE, and build a bunch of links ourselves. It’s way easier than you think. Really. Watch closely.
Pick your top 3 keywords.
You’re going to create a new web site for FREE. It will have some limitations, so you can’t do everything that you might want to do, but it will do enough to make this technique work and it’s free.
Go to http://www.wordpress.com and follow their instructions, using the top three keywords as your user ID. If your keywords are “handmade glass jewelry”, then create the site as “handmadeglassjewelry”.
That will give you a site with a domain name of “handmadeglassjewelry.wordpress.com”. You get SEO value for having the keywords in the domain name, even if it’s got the “wordpress.com” in there too.
They have some instructions there about how to create posts and pages, so when you figure out how to write a new post, write a new post about one of your products. Use all of the keywords that you can think of when describing it. Put in a photo. Write naturally, like you were writing so that I could read it. I have some WordPress Tutorial Videos that might be helpful.
Put in a link to your product page on Etsy. In the “edit” page, put in the name of your product and select that text. There’s a “link” button at the top. Click that. Copy and paste in the URL to your product page. Insert that into the copy on the page. You’ve just created a link to your product page.
Write a new post for every one of your products. Write naturally, but use your keywords. Put a link, or maybe two, from each post to each product page.
When you are done, you’ll have a web site, with your main keywords in the domain name, and links to every one of your product pages.
As you publish new products on Etsy, write a new post for each one on your web site. As your products sell, leave the posts and links. The search traffic will build up over time.
If you start to love this stuff, write other posts about the subject of your products, and not your products specifically. Your site will get some SEO just from the related content. Your site gives your Etsy shop a bunch of SEO.
As your SEO rankings start to build and you start see some results, consider creating your very own site that you fully control, instead of the wordpress.com free version. You’ll be able to do more things with it and you will have complete control over it.
**cough** I can build one for you… **cough**.
The more pages you have on a site, the more links you have, and the more links you can point at your Etsy shop, and the more search traffic you’ll get from the search engines.
There are many other SEO things that you can do, but this is free, easy, and effective. Call it the “low hanging fruit”.
Feel the power.
Posted in SEO, featured |
Monday, March 29th, 2010
Victoria standing next to some ''art'' found on Jalama Beach
At one point in her life, my wife managed a large department in a huge corporation. If you know my wife, you know that she’s the sweetest, nicest, most generous, giving person you know. I mean, she’s really nice. It’s obvious that she’s nice. Nice is how you would describe her.
Now, counterbalance “she’s nice” against the image of managing a large department in a huge corporation. To survive in the huge corporate world, you need to be a cutthroat political animal, right?
I once mentioned to her that she wasn’t political. She disagreed. She said that she was VERY political. She told me that she had helped so many people and done so many nice things for so many people, because she was nice. She just wanted to help.
She also knew that if she ever needed anything, she knew the right people in the right places that would do anything for her because she helped them in the past.
Did I mention that she’s also very smart?
I read this post below and had to link. This seems to be a recurring theme among blogs that I read and friends that I have.
The people who are successful in life are the people who give. Love is the key to success.
This is not a feel good, bubble gum philosophy. Love is a very political act. You want something? Give it away and you’ll be overwhelmed with what you get back.
“How can I get more for myself?” The more in question varies: interest, customers, website traffic, subscribers, money, whatever—but it always relates to an increase in focus on the individual.
There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. I’d like more too. But motivations can be interesting predictors of success. The more that we want tends to come along when we give more, but when we give because we want to receive, it doesn’t always turn out so well.
If it sounds complicated, it’s not. Here’s the secret:
Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.
-Luciano Pavarotti
Read the entire article at:
http://chrisguillebeau.com/3×5/luciano-pavarottis-secret-for-online-success/
Posted in business |
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
My wife looking for sea glass on a recent trip to Jalama Beach
If you read “The Care And Feeding Of Search Engines, A Simple Guide To SEO“, you know that there are many, many things that you can do to increase your search engine optimization and get more traffic.
The very easiest way to get traffic is to comment on other people’s blogs and leave a link to your site. They usually link your name to your site. Don’t be obnoxious about it. Don’t oversell yourself or be rude, but leaving a link is common and acceptable.
The other benefit of commenting on other people’s blogs is that they usually read your comments. If you are witty and relevant enough, they might even come check out your site. If you have great content on your site, (and you do, right?), then they might even become a fan of yours. Maybe they become a friend. Poof! A relationship is born.
The hard part of commenting on other people’s site is that it takes time. You don’t see results right away.
I nagged coached Deborah, my wife’s friend with the sea glass jewelry site, to leave comments. (Did you notice that? I linked to her again. Darn, she’s good.) Her attitude was “Yeah. Yeah. Whatever…” but I kept after her. She tried hard, but it was difficult to keep up the energy when the results don’t come quickly.
She checks the number of inbound links to her site using Site Explorer, a tool I discuss in the book.
I got this email from her recently.
We’ll today I’m officially over a thousand. Am I supposed to put this in a diary of something? I remember in late October when you were on me about having 46…It was drudgery to even think about posting comments, etc. Now it’s the 1st thing I do for work every morning. Thanks for the push.
-Deborah
It warms my little heart. Yes, she went from 46 inbound links to over a thousand. It took her 5 months. She achieved it. Along the way, she’s made new friends and her site is better known to the community.
I’m so proud.
Posted in SEO |
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
This is a great post with a lot of solid ideas for building links. Please click through and read them all, both the right ways and the wrong ways to build links. There’s a good introduction about the value of links now and in the future. Bottom line is that you should spend considerable time building high quality links to your site.
You want more traffic?
Build more links to your site!
What will happen to the way search algorithms score links is already happening. The Google algo has become much more elegant and advanced, devaluing staggering amount of links that shouldn’t count, and placing more emphasis on trusted links. And the trust and juice given by those links is then verified by elements like user data, domain age, and other relatively hard-to-spoof factors.
But please, don’t fool yourself. Links that should count are still the key to rankings (in Google, at least — and MSN and Yahoo! are only a few short years behind). In that spirit, Aaron and I have created our 101 Ways to Build (and Not Build) Links. (Yeah, it just so happened that there were exactly 101!)
Oh, and mad props to our inspiration, 131 Legitimate Link Building Strategies, one of the original authority documents on link building. It was just getting a bit rusty, that’s all (“Host your own Web Ring”?). Anyway, enjoy the update.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
Posted in SEO |
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
To sell stuff on the Internet effectively, you need a web site.
The web site is the truck of the tree, the thing that holds it all together, the thing that you hang everything else on, the things that everything else grows out of. Which metaphor do you like the best there?
After you get your keywords, before all that other stuff I wrote about for SEO, you need to get a domain name and build yourself a web site. This is not a definitive post on how to do this, but more of an overview of the process.
Here’s what I wrote:
This will all boil down to “keywords”. You need to decide what keywords you want to be found for. The more general the keyword, the more results will match it, which means more competition for that keyword. You want to be as specific as you possibly can, to narrow the results enough that you can beat your competition, but wide enough that you can actually get some traffic. It’s a balancing act.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.walton.com/2010/02/14/sell-handmade-stuff-on-the-internet-seo-part-one.html
The web site is the trunk of the tree, the thing that holds it all together, the thing that you hang everything else on, the things that everything else grows out of. Which metaphor do you like the best there?
You need to have, or should try to have, your best keyword in the domain name. For Deborah, she original had “mermaid’s purse”, but I added “sea glass” to it, because that’s what she’s selling. Her domain name is “mermaidspurseseaglass.com”.
Don’t use dashes. I’m not sure why, but no one likes them and Google will give you points off for them. I guess that spammers liked using them and they got a bad reputation.
There’s a link in my right sidebar that will take you to a page that will allow you to check if a domain name is available or not.
Domain Name Look Up
The steps to building a web site are:
1. Register a domain name.
I suggest GoDaddy for domain name registration. (NOT for web hosting!) Check on to make sure the domain name you want is available at the page above, then go here to register it. You have to point the domain name at the web host server to make it all work. Again, the details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this article.
2. Rent some web hosting space.
This is the subject of much debate, but I like PowWeb. There are many web hosts out there and they have pretty much become a commodity. I also host sites and if you want us to host your site, we have better customer support than the big guys.
3. Install your web site.
Under that number 3, I’m going to tell you that using WordPress is the absolute best way to build a web site today. I’ve been building them since 1994, for large companies and small. Today, I only use WordPress.
Steps to using WordPress:
1. Install WordPress.
Usually the web host has an option to do this for you with a click of a button. There are many “how to” guides out there for this. If you read this post and ask me to do it for you, I’ll do it for free. No strings. Just mention the secret word “penguins” in your email. (My personal addiction.)
2. Pick a “Theme”.
There are a bunch of free themes and some “premium” themes that cost money. If you want a custom theme, I can build you one. This topic has more depth to it than I can address here, but pick a theme and install it.
3. Write pages.
Create the static pages that you want on your web site. These will be the normal “contact us”, “about us”, and other stuff that stays the same.
4. Write posts.
You need to blog. Yes, you do. I’ll talk more about what to say and why later, but for now, make sure this is set up.
That is a quick overview of how to set up a web site. I have 15 years of experience to pour out into a long, rambling post about the details of each step, but I’ll save that for another day. Today, you should just know that this is the overview of steps you need to take.
Posted in sell on internet |
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Getting a domain name and a web host are not the first things you do to get your stuff sold on the Internet.
The most important, and first, thing for you to do is to figure out a strategy for SEO, search engine optimization. Going through the exercise will get you thinking about your site and how it fits into your overall business model.
What is the goal of your site? I asked that of a potential new client last week and it stopped him. He didn’t really know and said he’d have to think about it. I assume that the goal of your site is to sell stuff. That means that people have to find it through search engines. It might be to only add credibility when you talk to people in other sales venues. It might be to make yourself feel good about yourself because you have a place to tell the world whatever it is in your head.
If you want to sell stuff, who will you sell it to? What will they be searching for when they find you? What are you selling? Exactly? How specific is your product?
This will all boil down to “keywords”. You need to decide what keywords you want to be found for. The more general the keyword, the more results will match it, which means more competition for that keyword. You want to be as specific as you possibly can, to narrow the results enough that you can beat your competition, but wide enough that you can actually get some traffic. It’s a balancing act.
It's a balancing act.
Let’s do some research and find out what keywords you want to target on your site. Google has an advertising program for you to spend money on ads with them. In order to find the best keywords to target your ads, they built a tool named, wait for it…, the Keyword Tool. Let’s go there now. If you don’t have an AdWords account, you should get one. It’s free.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool
Put in a keyword that makes sense for your site. Take a guess, if nothing else. Do a search for related keywords. You can sort the results by clicking on the column headers. We want to see how many searches for a keyword there are, on average, for a month.
Look at the “additional keywords to consider” at the bottom of the page. Look at the number of searches for these. Are there any that are relevant? Feel free to slice and dice these results, adding keywords to search for and sorting on the results, until you get a feel for what the best keyword(s) are for your site.
Make a list of the top 5 to 10 keywords. You’ll know which ones seem to mean the most in your niche. Write down the number of monthly searches for each one.
We want to compare the number of searches for each keyword, per month, with the number of competitors out there with web sites for those searches. Do a normal Google search for each of your top 5-10 keywords. Look at the number of total pages out there that use that phrase. At the top of the page, it will say, to the right, “Results 1-10 of about NNNNNNNN”. Write down that number of other pages next to that keyword.
You now have a list of keywords, the number of searches per month and the number of other pages that contain that keyword. If anything jumps out at you, you might have a good idea which keywords to target. If nothing jumps out, do the math. Divide the number of pages by the number of searches. This gives you a ratio. Compare the ratios. Pick the top 3-5 keywords that you think you have the best chance of beating, that is, the most searches compared to the least number of pages for that search.
Does that make sense? You’re trying to find out what keywords you want to try to rank for. Everything else we do for SEO depends on picking these keywords well. You can always readjust later, but pick good ones to start with.
Now that you have your list of keywords, we’ll move on to what to do with them in the next part.
Posted in sell on internet |
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
If you are new here because of the free SEO book promotion that I’ve offered, thank you very much! Over 60 people have downloaded the book since Warmth posted her thread in the Etsy forum.
Please take a minute and look around. Most of the site has been aimed at small businesses, but lately I’ve focused on the needs of crafters.
Regular readers of my blog know that I built a site for my wife’s friend, Deborah at www.mermaidspurseseaglass.com which opened my eyes to the needs of the whole crafting community.
I think there are some posts here that will be valuable for a crafter. I plan on writing more with crafters in mind. It seems like there’s a huge need for Internet marketing information here.
I see a lot of pleas for more traffic to your Etsy shops. I think I can take my experience and knowledge of small business (and large business, for that matter – read my “about me” page), and apply it to crafters.
I do plan on more good things for crafters, so please stick around. If you have a specific question, drop by the forum and ask it there. I’ll answer it as soon as possible.
Heartfelt Mouse
I’d love to hear what type of things you are interested in, and what you have problems with, so I can address those needs.
I want to especially thank Etsy seller Warmth for her kind review of my SEO book. That was beyond gracious. It means a lot to me to see someone say, “I am no longer feeling stupid and helpless regarding SEO.” Warmth warmed my heart with that.
If anyone wants a really cute mouse, you know where to go!
Stay tuned!
Posted in crafts |
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Timothy Adam Designs
I started reading the Etsy forums to see what people are talking about there that might apply to my products here.
One area popped out at me and that’s the problem with getting traffic to your Etsy site. There are 21 items posted every minute there! There are 135,000 new people joining every month! I was shocked. No wonder products get buried there.
The first post I read there was from Warmth, saying they were ready to pay someone to help get more traffic. There seems to be some real desperation. (If you like cute little felt mice, check out their store on Etsy.)
Of course, I think I have all of the answers, but that’s just my personality type. The answers would be having a blog and promoting it off site. There are things to do on Etsy, but I know more about the off site stuff.
I found this thread in the forum and they had a lot of great advice. There were 569 responses when I saw it.
Here’s a quote of a small part of the initial post. It’s worth reading the whole thing. Notice the mention of a blog and a mailing list. Key factors there!
By Timothy Adam Designs
I am only going to hit a few key types of off Etsy marketing.. There are so many, so i will share the 3 that I use the most. At the end I show how put all three together along with on etsy promo to get 500 views to my shop in just over 1 hour.
Blogging:
I have been blogging for a little over a year. My blog has played a very important role in the growth of my Etsy shop. With my blog I have grown an e-mail list through my monthly giveaway.. This list has grown to 1500 people.. Last spring I held a product test with the small list I had at the time, which was 250. Long story short.. I sold 15 of the product test necklaces in less than 2 hrs. E-mail lists are very powerful!
Your blog should include links to your Etsy shop. These link should be very visible so it is easy for your readers to navigate to your shop. The best method for acheving this is to use the Etsy mini that is provided by Etsy.. here is a how to video I created all about the Etsy mini.. CLICK HERE
Facebook:
I recently joined facebook, and I have found to be a very powerful marketing tool. I use my facebook for networking and marketing my business, but you have to tread lightly. Facebook is cracking down on accounts that are doing this.. make sure your main account is set up in your name and not your business. You can set up a group for your business.. where you can promote all you want.
Twitter:
Twitter is my big hitter right now.. it is very powerful.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. wiki
I am running a Lunch Time Shoppers Series, which generates great traffic. The most popular post is the Top 10 Monday post.
Tune in every Monday at lunch time (12pm) for my top 10 Etsy picks. This list is generated from the top 10 monday thread forums on Etsy, which starts at 11 am sharp. This is part of my “Lunch Time Shoppers” series… you can find these posts from 11:30 am to 12.30 pm. Check out more details HERE
Read the entire article at:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5959620
Posted in crafts |
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Get an Evergreen for Your Blog This Holiday Season
If you want more traffic to your web site, you need to write posts that last a long time, that people can point at and come back to, over and over again.
These kinds of posts should be about what your site is about. They should show your expertise on the subject. They should be the kinds of posts that are so valuable, so informative or entertaining or insightful, that people will want to read them for years to come.
If you could write THE definitive guide or explanation to the subject of your site, there will be links and tweets and traffic.
Think about what your subject is, what keyword you want to be know for, and write a really good post about it.
You’ll see the traffic.
The evergreens we admire for their longevity
The most obvious way is to write about a topic that never gets old. These are cornerstone reference posts, like ‘10 Ways to Build a Better Blog.’ These posts are evergreen simply because people always need that information.
The good news is that evergreen reference posts are pretty straightforward to write. Do a step-by-step summary of how to do something from start to finish, and you’ve got yourself an evergreen post.
They’re also good for defining something that’s often mis-defined. For example, I have posts bookmarked in my ‘Evergreens’ folder on “What Marketing Really Is.” And I refer back to them often, because marketing is a slippery subject.
There are downsides to these types of evergreen posts. You’re up against a lot of competition, for one. There are already thousands of evergreen posts on building a better blog or providing better customer service. There’s probably an evergreen post on 10 Ways to Do Absolutely Any Topic Imaginable.
If you want your evergreen post to be the one that gets bookmarked, you’d better make it really, really good.
Which brings us to the second downside: Evergreen posts often require much more work than your standard post. You’ll probably wind up putting in at least 5 hours — and probably more like 15 — making sure everything is well-written, entertaining, compelling, and that you didn’t make any mistakes.
You might also be putting some extra hours into in-depth research if your evergreen post is on a topic that’s difficult to understand.
Read the entire article at:
http://feeds.copyblogger.com/~r/Copyblogger/~3/0GUusIszMsk/
Posted in web traffic |
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Here’s a list of SEO terms that you should be aware of, if you aren’t already. There are more where these came from, so go check out the site.
Long tail
In SEO terms, the ‘long tail’ refers to the less obvious, more specific (and therefore less competitive) but still relevant keywords and phrases you can optimize your site for. So instead of trying to optimize for very general and competitive phrases such as “coffee”, a long tail phrase might be “buy Costa Rican coffee.” For a very competitive field such as coffee, you might have to think of even more specific and niche phrases than that in order to find the ones you can rank highly for.
Why You Should Care:
If you are a small business, or just starting out, the long tail will help you find free & targeted (there’s that phrase again!) traffic. You will be able to rank more quickly for long-tail phrases instead of wasting your time trying to compete for very general terms that have established competition.
SERPs
This simply stands for Search Engine Results Page – i.e. the list of results that comes up when you perform a web search.
Why You Should Care:
That’s where you want your site to be!
Read the entire article at:
http://www.webtrainingwheels.com/2009/11/online-marketing-terms-seo-edition/
Posted in SEO |
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
You know that local search is important. This is a list of places that can help establish your local listing on the web.
Each of these listings will bring you traffic.
Each of these listings will bring you traffic. Each should be pretty easy to use. Some offer paid listings as well as free listings.
- local.botw.org
- www.dmoz.org
- advertise.local.com/
- listings.yellowpages.com/
- selfenroll.citysearch.com/
- www.google.com/local/add
- botw.org/top/Regional/United_States/
- www.localeze.com/manage/
- www.dexsearchmarketing.com/
- list.infousa.com/dbupdate.htm
- searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/business.php
- my.superpages.com/spweb/products/business-listing
- Friends, Family, Partnerships with websites. Ask if they would be willing to swap links with your website to help promote both of your businesses.
Posted in web site build |
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
This is a great article on some common SEO problems, but I want to point out two of them in particular. Write it and forget it is one that I wish I could solve easily. It seems that there’s a common idea that SEO is something that you can sprinkle on at the end and then it’s good to go, that you never have to touch the site again. Wrong. The site must be updated at least once a week and more often is better.
This is not a spatula. This is a ramp of people falling into a pit. Look again.
Only looking at ego phrases are also an easy pit to fall into. You know that THIS phrase is the one that everyone should be looking for, but in reality, everyone doesn’t know as much as you do and they search for what they think is the right phrase.
I’m constantly surprised when reading reports on traffic for related keywords. There are always phrases and keywords with what I think is way too much traffic. Don’t people understand the best way to search? Well, no they don’t. You have to look at what people ACTUALLY search for and optimize for that. It doesn’t matter what goodness and truth is. It doesn’t matter what you know is the right way to search. It only matters what THEY actually search for.
by Jolina
2. Write It & Forget It
Website content is not a ‘set and forget’ project. Rather, web content should be treated as a living organism which needs ongoing care and nourishment (read new content).
A ‘set and forget’ mentality when it comes to web content will only keep you successful for so long. Eventually, competitors catch onto to the benefits of SEO as well and if they are creating new content they are likely to trump you for target keyword phrases.
4. Focus on Ego Phrases
Some clients make the mistake of hanging success of the entire program on what we call ‘ego phrases’. i.e. wanting to rank for a particular phrase because they think it is important, not because data predicts it will drive traffic
Read the entire article at:
http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/09/seo-pitfalls/#comments
Posted in SEO |
Monday, August 17th, 2009
To sell stuff on the Internet effectively, you need a web site.
The web site is the truck of the tree, the thing that holds it all together, the thing that you hang everything else on, the things that everything else grows out of. Which metaphor do you like the best there?
After you get your keywords, before all that other stuff I wrote about for SEO, you need to get a domain name and build yourself a web site. This is not a definitive post on how to do this, but more of an overview of the process.
Here’s what I wrote:
This will all boil down to “keywords”. You need to decide what keywords you want to be found for. The more general the keyword, the more results will match it, which means more competition for that keyword. You want to be as specific as you possibly can, to narrow the results enough that you can beat your competition, but wide enough that you can actually get some traffic. It’s a balancing act.
Read the entire article at:
http://www.walton.com/2009/08/07/how-to-make-stuff-at-home-and-sell-it-on-the-internet-seo-part-one.html
The web site is the truck of the tree, the thing that holds it all together, the thing that you hang everything else on, the things that everything else grows out of. Which metaphor do you like the best there?
You need to have, or should try to have, your best keyword in the domain name. For Deborah, she original had “mermaid’s purse”, but I added “sea glass” to it, because that’s what she’s selling. Her domain name is “mermaidspurseseaglass.com”.
Don’t use dashes. I’m not sure why, but no one likes them and Google will give you points off for them. I guess that spammers liked using them and they got a bad reputation.
There’s a link in my right sidebar that will take you to a page that will allow you to check if a domain name is available or not.
Domain Name Look Up
The steps to building a web site are:
1. Register a domain name.
I suggest GoDaddy for domain name registration. (NOT for web hosting!) Check on to make sure the domain name you want is available at the page above, then go here to register it. You have to point the domain name at the web host server to make it all work. Again, the details of how to do this are beyond the scope of this article.
2. Rent some web hosting space.
This is the subject of much debate, but I like PowWeb. There are many web hosts out there and they have pretty much become a commodity. I also host sites and if you want us to host your site, we have better customer support than the big guys.
3. Install your web site.
Under that number 3, I’m going to tell you that using WordPress is the absolute best way to build a web site today. I’ve been building them since 1994, for large companies and small. Today, I only use WordPress.
Steps to using WordPress:
1. Install WordPress.
Usually the web host has an option to do this for you with a click of a button. There are many “how to” guides out there for this. If you read this post and ask me to do it for you, I’ll do it for free. No strings. Just mention the secret word “penguins” in your email. (My personal addiction.)
2. Pick a “Theme”.
There are a bunch of free themes and some “premium” themes that cost money. If you want a custom theme, I can build you one. This topic has more depth to it than I can address here, but pick a theme and install it.
3. Write pages.
Create the static pages that you want on your web site. These will be the normal “contact us”, “about us”, and other stuff that stays the same.
4. Write posts.
You need to blog. Yes, you do. I’ll talk more about what to say and why later, but for now, make sure this is set up.
That is a quick overview of how to set up a web site. I have 15 years of experience to pour out into a long, rambling post about the details of each step, but I’ll save that for another day. Today, you should just know that this is the overview of steps you need to take.
Posted in sell on internet |
Friday, August 7th, 2009
Getting a domain name and a web host are not the first things you do to get your stuff sold on the Internet.
The most important, and first, thing for you to do is to figure out a strategy for SEO, search engine optimization. Going through the exercise will get you thinking about your site and how it fits into your overall business model.
What is the goal of your site? I asked that of a potential new client last week and it stopped him. He didn’t really know and said he’d have to think about it. I assume that the goal of your site is to sell stuff. That means that people have to find it through search engines. It might be to only add credibility when you talk to people in other sales venues. It might be to make yourself feel good about yourself because you have a place to tell the world whatever it is in your head.
If you want to sell stuff, who will you sell it to? What will they be searching for when they find you? What are you selling? Exactly? How specific is your product?
This will all boil down to “keywords”. You need to decide what keywords you want to be found for. The more general the keyword, the more results will match it, which means more competition for that keyword. You want to be as specific as you possibly can, to narrow the results enough that you can beat your competition, but wide enough that you can actually get some traffic. It’s a balancing act.
It's a balancing act.
Let’s do some research and find out what keywords you want to target on your site. Google has an advertising program for you to spend money on ads with them. In order to find the best keywords to target your ads, they built a tool named, wait for it…, the Keyword Tool. Let’s go there now. If you don’t have an AdWords account, you should get one. It’s free.
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool
Put in a keyword that makes sense for your site. Take a guess, if nothing else. Do a search for related keywords. You can sort the results by clicking on the column headers. We want to see how many searches for a keyword there are, on average, for a month.
Look at the “additional keywords to consider” at the bottom of the page. Look at the number of searches for these. Are there any that are relevant? Feel free to slice and dice these results, adding keywords to search for and sorting on the results, until you get a feel for what the best keyword(s) are for your site.
Make a list of the top 5 to 10 keywords. You’ll know which ones seem to mean the most in your niche. Write down the number of monthly searches for each one.
We want to compare the number of searches for each keyword, per month, with the number of competitors out there with web sites for those searches. Do a normal Google search for each of your top 5-10 keywords. Look at the number of total pages out there that use that phrase. At the top of the page, it will say, to the right, “Results 1-10 of about NNNNNNNN”. Write down that number of other pages next to that keyword.
You now have a list of keywords, the number of searches per month and the number of other pages that contain that keyword. If anything jumps out at you, you might have a good idea which keywords to target. If nothing jumps out, do the math. Divide the number of pages by the number of searches. This gives you a ratio. Compare the ratios. Pick the top 3-5 keywords that you think you have the best chance of beating, that is, the most searches compared to the least number of pages for that search.
Does that make sense? You’re trying to find out what keywords you want to try to rank for. Everything else we do for SEO depends on picking these keywords well. You can always readjust later, but pick good ones to start with.
Now that you have your list of keywords, we’ll move on to what to do with them in the next part.
Posted in sell on internet |
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
I did some research on my new client, his site, and his industry. He has, or had, a web site built by someone else. I did some checking around to see where we stand before we begin. Here’s what I did.
Using the “SEO For Firefox” plug in and the Google Toolbar in Firefox, I found out that it’s been around for about 6 months. That will help us get out of the Google sandbox.
by NeilsPhotography
Using the “links:” search term in Google, where you type in “links:www.domainname.com”, you can find out how many other sites out there are linking to you. These are your “incoming links”. This one has 10 at the moment. That’s a cool place to start from.
It’s got a page tank of 0. That means there’s opportunity to improvement here! It’s got a good solid base, with a little history and some links to it, so when we start to optimize it, it should really respond.
This is much better than starting from a brand new domain name and new site, with no incoming links. Google doesn’t like those newbies. They could be spammers or child abusers or some kind of perverts.
Just like in the real world, they want to get to know you a bit before they trust you. It’s all about the reputation. Now that this site has been at the party for a little while, it’s time to make sure our hair looks good, that we don’t have bad breath, and there’s no food spilled on our shirt. Then we can walk over and introduce ourself to the host of the party, Google.com.
Posted in SEO |
