Designing Sites for Search Engines and Directories

In terms of layout, many web sites are not designed for optimum search engine and directory visibility. People or companies seem so centered on their corporate or personal images, products, and services that they neglect to design their web sites with search engines and directories in mind.

Search engines and directories vary in the way they rank your web site in a search query. Some search engines place primary emphasis on the text within your title tags. Some search engines place emphasis on the main ideas presented in all of your text on a single web page.

Some directories emphasize the text you submitted in their "Description" field. How and where you place your text, both in the copy your visitors see and within the HTML tags your visitors do not see, will affect your ranking.

• Keyword selection

• Keyword placement

• Keyword frequency

• Link and architecture

• Site statistics

Keyword selection
Of primary importance is selecting the best keywords for your industry and the keywords you believe your potential customers will use to find you. Selecting the right keywords requires research.

Look at your company's printed materials. What words do you use over and over? When you speak to new and current customers on the phone, what questions do they frequently ask and what words do they use? Ask your current customers how they would find you on the Internet. Then go to the major search engines and directories. Type in the keywords you want to use. Study the source code of the web sites that appeared in the top 20. Look at how your competitors ranked in a search query. Adjust your keyword selection accordingly.

Keyword placement
Of equal importance is keyword placement on individual pages. The text in your title tag is one the most important elements for ranking well in search engines. The text in your titles should be descriptive, using the words and lingo in your industry, and should accurately reflect the contents of each web page.

For optimum search engine positions, your keywords need to appear at the top of your web pages. Thus, before you design your web page, ask yourself if you (or your web designer) have strategically placed your keywords within your title tags, meta-tags, headings, graphic images, and the first paragraph within your body tag. If not, you might need to rethink your site design.

Keyword frequency
What is important to both the search engines and your target audience is keyword frequency and keyword prominence. Designing and coding your site with keywords in the right locations and the right frequency is an art form. Keywords need to appear frequently on your web pages, but if they appear too frequently, your site will be penalized for word stacking (also known as "spamming the index") or could be removed permanently from the index.

Also, some search engines ignore meta-tags. Thus, if you have included your keywords in your meta-tags but have not placed them elsewhere, you have missed a huge target audience, namely AOL users. Sites with frames have problems being indexed well because there is little opportunity otherwise to include additional text with keywords.

Very, very few web sites can get in the Top 10 of all the major search engines (AltaVista, FAST Search, HotBot, Google, Lycos, Teoma) without spamming. We cannot emphasize this enough: if you hire anyone (a submission service, an individual, an online promotion service, etc.) to do the services we just described, they need to have HTML and design experience, online marketing, and excellent copywriting skills.

You do not want your web site to be permanently banned from a search engine or directory due to ignorance or lack of experience. Furthermore, submission services usually do just that: submit. Many do not perform keyword research, the HTML coding, and copywriting necessary to get a site optimally placed within the search engines. Ask a lot of questions before handing over any money.

Link and site architecture
Placing keywords throughout your web pages is useless as a search engine marketing strategy if the search engine spiders are unable to record the text on your web pages. Therefore, always have link architecture on your site that the search engine spiders can follow. Oftentimes, this means having two forms of navigation on your site: one that your target audience prefers, and one for the search engines.

Site statistics
For the first few months after you have your web site submitted to the major search engines and directories, you should see a jump in traffic. If you look at your site reports with your visitor statistics, which should do frequently, you will see when the search engines spider and index your site.

Hopefully, because you have been thoughtful enough to give potential customers a reason to return to your site again and again, people will bookmark your site, and your web statistics will show an increase in a "No Referrer" category under referral URLs. Your site reports should show you where your potential customers are coming from (i.e. which search engine or directory they used to find you) and which keywords they used to find you.

After your site has listed in the search engines and directories for a few months, review your site statistics and determine where the majority of your traffic comes from. Then focus your advertising efforts on those directories and search engines. You get better sales from targeted marketing than from spreading your net too wide.

One client did exactly what we recommended, from keyword selection to monitoring site statistics. They found most of their sites referral traffic came from Yahoo queries. They bought banner space from Yahoo for two months. Whenever two of their keywords were typed in a search query, their banner would appear. Their traffic increased over 500%, and their sales reached five figures per month.

Lastly, the saying "Content is King" still rings true. You can increase traffic to your web site, but if (1) people do not like what they see, (2) you do not offer potential customers what they want to buy, or (3) you do not give customers incentive to stay and/or bookmark your site, they will click off of your web site as quickly as they clicked on to it.

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Choosing a Domain Name for SEO and Branding

Where have all the good domain names gone? You may be stumped about what domain name you ought to use for your new website. After all, there are several factors you must consider when choosing a domain such as if it helps to build your brand, if it is easy to remember, and if it has SEO benefits. Prior to brainstorming about a great domain name, you must determine whether your domain is disposable or permanent.

Disposable Domains vs. Permanent Domains
If you’re an affiliate marketer trying to make quick bucks selling acai supplements for weight loss, a domain such as acai-pill-for-weight-loss.com would probably fit the bill. Such a domain is considered a disposable or throwaway domain. You probably aren’t planning to use it for an extended period so making brand-building considerations isn’t really necessary.

If you have a permanent domain name that is an integral part of your larger brand-building efforts, you should use something that is easy to remember, distinctive, and credible-sounding. Your friends and webmasters would probably feel embarrassed linking out to a website with a domain such as acai-pill-for-weight-loss.com. Remember that you will have site visitors coming from several sources, not just search engines. A site domain that doesn’t look trashy is far more likely to get linked to on social media sites and beyond. Moreover, a site domain that is easy to remember will allow you to enjoy the advantages of word of mouth and score more return visitors.

Tips for Choosing a Brand-Worthy Domain Name
Great domain names are becoming scarce these days. That’s why when you get your hands on one it becomes an asset. So what defines brand anyway? A brand consists of experiences and associations that are connected to a person, company, or service. Think of a big brand like Nike for example. What do you associate Nike with? Perhaps you think of athleticism, victory, and self-confidence.

Nike has successfully built a respectable brand image over the years. But what about small businesses who don’t have millions of dollars to spend building brand image? The little guys can come up with a memorable domain name through the soft branding technique, which consists of tweaking a concept already in existence rather than coming up with a completely “meaningless” name to represent your brand.

Hotmail is an example of soft branding since people already understand the concept of “mail.” Google.com is an example of a “meaningless” domain name. People now associate the name Google with innovation, the future, and technology but when Google got its start, its name was little more than gibberish to most.

SEO Considerations when Choosing Domain Names
Some argue that it’s best to use a generic domain name that includes a target keyword because people are more likely to click on a URL that matches their search term. There is evidence which suggests that Google takes this factor into consideration when weighing the value of a website but different SEOs seem to have different opinions on the matter.

It can be difficult to include target keywords in your domain name if you want a brand-worthy domain that is unique and catchy. If you find that adding a target keyword would conflict with your domain name’s brand-building efforts, consider adding a byline. A byline describes what you do and contains your target keywords. Bylines become an important part of your brand as well. For example, if you sell curtains but your domain name is precision123.com, you could add a byline that says, “Window treatments in Philadelphia,” to give more details about your service.

Now that you are armed with this information, explore your options carefully when deciding on a domain name for your website. If you are looking to build a permanent domain that reflects your brand, by all means avoid cringe-worthy, hyphenated URLs and brainstorm to come up with something worthy of building your brand image upon. The key to success is coming up with a domain name that is memorable and distinctive and if possible, a name that hints at what product or service you offer.

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Build Your Email List Using Social Media: 8 Surefire Ways

When you are doing business online, it is important to build a list of targeted subscribers to market your products or services to. You want a responsive list and your job is to provide consistent value to them. Whether you have a blog or a website, you should definitely have an opt-in form to capture a visitor’s name and email address in a prominent location.

Two big components of effective marketing are reach and frequency. Reach refers to the number of people you reach with your message; while frequency refers to the number of times each person is reached on average. Frequency builds trust and drives your particular message home.

More people than ever are using social media tools so more of your target market is reachable there today than even just a few short months ago. Take advantage of these top ways to add subscribers when using social media sites so that you can begin communicating regularly with more potential clients and customers.

1) Create an effective profile.
What do I mean by effective? Use a real photo of yourself and your real name. Include your location and a good bio–complete, up-to-date and with all contact information.

2) Offer events.
A great way to add targeted subscribers is to hold an event such as a teleclass. Invite your followers and friends and direct them to a sign-up page specifically for the event. Let them know that in addition to signing up for whatever the event is, they will also receive a complimentary subscription to your e-zine or other valuable information.

3) Join a Ning network or create your own.
Ning is a platform which allows people to create their own social networks online. Anyone can create a network for free around a specific interest. This is a great tool for getting in front of your niche or target market.

4) Sync your newsletter broadcasts with Twitter.
If you use an email list service such as AWeber, you have the option to automatically tweet a link to your newsletter when the broadcast is sent out. Just choose Syndicate and Twitter Update.

5) Place an opt-in box on your Facebook profile.
This is something I explain how to do in detail in my free e-course. The Profile HTML application in Facebook allows you to add your opt-in box for collecting names and emails very easily. This way you can capture new subscribers right from your profile.

6) Use social bookmarking sites.
Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to search, organize and store bookmarks of web pages. Have a way for readers to submit posts they enjoy to bookmarking sites (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.) right from your blog. This is a nice way to drive traffic to your site when others come across your bookmarked site.

7) Feed your blog posts to sites automatically.
Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have tools that will post your latest blog posts on their sites as soon as they are published. This keeps you consistently on others radars.

Be helpful and participate often. The best advice I can give for spending time on social sites is to give, give, give. You do not have to spend exorbitant amounts of time there, but when you do use them, offer suggestions, advice and tips. Create conversation as well as join it. People will get to know you this way and want to seek out more information about you.
Take action on several of these tips as soon as you can. It has never been simpler and more fun to build your list online than it is now!

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