You worked hard on building and maintaining your website. You started the show but, the audience is missing? Probably because, you forgot to sell the tickets. Single handedly you cannot sell more tickets. You need distributors. This article will give you information on various modes of distribution on the internet.
The internet is a ‘world wide web’; your audience is widely spread. To be seen, you also need to spread yourself. In technical terms you need to do ‘Link Building’. Following sources on the internet can be used for link building:
Search Engines – A search engine as we all know is a tool to search relevant information from a large database. Internet search engines are extremely complex and getting a good ranking i.e. being featured in the top 30 or top 100 or top ‘x’ search results is as difficult as walking on a high wire. You need to hire a search engine and web optimization company to ensure that your website is search engine friendly. Good ranking with search engines can alone give you all the visitors you want. But we are businessmen and we always need more profit, so we should keep trying all the other methods of internet marketing too. One should try other methods too also because getting good ranking with search engines is very difficult and it can take several months to happen. Another important point to be noted here is the more linked your site is on the web, the more are your chances to get a good ranking. So ‘Link Building’ becomes more important.
Web Directories – A web directory or link directory is a directory containing topic-wise links to websites on the internet.
This is a tried and tested old method. It can get you traffic who is more likely to buy what you are selling. You can try submitting your site to DMOZ, Yahoo etc. You can create your own directory and provide link to your own site.
Article Directories – Article directories are directories of articles submitted by companies and professional writers. Articles get classified by topics, authors etc.
Write articles about subjects in your industry, the web audience wants to read about. Place your link in it. If your article was good enough you will get good number of readers visiting your site.
In case you are wondering what can you keep writing after all the relevant information has been given by you on your website. Here are some suggestions for you: build lists like ‘101’ ways to something (whatever your subject is) or 10 easy tips, or top 10 myths etc. These kind of lists always have a large potential to get circulated by readers and hence you stand a good chance for free publicity.
Blogs – Blogs are sounding boards of the web audience. Anyone can write a blog. Although blogs started as and hence build a perception of boards available for scribbling casually, it should not be taken lightly. It is quite an effective method to get more visitors. Search engines give preferred rankings to blogs.
Start a blog. Post good content and keep posting regularly. Blogs have a vast audience by themselves. Taking them seriously will help a lot.
Press Release sites / News sites – These are sites which give news about latest happenings in various industries. You can write articles about topics of your interest and submit to these sites. Writing about organizations in the news can get you some backlinks on their sites.
Pay Per Click – This is paid advertising. Sites place your advertisements on their sites and charge you per click on your advertisement. Your site can get quality traffic via this method. Unlike other methods it is direct advertising and hence it is also a good opportunity for brand building.
You can do link building through various other sites like social networking sites etc.
After reading this article, you might be mistaken to believe that you can now do internet marketing on your own. Some of you may have even started building thoughts on getting started with the least technically complicated methods like article marketing, and writing blogs. You now only know the ways or sources one can use for internet marketing. However, you still don’t know which sites of each kind will help and not harm you. This needs a lot of research. You are an expert in your line of business, not in internet marketing. So hire an expert in internet marketing who will manage your internet marketing campaign for you. Some search engine optimization companies offer you comprehensive internet marketing plans at very reasonable rates. You must consider outsourcing this activity to them not because they charge less but because you don’t want to lose out on time your competition is using to grab your prospective customers.
Search Engines live and die by their ability to produce relevant results for their users. By employing specific guidelines they crawl through their huge databases of sites to identify the websites that are most relevant to the searcher’s key phrases. A combination of the following procedures (amongst others) are undertaken to optimize your website:
Content optimization
Skilled SEO content writers optimize your website’s content to enhance the keyword density on the pages that need it.
Page and link renaming
By renaming the pages and the links within your website using your target keywords we can increase the keyword density of your site allowing the search engine spiders to rank your pages a lot higher.
Site-map update / creation
Site maps act as the roadmap of your website for search engine crawlers. The more of your website a search engine can see the better change you have of ranking higher in a search result for a certain topic. A full text based site map is crucial in making the site search engine friendly.
Tagging
Update the Title, Keyword and Description tags for each individual page of your site. This means we can target different key phrases for different pages and increase the levels of traffic from a greater range of key phrases.
Additional Navigation Bar
Ideally, we should give the spider as many ways of reaching a page as possible – a couple of navigation bars, links from images, links from content, etc. This increases the chances of a page being reviewed and indexed.
The easier and more convenient it is for search engines to get in and scan your website, the more traffic they are going to deliver to your website. The pages that are to be promoted need to offer more entry points to spiders to ensure that these pages get indexed.
The target pages should link to all the pages of your site. This can be achieved simply by implementation of a textual navigation bar (at the bottom of each page).
HTML Coding Validation &Correction
Search engine crawlers prefer W3C standards with respect to HTML coding standards. If a website has been made on the basis of the W3C standard, it positively influences the search engine rankings especially in MSN.
Robots.txt
Search engines will look in your root domain for a special file named "robots.txt" (http://www.abc.com/robots.txt). The file tells the robot (spider) which files it may spider (download). This system is called, The Robots Exclusion Standard.
Image Optimization
All websites should comply with W3C standards (http://www.w3.org) and regulations for making sites accessible for people with hearing, motor or visual disabilities. In order for websites to be accessible, every image on the page should have an ALT tag that describes the image exactly, and also repeats any text that is in that image.
URL Architecture
Documents and other objects can be linked within the site using absolute or relative links. Search Engines give more importance to the links which are absolute rather then relative links and therefore positively influences search engine rankings.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategic combination of techniques designed to raise a website’s ranking in the search engines’ natural listings. These techniques need to be continually revised and refined as the main search engines regularly update their ranking criteria.
To ensure your site ranks as highly as possible, perform (amongst other techniques) a combination of the following SEO procedures:
2.1 Website Audit
The site will go through a rigorous search engine optimization review. Here, skilled search engine optimization experts will analyze the website, identify areas which could be improved in order to increase traffic and make recommendations for changes to content, code and any other issues that may affect the site’s performance.
2.2 Competitor Analysis
This offering includes study of the on page and off page optimization factors of the competitor’s website to help in knowing how the competitor is faring on the search engines. (specified by the client) It also helps in identifying the phrases which the competitor’s are targeting. This will help you finalise your preference of key phrases and reach the target set for Search Engine Marketing purposes.
2.3 Key Phrase Identification (1 key phrase may contain up to 5 words)
Using powerful research tools analyze your suggested key phrases to identify the levels of traffic and competitiveness. Based on this research you can then decide on a set of key phrases that will bring your site more awareness. You will need to thoroughly research key phrases for relevancy and competitiveness in order to settle on a target set that will bring in relevant traffic to the site.
With over 3 billion websites on Google alone, making sure that visitors find your site is a tough challenge. Competition is fierce for the top listings, yet without regular visitors your site might as well not exist. Finding the right Internet Marketing partner is integral to the success of your site, and in a market notoriously fraught with cowboys and conmen, you need a partner you can trust.
In summary, if prospects don't respond to your ads, it's probably for one of these reasons:
Reason #1: Prospects don't see your ad because nothing attracts your prospect's eyes to your ad.
Reason #2: Prospects don't read your ad because the headline doesn't seize their attention.
Reason #3: Prospects don't respond to your ad because your wording is weak and uninteresting.
Reason #4: Prospects don’t believe what you say in your ad.
Reason #5: Prospects don't respond to your ad because your offer is not clear.
Reason #6: Prospects don't respond because they don't know what action you want them to take.
Reason #7: Prospects intend to respond to your ad but they aren’t motivated to act now. They set your ad aside, something else comes up — and you’re history.
These advertising tips explain effective ways to communicate your message. You can use these powerful, proven ways to capture your prospect's attention, convey your marketing message and increase response to your ads.
Secret #1: Make sure your ad has one large, dark element.
It may be a heavy black headline, a photograph or an illustration — anything that's big and dark. Try this: Open a newspaper and notice which ad you see first. You'll discover that the ad that gets your attention right away is the ad that contains the largest and darkest single element. Now you can see that it isn't always the biggest ad that draws the most attention. A small ad can draw more attention than a big ad if the small ad contains the largest and darkest headline or picture on the page.
Secret #2: Make sure your headline is large and bold.
Narrow typefaces aren't wide enough to attract attention. So make sure the type you choose for your headline is large, wide, bold and easy to read. This way, the person scanning the page can't help but see your headline. And if your headline contains a powerful message, it will seize your reader's attention and stop him in his tracks.
Secret #3: Use a simple layout and avoid clutter.
One large picture works better than several small pictures. You want to help your prospect's eyes flow smoothly from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of your ad. If you obstruct that flow, make sure the obstruction is a vital part of your advertising message.
Secret #4: Never let your art work overwhelm the wording.
What you say is always more important than how it looks. To say it another way, your message is always more important than the art. Don't use so many photos or illustrations that your reader can't follow your message. No matter what you're advertising, never let your art work overwhelm your words. Make sure that your artist understands and abides by this basic commandment.
Secret #5: Don't print words across a photograph or illustration.
This does not mean don't print above or below the photograph. It means do not print on top of a photograph or illustration, even if the photo appears only faintly on the page. When you print words across a photograph, you shoot yourself in the foot because, in most cases, the words are simply too hard to read. As a result, the reader turns the page and you lose a prospect. If you want to make your ad artistic or stylish, find another way — because when you print words on top of pictures, you greatly reduce your ad's impact. (To see how overprinting can hurt you, look for examples in newspapers or the yellow pages. They're easy to spot because the ads are nearly impossible to read.)
Secret #6: Get the main point of your message into your headline.
Four out of five readers do not read past the headline. So if you depend on the body of your ad to tell your story, you are wasting 80% of your money. The headline is the only part of the ad most people read.
Secret #7: Make sure the headline tells your reader how he benefits from hiring your services.
Every headline has one job: to stop your prospect and get him to read your ad. The quickest and easiest way to stop your prospect is by promising him something he wants. So, in your headline, tell the reader how he will benefit from your services.
Secret #8: Your headline should point out how you're different from your competitors.
If your prospect doesn't know how you differ from other lawyers, he has no reason to choose you over someone else. But when he values your positive differences — what we call your "competitive advantages” — he has good reasons to hire your services. Your headline should instantly convey what makes you different from everyone else.
Secret #9: Don't skimp on facts.
If you want your prospect to hire you, you need to answer every question he might ask. This means you'll be lengthy, but don't worry. Long copy sells. Not because it's long, but because it's complete. If you reach an interested prospect, he'll read all the copy you give him. You can't expect your prospect to hire you if he doesn't have enough information to make a decision.
Secret #10: If you make a claim, prove it.
Support your claims with facts, figures, testimonials, case histories. Remember, words like “quality”, “value”, and “results” aren't proof of anything. They're simply unsupported claims. Positive, specific statements build the credibility you need so your prospect believes what you say.
Secret #11: Get to the point — FAST!
Your prospect's first question is always, "What's in it for me?" Many ad writers take too long to get to the main benefit. Don't save your most important benefit until last. Put it in the first paragraph. The rule in advertising says to Fire Your Biggest Gun First.
Secret #12: Write the way you talk.
Always use down-to-earth, everyday language. Ask yourself, would most of my prospects understand what I'm saying? When you write in plain English, you increase your ad's readership. And the better your readership, the better your response. Look for ways to warm up your copy — to make it more friendly and personal.
Secret #13: Tell people what they'll lose if they don't buy.
Remember this important principle: The fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain. This means your prospect fears losing something MORE than he wants to gain or achieve something.
Many ads tell prospects what they'll gain by buying a product or service: Increased profits. Lower taxes. More protection. Added flavor. Faster relief.
But if you want to add even more power to your message, also point out what your prospect will lose if he doesn't buy. Here’s an example of someone trying to persuade people to transfer their money from a savings account to an insurance annuity.
"By keeping your money in a 3% savings account, you and your loved ones lose $25.00 every day. Don't let your nest egg slip through your fingers. Haven't you lost enough money already? Today, move your account to our new 6% annuity and give your family the guaranteed income and protection they deserve. Otherwise, you'll lose another $25.00 tomorrow, and the next day, and the next."
Do you see how powerful the message becomes when you point out what the prospect loses by not acting?
Secret #14: Don't waste words.
Examine each word in your ad. Is it necessary? Does it help get your prospect to act now? If it doesn't help, it hurts — because it distracts your reader from the important parts of your message. If you don't need a word, get rid of it. Lean writing looks better, reads better, and it's easier to understand. It moves your prospect to action. So don't waste words.
Secret #15: Tell your prospect exactly what you want him to do.
It's amazing how many ads don't ask the reader to do anything. They simply hope the reader can figure it out for himself. If your prospect is interested enough to read your ad, he wants to know how to respond. So tell him what you want him to do: "Call for your free brochure." "Call to schedule your free consultation." "Register now for our free seminar." If you want your prospect to respond, don't leave him guessing. Tell him exactly what you want him to do.
Secret #16: Invite telephone calls.
Many people are shy. They want to talk with you. They don't want to interrupt what you're doing, so they hesitate to call. Eventually, their reluctance becomes permanent and you've lost another client. Make sure prospects know you welcome their calls and you're happy to talk with them over the telephone.
Secret #17: Make sure your telephone number is easy to find and easy to read.
If your prospect reads your ad, don't make it hard for him to respond. Feature your telephone number in large, easy-to-read, bold type. No fancy scripts. No fine print. If your reader can't find your phone number — or if he has trouble reading it — he won't bother. He'll call your competitors.
Secret #18: Offer to give advice over the telephone.
Meeting with you in person is often a burden to your prospect. If your hours end at 5 p.m., your prospect may need to take time off work to meet with you. Then he'll have to fight traffic and find a place to park. Plus he may have to rush his meeting with you so he can get back to work on time. When you offer to give advice over the telephone, you make getting advice convenient for your prospect. And it helps you establish your credibility in a calm, unhurried telephone call. Then, when you suggest an in-person meeting, your prospect will be more open to your suggestion.
Secret #19: Include a toll-free number so prospects can reach you without paying for a long-distance phone call.
How many times have you prepared to make a call — and then changed your mind when you found out the call was long distance? I know I have. Today's consumers want good service and part of good service is not asking your prospect to pay money to call you. If you want to increase response to your ads, provide a toll-free number.
After a long wait, Google has updated it's pagerank today on 27th June 2011, and punished large sites, which are deemed as content farms!
Google’s punishment of those who re-post material as an essential tool for sharing information appears to now reduce news aggregators to the status of plagiarists within the algorithm. There are many alternative news sites and blogs which have original material that they freely share, in part or in full, purely to support one another in disseminating the truth. We all know what plagiarism looks like and a link back to the original source should not, for instance, be grounds for labeling a site as shallow.
PageRank is Google’s way of deciding a page’s importance. It matters because it is one of the factors that determines a page’s ranking in the search results. It isn’t the only factor that Google uses to rank pages, but it is an important one.
