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Archive for October, 2009

So many people here of wordpress and immediately think that wordpress is just for blogging. Oh how wrong you are

Wordpress for those who are not familiar with it is a tool used for blogging however it can be used for website creation. It is very easy to use and means that you can update your site very very easily form anywhere in the world. There’s no need to worry about html code, or packages such as DreamWeaver etc.

If you search online you’ll see a lot of people say that Google loves blogs. Blogs get ranked quickly and highly by the search engines. There’s a number of reasons for this:

• By their very nature blogs are updated more frequently than websites. Therefore the content is more up to date meaning Google will index and return more often.
• Within wordpress there is a tool that automatically “pings” (sends out a notification) to search engines and blog search engines to tell them that you’ve updated your site.
• Wordpress creates clean code when it builds your pages or posts for you.
• Wordpress allows you to tag all your posts and set them into categories which helps with your seo ranking

Now can you see where this is going? Easy to use, loved by search engines – why would you not use wordpress for your site layout?

For many it’s simply either not knowing about the possibilities of wordpress or being afraid to use the platform. Take it from me it’s the easiest tool to install and really easy to manage. Many companies will charge you for a content management system (CMS) when you don’t need to pay you can get it for free!

There are also many designers out there that will design sites for wordpress and you can also find templates, so your wordpress site will not look like a blog!  If you’d like more info about wordpress and what it can do why not give me a call on 087 6361907 and let’s get you rocking up the search engines!

The key to success of a website is to make sure

a) you have an atractive and informative site

b) to rank well in the search engines

Before engaging a web marketer or seo firm, make sure to get an accurate baseline report from them to see what your current rankings are if any. This then allows you to have a benchmark or baseline to compare their work. I do this with all my clients as it saves hassle in the long run. We both know how good a job I did since they can see where they were and where they are now.

The second thing you need to be very aware of is google may report your search engine rankings “incorrectly”

This is not a flaw in google rather what they term a feature.  If you have a gmail account or any other account with google your search results may often be shown based on your previous searches or web history. What this means is that although your site may appear in the top ten, this could be based on your surfing history not actually on where it is placed. Can you see the danger here? An seo company shows you your listings in google and within a week they have improved your rankings! Unbeknown to you they are showing you a “personalised” result based on your or their search history!

One way of ensuring you see correct results is to make sure you or they are logged out of their gmail accounts.

The second way is to use a third party piece of software such as Internet Business Promoter which will give you results independent of your search history.

Now a proviso on this. I have found that sometimes reports generated by this software may say I am ranked number 2 for a keyword in google.ie or google.com but when I do a normal google search I don’t find my ranking. Why is this? Since google is running its services over a huge array of servers, it may take time for each server to have the most up to date search rankings. Perhaps each server is updated every 30 minutes. This means that when you go to google.ie you may connect to server 57 the next time you run the same search it may connect to server 557 – which might not have the exact same information.  Note these are my observations over the last number of years.

Bottoms line – always make sure you get fully documented results with screenshots to prove your ranking!

Google is now recognised as the best and only search engine that matters to get listed on. And in many ways it is. However please be careful. Over the last few days I have been getting emails from businesses offering to get me listed in Google within 48 hours for my desired keyword. It looked good I choose 5 keywords and pay X amount and then then pay a monthly fee to stay at that listing.

Even better I don’t have to pay per click or worry about budgets. Reading between the lines all these guys are doing is running a google adwords (sponsored links) for my keywords which I could do myself. Yes they get you to the top of google within 48 hours but only via pay per click.

Although useful pay per click can be expensive if you do not know what you are doing. It can also be ineffective unless you have created effective landing pages. I’m  not sure if this comes with this service.

The best way to get into google listings is to create a content rich website and then read some of the seo tips provided on this site. It’s not magic and it’s not rocket science.

Another company approached me, in fact two, with the following idea. They could get me listed in the normal (organic results) and on the first page of google in no time. I just paid X amount a year, and they did the rest. On closer inspection what they were selling was a listing on their own directory site, which at the time did rank for some keywords in google.

However this form of advertising is somewhat flawed. As you’re creating a longer “click path” for the user. That is they search for life coaching dublin. They click through to the link on the companies directory site and then if they want further information they have to click thru onto your site. So you see they are not actually getting your website into the search engines, only a link to your website. This in my eyes is quite ineffective. It’s better to hire someone to do proper research and SEO work on your site rather than do any of the above scenarios.

Having said that it may help to increase your brand awareness

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• SEO Tip – when setting up your wordpress site make sure you change permalinks to %postname% to get the most for your seo efforts #
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• SEO Tip – Write for humans not search engines, ie don't try to stuff articles with keywords, be natural, be informative that's the key #
• this will help build your business http://tinyurl.com/999StomperNet, picking it up myself #
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What type of emails should you send out?

This is a question I get a lot and many people do the wrong thing.  Here’s the deal someone has signed up for you newsletter to get more information and not to be sold to. Get this into your head straight away. You have to provide information. Here’s a sample of what I do:

Message 1 – sent right away once they confirm. Hi [name], here’s the link to the free report you requested, I’ll touch base with you in a few days to see how you’re getting on.

Message 2 – sent about 4 days later. Hi [name] just wondering if you got the download ok, hit reply if you have any questions. This one is a great puller, I get so many replies saying “thanks for the email” etc. It’s personal and caring!

Message 3 – 10 – sent about every 4 days after message previous message.  I begin to go thru the contents of the report. Explain it a bit more.

By message 10 the people have been with me for about 40 days, I’ve built up a relationship and they know me a little. Message 11 might be a message re a product I came across or a service I offer that might interest them – not it’s not a sales pitch, simply a review or a “I saw this and thought of you” type email.

Remember don’t sell, advise and recommend!

In my previous article I talked about double optin and ensuring you had this setup when you decide to buy an email marketing system.  Now the idea of list building is this:

You offer a person an “ethical bribe” to join your list – ie a free report on the subject that you website is about. Once they join and double optin you provide them with a link do download the report. This is step one.

So now you have a list of people in your email marketing system what do you do now? You begin to build a relationship. Most email marketing systems will allow you to set up automated timed messages that are sent out on a regular basis. For example you can set it up so that a new message is delivered to a subscriber every 10 days.  This is all automated – you set it up once and then as new people join your mailing list they will automatically get the sequence of messages.  Many people don’t know about this really essential sequencing system which has many uses and advantages which I discuss below.

The first thing that is happening is that the person is seeing your brand come into their email box every X amount of days. So you are following up with them. The second thing is you are “training” your email list to expect emails every X days.  If the system was manual, you would have to remember to send out an email every X days, but in this case it is not. The third thing is that your list members need to build up a relationship with you. They need to trust you before they will ever buy from you. It is said that you need to contact the person 7 – 10 times before they will buy from you.

Here’s what happens. People set up a website and expect that once a visitor visits the site once they will buy from them – they don’t. Then the visitor leaves the site and never returns. However if you have them sign up to your mailing list you now have a way of contacting them.

They key thing you must remember is to give quality information to your list. Don’t send them an offer or a sales pitch in the first 8 – 10 emails. You want to always provide them with useful information, and then perhaps give them a review or a recommendation of a product. Now look at how this works.

Let’s say at the beginning of the year you set up your mailing list. You right out your sequence of messages. The first 8 – 10 are informational, the 11^th is a product or service review with your affiliate link in it.  Out of every 100 who receive the 11^th email maybe 10 will click and maybe one will buy thru your affiliate link. As your list grows you now begin to have a way of generating automated income. This happens to me all the time. I get commission payments for lists that I set up a year to 18 months ago.  I do the work once, and then let my list build and promote the services I am promoting while also providing good information.

One key thing to remember is that many people don’t know about that the messages are automatically generated so they feel great that you have personally emailed them.  All good email marketing systems will provide a personalisation option so each email is addressed to the person, ie Dear Richard rather than dear reader or dear friend.

In my next article I’ll talk more about the types of emails you should be sending out.

Email Marketing – Using Double Optin

If you’re going to ask people for their name and email address in order to join your list you need to make sure that your mailing list program is using double optin. This means that after the person signs up an email is automatically sent to them asking them to confirm their desire to be on your list. This is used so you do not get accused of spam.

Because the person had to open their email and click on a link this proves that they did in fact request to join your list. If you do not use double optin a person might sign up under someone elses email just for the “crack” or “hell of it”. The unsuspecting other person starts to revieve emails from you and gets annoyed. They can then accuse you of spamming them as you can not prove it was they who actually signed up for your list.  Be very careful of this. The last thing you want is to be accused of spam.

Before buying an email marketing service ask if they provide double optin features. Although it means your visitor who signs up needs to take an extra step in order to join your list the advantage is two fold. Firstly you know they want to join your list. Secondly it covers you against spam complaints.

In my next post I’ll talk about how to build the relationship with your list.

Email marketing is widely misunderstood and within Ireland it seems we don’t have a grasp of its potential and its pitfalls.

So let’s define email marketing.  It’s a process of collecting visitors email address on your site and then sending them your marketing message. Or is it?

Frankly if that’s the attitude you have it’s the wrong one. First of all people don’t like to be marketed to through their email.  Seems paradoxical to talk about email marketing and then say people don’t like it! Let me explain further.

When a visitor visits your website you should have a call to action and ask them to give you their name to join your mailing list. However you need to give them an “ethical bribe” that is you need to give them something in return. Remember everyone things What’s In It For Me or WIIFM. People don’t like to give their email address unless they are getting something of value in return.  So what can you give to them in return is the first point you must ponder.

Let’s say you are a life coach. You can give them a free report about life coaching and top ten things to ask your life coach before engaging them.  This is a valuable report as it could save them money. So your call to action might be “Before hiring a coach you need to know the top ten questions you should ask them to ensure you don’t waste your time and money” – Ok that’s only a quick thought I had but look what the key is here, not to waste time or money – no one wants to waste either of these.  Therefore you may get some visitors signing up.  Remember statistics show that your conversion rates may be in the 5 – 10% range max.

You now have a person you can then send follow up emails to. I’ll talk about relationship building in a later post. But for now the sequence goes like this.

You get the person to sign up, you give them a link to the eBook and then you send them related information about coaching. You DON’T ask for the sale yet.  Again I’ll go over this in a later article.

If you don’t have a newsletter sign up form with a good call to action people will not sign up.  You need a third party to run your mailing list – doing it yourself will cause you problems. However be aware that this service should not cost you more than around €125. Many Irish companies are to be frank ripping people off, charging them per mailing, charging for customised templates for your newsletters and more. Some companies are charging upwards of €600 for this service. Others won’t even list their prices.

I’ve found that a trust and tested service is aweber.com who have been in the business of email marketing for many years and are trusted by some of the best known marketers online. Their service is around $160 or so per year. I use them myself and have to say I’ve not had any issues with them.

This is a question that a lot of people ask. The answer is no one knows the definitive answer. You see the likes of Google employ teams of matematicians to create the algorithms on how sites are indexed. This is their “secret sauce” so to speak so they do not reveal how exactly the index each and every page.

What we do know is the following:

Pages should be well structured. By this I mean you should make sure that your keyword is in the page title, and within the body text but not “spammed” ie just repeating the keyword over and over again. This is where the algorithms come into play. The google bots can look at a page, look at the keywords that might be prominent and then see if the overall content reflects the keyword or not. If for example you repeate the keyword 10 times in a 100 word page of content, Google bots will know that this can not make sense. Imagine if you were talking to someone and you said:

Hi there, would you like to buy hosting? Hosting is really essential for your business. I sell hosting. Have you heard of hosting.

What would you think? Bit full on! Well the search engines are like that too. They can “understand” your page and look to make sure it is relevent.

A well strucutured page also means you should have a relevent name for the page. For example if you are targetting clients in Dublin for hosting, you might save the page as cheap_hosting_dublin.html – this puts your keywords within the url or web address and will help to increase your overall ranking.

Content is king. This can not be stressed enough. The more content on your site the more “useful” it is for the visitor. A site which simply lists your products and services will not rank highly. However a site that provides interesting and up to date content, and is updated on a very regular basis will move up the search engines. Think about it logically. Would you buy a magazine that has new stories that are 3 months out of date, or even 3 years? Well Google and other search engines are the same – they want up to date pages. After all they are in the business to provide the best search results.

Age of Domain. Believe it or not this is a factor. If you buy a domain name today and expect instant search engine ranking forget it. It takes time. You see if google sees a “new kid” on the block, they want to watch the site to make sure the site is not “ropey”. They are afraid that they might give you a good ranking for the keywords you are looking at and then change the content to something less than desirable. However if your domain name is a couple of years old you have a track record with the search engines so they may index and rank your pages quicker. As a rule of thumb I usually say it takes 6 – 8 weeks to get indexed by the search engines. Usually it happens quicker than this but it’s a good rule of thumb.

Backlinks. Google and other search engines will check to see who is linking back to you. The more people who link back from good quality sites the better. This is like a vote of confidence to your site. If no one links back to you then the search engines will think your content and site is not worthy of inclusion.

That’s just a few pointers at what you should do