Get Ready for Your Website Launch: Start NOW!

 

Are you OPEN FOR BUSINESS on launch day?

If you wait until after you launch your site to start working on search engine marketing, you’re going to be spending a lot of days watching the paint dry. It takes time for even the best designed, most highly optimized site to start pulling traffic and getting a little notice.

 

So, before the development of your site and during its construction and tweaking phases, there are a number of SEM steps you should take so you’re locked and loaded – ready to launch a marketing blast the day you go live. You want that commercial web site to start kicking out cash ASAP. Up to that point it’s been all outgo and no income so, while you’re waiting for your site to be completed, take the following steps so you’re ready to market your site the day it launches.

First, What Not to Do

Don’t start any marketing or SEO tactics until the site is completed, gone through beta testing, and is as viable and functional as you can make it at this point. If you market a half-completed site with lots of UNDER CONSTRUCTION pages, visitors are going to be annoyed and search engine bots will slam you for uploading inactive site pages. Don’t let any page of your site be Googled until it’s ready. You can identify which pages you don’t want spidered in your site’s HTML code.

Any way, if it appears on the navigation bar, there had better be something to read or see or do. Or, you run the risk of annoying potential, long-time customers and search engine bots that are always looking for ways to increase the relevance of search engine results pages. A blank page hinders a user’s search and you lose Google points.

Before (or While) Your Site Is Constructed

An archives section is a good place to start. Write up some general, informational articles on the topic of your site. These shouldn’t be sell pieces.

Instead, they should provide the visitor with useful, unbiased information.

Build a Public Knowledge Base

Generate 10 pieces between 600 and 1200 words each. Provide each piece with a header that includes one (and only one) of your keywords. Upload these articles to the site’s archives.

Keep adding new content every few days if possible.

You can also use articles from sites like helium.com and goarticles.com for free content of interest to a typical visitor. However, these syndicated articles won’t help your positioning with search engines. Bots know this content appears on 25 other sites so it isn’t green. But it is a service to your readers. So, build a big knowledge base of good information before and during site constructed.

While Your Site Is Being Constructed, Time to Get Really Busy.

Seed Your Blog Add a number of posts to your blank blog. There’s nothing sadder than an empty blog. It’s up to you to pepper those pages with provocative, pithy content designed to elicit responses from visitors.

Open and Fund an AdWords Account

Open an AdWords account. Google AdWords can be low cost but watch out for click fraud and track the placement of your blocks of blue. The minimum funding of your Google AdWords account is $5.00, which won’t get you very far if you’re paying 50 cents a click. Or how about a buck a click for certain keywords? Not at all unusual.

Develop a List of Second- and Third-Tier Keywords Which gets us to another pre-launch step.

You’ve, no doubt, developed a list of keywords that you want to appear in the site’s meta data and sprinkled throughout the site text every 200 words or so. Those keywords are fine for most SEO objectives.

However, with AdWords, you bid for certain keywords and deeper pockets competitors will always outbid you. So, develop a list of second and third tier keywords – keywords you can get for less. If it costs $1.00 for the keyword phrase “hand-knit sweaters,” it might only cost you a nickel for “sweaters hand knit.” You won’t drive as much traffic using a second or third tier keyword because fewer users will enter those keywords or keyword phrase.

But, the PPC will be much less, thus stretching a microscopic SEM budget.

Build Links or a Weblet

Contact other site owners and do a little “links begging.” The only sites that’ll want to link to you will be low ranking sites and, with search engines, you’re known by the company you keep so don’t expect a PR7 site owner to be eager to hook into your PR0, in-the-process-of-being-built site. But it’s still good to make contacts for follow up as your PR rises through your SEM efforts.

A weblet is a collection of linked sites that offers products and services to the same demographic. So, if you sell sunglasses online, it’d be a good idea to link to a cruise site, a travel agency site, an eyewear site, a wellness site and so on. By gathering “partners in parallel,” you create a larger web presence without competing among each weblet member.

Weblets build synergies of marketing, not competitive marketing. Contact site owners via the “Contact Us” page of their websites. If there is no direct contact information on the site (which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for a commercial website, but who knows, the site could be a DBA for another corporation) use Whois – the public directory of site owners.

You may not find all of the product sites at first but as your weblet grows, more site owners will hop on board. It’s a great way to build links quickly and much of the spadework can be done before site launch.

Get a Couple of Newsletters Done

Newsletters are great for pulling opt-ins and for keeping your company’s name in front of potential buyers – people who traded their web addresses to you for good information. Have at least five issues stored on your hard drive. Select topics for beginners and vets within your product sector to broaden the newsletter’s appeal.

Create a Couple of Podcasts

Get a decent microphone, write up a few five-to 10 minute reports, record them and upload them to your site. Beta test as usual.

Create Payment Gateways

Open a merchant account, not always an easy thing to do – especially if you have a few credit hiccups on your credit report, or your selling certain services or products. For example, if you’re a stock picker who provides actual recommendations, you may have difficulty obtaining a merchant account.

Open and verify a PayPal account in the company name. This will take a couple of days so do it before you start seeing PayPal orders.

Connect Up to Your Order Fulfillment House

If you plan to outsource shipping to an order fulfillment house, your content management system (CMS) has to synch up with the fulfillment house CMS so an order is sent to both parties and you can track shipping activities with a click.

This is a step that’s often overlooked and the result is a bunch of emails flying back and forth until you can synchronize both content management systems. A waste of time and effort after launch.

After Launch

You may fire when ready. But maybe not fire all at once. You’ve created a bunch of content. Maybe upload five original articles to the archives and then upload a new one every few days. Makes your site look active, fresh and green.

Same with blog posts. Salt the blog with five or six provocative posts but keep a few pieces in abeyance and add over a period of a couple of weeks. All that new content, delivered regularly, impresses site visitors and bots.

Link into your weblet and hook up with other site owners who have taken you up on a links exchange offer. Blast your AdWords. Push these even if you have to count the pennies in the penny jar.

Despite concerns about click fraud, you still only pay per click so arrange for as many impressions as the budget will allow. Go with second-tier keywords. Use the Google Keyword generator to determine the most popular keywords used for the topic of your site. Select keywords and phrases from the 10th position and lower. You’ll pay less per click and you eliminate some heavyweight competition that doesn’t use second tier keywords.

Put all of your articles out for syndication the day you launch.

Track the results as best you can. Cut and paste the first line of each article into the Google search box for the most detailed view of how this content has spread through viral means. Finally, get up early each morning, pour that coffee and settle down to work in front of the computer. You can front load your launch for maximum SEM impact, but then there’s that follow through…

Welcome to the world of e-commerce.

editor@webwordslinger.com

How to Stage a Webinar: Ah, Show Biz

 

If you can go on-line, you can stage a webinar

Webinars have grown increasingly popular in the era of Web 2.0. They’re interactive, easy to set up and deliver a lot of advantages to the webinar host. And a lot of revenue if you’re good at it.

 

Webinars versus Webcasts
Webcasts are one-way communication. You, the site owner, post a digital video (DV) on your web site or upload it to YouTube and other social sites. You talk. The viewer listens. And unless you have a compelling way about you, watching a webcast is like watching grass grow.

Today, people don’t want online passivity. They don’t want to sit there. They want to interact. Interact with each other via facebook.com, myspace.com and other sites that rely on the user-generated content of those laying claim to a few pixels, and interact with experts who actually have something worthwhile to say.

Webinars are totally interactive. They’re scheduled to start at a specific time, they’re hosted by an expert and “attendees” from around the world interact with the webinar host and with each other.

Webinars are interesting because of this interactivity. As a participant, you’re free to ask the expert questions, ask for clarifications or expansion on a specific topic. You can learn a lot from these on-line classes.

Selling CEUs
They’re called continuing education units or CEUs, and lots of professions require their members to obtain a certain number of CEUs each year – every profession from private investigators in Texas to hearing aid dispensers in Maine. Hundreds of thousands of pros need CEUs. They can get them by attending classes at the local community college or professional association, by writing papers and they can earn CEUs by attending online webinars.

Starting to see the potential here? If you’re an expert in a field that requires members to continue their educations, you have a captive audience. And attending an online seminar is a lot easier than attending classes every Monday night for 16 weeks.

Certain standards have to be met to qualify for CEU recognition. The teacher has to be a professional, the course subject has to be (in some way) relevant to the professionals’ work and the seminars must actually teach, i.e. have an established syllabus or course of study. The standards are high, as they should be, so to qualify for a CEU accredited webinar, you better know what you’re talking about or zippo CEU-seekers are going to sign up.

How To Stage a Webinar Technically
There are two ways to do this thing.

First, if you’re planning on doing a webinar a week and adding to the list of classes and topics available, you’re best off buying webinar software. Here’s a link to some Q & A on what to look for in this system-based software.

However, before you fly off to the Software Shack to pick up a webinar program, try one of the hundreds of online services that specialize in the staging of webinars. These companies provide the software and some hand holding. They aren’t too pricey, either, given the competitive nature of the market. Heck, even Big Blue (IBM) offers on-line conferencing services and that’s all a webinar is – an online conference with nice pictures.

Marketing Your Webinars
If you’re CEU accredited, use Google AdWords to promote your upcoming event. Allow a six-week time window from the date you start promotion until the actual date of the webinar itself. Then, do a little viral marketing.

Respond to blog posts relevant to your upcoming event and mention date, time, URL and cost, if any. Let’s talk about that for a minute.

When you first start staging webinars, no one knows you from Adam. You’re an unknown quantity, yet to prove you’re worth $29.95 to sign up to hear your words of wisdom. So, to start building an audience and establishing credentials as a quality educational or instructional site, offer your first few webinars free. Hey, you can become a star pretty quick if you aren’t a cold fish. And people will pay for righteous information presented in a professional manner.

The exception, here, is CEU-accredited webinars. These demand a certain production standard, knowledge standard and broadcast standard. These webinars may require a cash outlay to the conferencing company, a graphic designer and techie if you think a USB port is where U.S Boats dock. So, you can charge by the CEU. Some webinars are worth 1 CEU. Another can be worth 3 CEUs depending on the credibility of the webinar producer, length and scope of the content.

If the budget can stand it, pay for links from related sites. If there’s an industry association, send its PR department a press release announcing time and place for the webinar, and be sure to include your professional biography and credentials for hosting this gab fest.

Also, if you’re doing webinars regularly, get listed in webinar directories (Google it. There are lots of them.) If you know your stuff and you’re not a stiff – you can have fun interacting with others – then you’ll quickly see the popularity of and attendance at your webinars increase.

Putting Together a Webinar
The software comes from the conference provider. On screen, you’ll have the webinar administrator’s console showing activity of participants, handling emails from participants and tracking levels of participation.

Now, the easiest way to put together one of these online lessons is to buy a decent web cam, write out your key points and interact with participants via the email option. Or, to make connections even easier and quicker, provide a telephone contact that attendees can use to ask questions, make a point or contest a point.

As the webinar administrator, you move things along. Whatever you do, don’t write a paper and read it for an hour. I’m bored just typing about it. You need some sizzle, some visuals, some eye candy to create a professional and engaging webinar.

The easiest tool to develop webinar visuals is Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have it on your system, you can download it from the Microsoft site. This is a totally screen-driven program that’s almost idiot-proof. (Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.) You type text where prompted to do so.

Add a dash of color or a photograph to give a boring bullet list a little pizzazz. Especially if we’re going to be parked on it for a while. Or, instead, reveal text in the bullet list on cue simply by going to the next Power Point slide in the deck. Without too much of a learning curve, you can put together a Power Point presentation.

Using your webinar administrator’s console, you can cut back and forth between the graphics in your Power Point deck and your talking head via a hi-res webcam. By switching between the two you accomplish a couple of important tasks: (1) you put a face to the voice and the knowledge and the humor and professionalism (at least wear a nice sweater); and (2) it maintains visual interest. An hour-long Power Point presentation is almost as bad as an hour-long talking head. Switch to create interest, especially when answering questions from the crowd.

During the Webinar
You should have a list of talking points and sub-points, not a speech. You should have an agenda. “Today I’m going to talk to you about liability insurance and the private investigator. Let’s begin with blah, blah, blah…”

Encourage discussion and stop often to ask for questions. In some cases, it may take a few minutes for a question to reach the moderator’s console if the email is routed via Zambia so go with the flow. “Oops, okay, we have an email from a dental associate in California regarding that last point.” Stay flexible and nimble. As the moderator you’ll be juggling a lot of balls.

You’ll be teaching, reading emailed questions, moderating group discussions, tracking viewer activities and trying to work in a little humor all at the same time.

You should know, throughout the webinar, where you are on your agenda list and expand or contract your discussion as necessary.

Encourage debate by posing provocative questions. Part of the appeal of these events is the ability to interact with one’s peers so provide that opportunity. Then, sit back and moderate, keeping the discourse on topic.

Testing
CEU webinars require that attendees take and pass a test so if your’s is a CEU-accredited webinar, you need to develop an online post-test administered after the webinar. To earn the CEU credits, each attendee must achieve a certain grade. Hey, for all you know they were watching TV as you were explaining the latest in forensic science so those meeting professional requirements should be tested, and they should pass.

If your webinar isn’t CEU-based, testing is up to you. Frankly, the people who have signed up already know their stuff so testing seems a bit inappropriate. However, to maintain interest, ask the “Question of the Second” or “Insurance Trivia” throughout the lesson. Using Power Point makes creating “test pages” easy and the conferencing software captures attendees scores and even delivers them individually to avoid embarrassment.

Amortize Production Costs
It could cost a few bucks to put together a professional webinar that has high production values, accurate, current information and a dash of entertainment value on the web (sorely missing, btw). And if you only host the webinar once (a spot webinar), those costs are all associated with the one-shot spot. Instead, schedule webinars daily or weekly. Each time you’re able to conduct a revenue-producing webinar, the initial production costs are further amortized. So, that one time production expense pays for itself over and over.

It’s not hard to do, and if you don’t have the time, talent or inclination there are plenty of freelancers who do this stuff every day so outsource all the heavy lifting and save yourself for Saturday mornings when you become the congenial host of “Process Server Weekly, the ONLY weekly webinar for professional process servers.”

Ahh, show biz.

User Reviews: Let Buyers Sell Your Goods and Services

 

User testimonials keep it real

Mom always said don’t accept candy from strangers, but what about advice? How reliable is it? Well, when it comes to product reviews, advice from previous buyers helps a lot – assuming the product (and services you provide) live up to expectations.

 

Amazon has been encouraging reviews from buyers for years and it’s apparently been working fine for them – even if the product is trashed, which it often is. But, consider what Amazon gets. Happier buyers (even if they grumble, they aren’t grumbling about Amazon, they’re trashing the product), fewer returns from buyers warned off one product over another, invaluable marketing data straight from buyers who bought the product and, the cherry on top – it’s user generated content, meaning it doesn’t cost anything to produce. That’s a big plus.

Stats and Facts
Site owners eat stats and facts for breakfast. We want that empirical proof that numbers provide so here are a few to catch your attention from the nice folks over at emarketer.com

Question: Do you use customer reviews before making a purchase?

Always: 22%
Most of the time: 43%
Some of the time: 24%
Occasionally: 9%
Never: 2%

Get that? 65% of online buyers use consumer-generated reviews in making a buying decision. That should get you to sit up and take notice. It’s some pretty powerful evidence that consumer reviews are useful in (1) making the right sale and (2) identifying products the buyer doesn’t want. Either way, as a site owner, you’re ahead – ahead on sales motivated by user reviews and ahead with fewer returns from dissatisfied consumers who bought a different product or brand based on customer reviews. Either way, you win.

How many reviews do you read before making a purchase?
Just 1% relied on a single review. It took two or three reviews for 28% of buyers to make a decision, four to seven reviews for 46% of buyers to make a buying decisions and eight to 15 reviews to convince exceedingly cautious buyers to make a purchase.

The number of reviews required to make a purchase is correlated to the price of the item. A buyer will purchase a $49 off-brand MP3 player after reading a single review but it’ll probably take five to 10 positive reviews to convince that same buyer to purchase his or her next car. The cost factor plays a big role.

Now, how do user reviews stack up against other promotional efforts. Quite well, according to emarketer. In fact, user reviews influence the buying decisions of a whopping 64% of online shoppers. That’s two-thirds of all buyers – all buying based on the reviews of previous buyers.

Compare that to other promos:

• Special offers and coupons: 61%

• Product and price comparison tools: 59%

• Consumer testimonials: 49% (these testimonials have lost any credibility since many are fabrications of some copywriter’s not-so-vivid imagination)

• Product videos: 44% (usually demonstrating the benefits of the product)

• RSS alerts: 39%

• Blogs and forums: 39%

• Questionnaires: 29%

Web Research
More and more web users turn to product reviews to find the perfect fit – but not all reviews are given equal credence. User reviews are believed by 55% of comparison shoppers. And, when skimming through consumer reviews, it’s easy to tell the psychopathic malcontent from the thoughtful reviewer who’s actually trying to help.

Comparison charts are another useful sales tool. 21% of online window shoppers use these list-formatted tools to compare apples to apples, features to features. This format is a terrific means of delivering a lot of useful information in a simple-to-evaluate format.

Expert reviews – the kind you often see in specialty periodicals – carry less weight than reviews written by actual buyers of a product. Why? The consumer-reviewer doesn’t have an axe to grind, making the opinion more reliable. A review by a professional may have an ulterior motive behind it – like the product manufacturer is a big advertiser, or the review is a cut-and-paste job from the manufacturer’s promotional literature.

The reason customer reviews work is they have validity. “I bought it and I love it,” when unsolicited, is as good as a recommendation from a friend. Same with “I bought it and it blew out every circuit in my house.” Now that’s a product you shy away from.

The Ethics of User Reviews
As a site owner, you have god-like powers. Post anything. It’s your site. But what about the ethicacy of user reviews? How do you handle this kind of input?

Consider the site owner who writes his or her own buyer reviews to move more junk out the door. After a while, this tactic is going to come back and bite you in your assets as more and more dissatisfied buyers return products, taking up more of your time and costing money.

And how do you handle the disgruntled buyer who slams one of your best selling products? Is it unethical to remove negative product posts? You bet it is. An occasional slam increases the credibility of all of those positive reviews. If every review sings the praises of the product, well, the reviews become less credible.

Also, if you receive numerous slams on a product or brand, consider dropping the item. Let the buyers tell you what they want – then give it to them.

The tools you use to promote products are often expensive and time consuming to create. A Google AdWords campaign can bust the bank in six months – and you have to write the little blocks of text.

User-generated product reviews have credibility and the nut jobs are easy to spot and ignore. So, give your buyers a place to tell you and other site visitors what they think about their purchases.

Then, watch sales increase as “friend” recommends to “friend.” It’s powerful promotion and, even better, it’s free.

The Perfect Gift: A Web Site

 

The Pefect Gift: A Web Site

There’s one on every gift list. The one person for whom buying the right gift is an annual challenge. Mom. Dad. Uncle Fred. We’ve all got them. And another blue tie, or worse, the six-pack of tube socks, is just another way of saying, “I don’t have a clue what to get you.”

 

Well, how about a little piece of the world wide web? A domain name. It’s one gift that’s low-cost, practical, fun and won’t fall apart even if the kids play with it. And, it truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

The Cost
For a domain name to “exist,” it has to be registered. There are hundreds of on-line businesses that are domain registrars. Most often, registrars are web hosting companies (we’ll get to that in a minute) and can charge anywhere from $3 to $18 to register a domain name with the W3 domain name authorities. Go with the lowest-priced registrar you can find. A domain registration is a domain registration whether it costs $3.95 or $17.95 so don’t waste the money. In fact, do a Google on “web hosts” and do some comparison shopping before registering.

Picking a Domain Name
There are millions of web sites, which means there are millions of registered domain names because that’s what a domain name is all about – a web site. Amazon.com is a domain name you may have heard of. Youtube, Myspace and WebMD are other examples of domain names.

So, if you’re giving your brother a domain name for his birthday, choose a name that he’ll enjoy and appreciate. Be creative in developing a name that’s (1) available and (2) a reflection of the gift recipient.

Now, we’re all familiar with dot-coms, as in IBM.com and Google.com. The c-o-m stands for “company,” telling potential visitors that this is a commercial site. But today, there are many more options for domain name extensions including .net, .us, .name and plenty of others. This gives you many more domain options because if IBM.com is taken (it is) you might try IBM.net or IBM.us until you find a name that will please the individual who receives the gift.

Presentation is Everything
Create a card with the domain name displayed front and center. Or, wrap it up in its own box, or stick it in the box along with the new laptop. If your gift recipient isn’t computer savvy, s/he won’t have a clue what the gift is so, as needed, provide a little bit of explanation in your presentation package so the receiver is as excited as you are.

Now What?

You and/or the domain name owner are now poised to construct a web site. Since this is just for yucks (in most cases) go with a low-cost web host – a company that provides access to the world wide web for cheap. Also, look for a web host that provides a toolbox of web building tools free. The last thing you want is to go out and buy a $799 piece of site builder software, so go with a web host that provides all the tools you’ll need to design and launch a website.

Low-cost website hosting, with a pile of goodies, shouldn’t cost more than $7 a month – less than $100 a year. BTW, this might be a cost you add to your “gift” – a one-year subscription of web hosting. You get the best rates when you sign on for 12 months or longer.

Once you’ve selected a web host, it’s time to build a web site and, really, it’s something anybody can do. You don’t have to be a computer genius. You don’t even have to be a computer dummy.

Building the Website

Help or let the gift recipient handle things on his or her own. A child might need a little help but part of the fun of designing a web site (especially one given as a gift) is to personalize it and make it your own.

Actual site construction is done using templates – basic forms into which you add whatever information you want – your name, the family name, whatever – that’s what makes it your site.

Using pick-and-click templates, even the techno-impaired can build a web site in a few hours with a completely customized look. Hey, now you’ve taken your place in cyberspace. You have a digital identity.

Who Would Want a Domain Name?

Who wouldn’t? There are so many things you can do with a domain and a simple web site.

Grandparents would love a web site that allowed them to see their grandchildren living far away.

College students, for the most part computer savvy, can share their campus experiences with family and old friends.

Military families can stay in constant touch even half a world away. The site owner can post pictures of the new baby and post his or her own blog of daily events. Imagine how that would pick up the spirits of military personnel away from home – and very home sick. A personal or family website is almost like being there.

Kids can get very creative (probably more than adults) using today’s site building software. Just keep an eye on the child’s web site and never let the child post any family or identifying information. Pix for friends are fine but giving out the home phone number is definitely out of the question.

Who else would enjoy having their own websites? Any family with distant relatives. Small business owners. Artists, writers and poets looking to expose their works to the world. A not-for-profit organization, community organizations, town sports teams, service organizations – just about anyone could and would have fun as a web site owner.

So, forget the flying elbows at the mall and stop scratching your head about what to get Dad this year. The answer is simple – a little piece of cyberspace and just a spark of creativity.

Then watch what happens as a whole new world opens up for the lucky recipient of such a thoughtful and original gift.

Avoid the Expense of a Merchant Account

 

How You Gonna Get Paid?

When first-time, online entrepreneurs start to put together a budget they often overlook what will almost certainly be a significant expense – the cost of a merchant account. A merchant account is simply an account with a credit card company or companies that allows you to accept credit card orders. Without a merchant account, no credit cards please.

 

Now, credit cards are the most popular way to pay for items or on-line services, but check out some of the merchant account providers – resellers of merchant accounts that assume some of the risk of granting you credit. (In effect, that’s what a merchant account does. It grants you, the site owner, credit which you then pass on to your buying customers.)

These merchant account resellers often require you to sign a one- or two-year contract that means you’re going to pay a monthly fee of $30 or more for 24 months even if your site closes after two months. And that monthly ‘service charge’ never goes away. Not a problem for active, profitable sites, but a $30 bite each month might actually mean the difference between success and failure for a pushcart, start-up site selling a single ebook download and hoping to generate AdWords revenues to put the kids through college.
You’ll also get dinged a ‘per transaction fee’ (anywhere from 25 cents to 75 cents) and pay the merchant account provider a percentage of each sale on a sliding scale. Those online commercial sites that process thousands of orders daily pay the least – maybe 0.5% of each transaction. Online businesses that only process a few orders each day may pay as much as 3% of each order’s total.
So add it up. Monthly fee = $30 minimum. 25-75 cents per transaction. Plus 0.5 – 3% of the total order. Those fees, expenses and percentages are certainly going to nibble away at your bottom line, even though they don’t sound too bad. But let’s say you’re operating at a 24% margin on a small number of monthly sales. Merchant account fees can decrease your margins by as much as 20%, and that’s a big hit when you’re just starting out.
Don’t forget to add merchant account cost to your line item site budget.
And one more thing: no matter how much the merchant account reseller charges, you still may not be able to get an account – especially if you have a less-than-stellar credit history. Also, even though the merchant account will be set up in the name of your online business, you are personally responsible for all business activities and payments, whether you make a single sale or not. You pay.

It actually might make sense to skip the merchant account altogether, at least for the first few months until you start to see actual incoming revenue.
But then, how is the buyer going to pay for services rendered or goods shipped without a credit card?

Alternative Payment Methods
There are, of course, alternatives to the credit card and, with some creative copywriting on your part you can turn a negative into a positive using these alternative payment methods.

Let’s start with good, old-fashioned snail mail. Mail in a check for the order amount (six business days), wait for the check to clear (three business days) and snail mail order delivery (add another seven business days to account for handling at the warehouse). You could easily forget the order before it even arrives it takes so long to get to you. Especially in this age of one-click shopping and free overnight delivery. Using snail mail is one possibility, but you won’t get rich depending on your letter carrier’s daily visit.

However, there are web-based payment gateways that most knowledgeable web users recognize and accept. And if you construct your checkout to “highlight” the benefits of these alternative payment methods, you might actually convince a few buyers to make that first purchase.

One alternative payment method is 2checkout. Low fees, no long term contracts and available to even those whose credit records look like a disaster in the making. 2checkout, like other gateways, doesn’t actually extend credit to you or your buyer. It is simply a processing service for individuals who already have credit cards. So, because the risk is lessened, so, too, are the costs.

Another option is payQuake, another order processing service with more merchant account features that 2checkout. payQuake offers tiered services depending on the size of your online enterprise – from lite (perfect for small established sites and start-ups) all the way up to the PRO version, perfect for online businesses that process lots of orders and generate a pile of revenue. payQuake, as its website states, “[provides] merchant controlled payment processing solutions…[payQuake] is a Real Merchant Account.”

payQuake offers complete ecommerce accounts, swiped card accounts for brick and mortar outlets, international accounts, specialty merchant accounts for high risk (read high end) transactions and electronic checking.

Finally, you’ll want to open a PayPal account. PayPal, which is owned by eBay, enables buyers to charge purchases on their own credit cards or to pay by direct transfer from their checking or saving accounts. PayPal is the most recognized name in cash transferal services – one most buyers will recognize immediately. And one that most buyers will have confidence in.

Turning a Negative Into a Positive

WE DON’T WANT YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER!

Now that’ll grab a lot of eyeballs. Since when do e-tailors NOT want credit card numbers. When they want to protect the sensitive data of their customers or clients.

Make a point to remind customers about online credit card fraud and the risks they take whenever they give out a credit card number online. You don’t want to put your valuable customers at risk so you don’t accept credit card information directly – only through processing services like payQuake and PayPal.

Further, point out that buyers can eliminate credit card charges and over-limit fees by using PayPal to electronically transfer funds directly from the buyer’s checking or savings account into your business account. No numbers exchange hands. Just the payment. Many people prefer this method of purchase. It doesn’t run up large credit card bills and actually prevents the buyer from over-spending because, if the money isn’t in the account, the transaction won’t be made.

In other words, describe the benefits of using PayPal, payQuake and 2checkout. Lower costs (We pass the savings on to you!) and less likelihood of credit card fraud because the buyer’s credit card numbers are all stored in one place instead of dozens of big and small online sites. Buyers have confidence in PayPal and similar services because of their amazing, trouble-free histories.

So, skip the merchant account until you determine that (1) you need one and (2) that you can afford one. As a start up, every entrepreneurial penny should go into building an attractive site and promoting that site. Keep cash close at hand and hold on to every cent until you see whether this thing is actually going to fly.

You may someday decide to get a merchant account. You’ve heard many pundits state that the more payment gateways you offer, the more sales you generate. That may be true – at some point. But on the day you launch your site you may not see a single visitor. They don’t know you’re there yet. So why pay $30 a month to accept a Visa purchase that never takes place.

Wait to see how things go. You’ll know soon enough whether a merchant account is something you want or need. And, if you go with a web host that’s established and reliable, you may be able to get a break on some of those merchant account charges through your web host (and merchant account reseller, but one that actually cares that your site be successful.)

What’s Wrong With Digg?

The phenomenon of sites like Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon and other “social bookmarking” sites is based on some pretty unsteady notions that more is better. When it comes to defining quality content, all opinions are NOT equal.

'Slinger don't Digg it

 

 

Amidst the information onslaught brought about by the web, sorting the good content from the bad isn’t an easy task. In fact, it’s almost impossible unless this information comes with some authority. Any bozo can post his opinion that the world is flat and soon develop a cult following among other flat-Earthers. Still doesn’t make it so.

The authority of much of the content on the web (take it from somebody who consumes web content by the metric ton) is suspect. The problem with web content is good old contestability. I can read it, but I can’t contest it, discuss it, debate it or kick it around with the author.

In fact, most of the time, the author’s name doesn’t appear anywhere attached to the document and, frankly, some of this blather reads like it’s written by 8-year-olds. Too bad, because along with unreliable, biased, inaccurate data, the web provides access to quality content, well written, properly researched and relevant.

The key is to sort through all this web “noise” to find the pearls of wisdom that await. Or better yet, have other web users do it for you. That’s the thinking behind book marking sites. Let the readers decide what’s good quality. In theory, a good idea. In practice, not so much.

Digg It
Digg.com is, perhaps, the best known of the many book marking sites that have sprouted like so many digital mushrooms. Here’s how the company describes its mission in life:

“Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.”

Other book marking sites worth a mention are: Technorati, del.icio.us and Yahoo’s My Web.

So break it down: these and other book marking sites enable you and others to assess the quality of what you read and hear, as you read and hear it. Look below this post and you’ll see two rows of links to book marking sites. By clicking on any of those icons and signing up, you can bookmark useful information, helping others find the good stuff.

These are seals of approval from readers who, at least it’s assumed, have some knowledge of the subject pinged. And this is where the system starts to unravel.

Freedom to Choose Does Not Lead to Good Choices
There’s a mistaken belief (at least in the U.S.) that freedom of expression translates into equality of expression – that all opinions are equal. Could anything be further from the truth?

When readers ping a blog post, their expressing their opinions. These opinions, from unknown, unverifiable sources, are then used by others as a determinant of quality.

The Bias of Authority
Using social book marking does, indeed, level the playing field. Your digg is as good as any other reader’s digg. All count equally. However, well-bookmarked sites are given authority by readers – readers with personal agendas, biases and mis- or dis-information.

The original intent of these sites was to point readers in the direction of articles worth a read. Unfortunately, many of the most pinged sites, blog posts and other web content lack real authority. Readers ping content for any number of reasons, not simply because it is reliable content. In fact, in many cases, just the opposite is true.

For example, political sites receive a lot of pings, especially during campaign season, which is now non-ending. Are the articles that get pinged unbiased references? No. Do the people behind the site have an unspoken agenda? Of course.

Unfortunately, book marking has created a “bias of authority” in content that is anything but authoritative.

It doesn’t take much to create this bias of authority, either. Content with as few as 100 diggs makes noise on the site, drawing attention. (Note of caution to novice diggers. Don’t digg your own pings over and over. The book marking site will recognize the repeating IP address and ban you and your diggs.)

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t network with others who share your views and ping certain rhetoric to build its credibility. The problem with social book marking is that it creates a “jump on the bandwagon,” herd mentality, which in turn delivers at least the cachet of authority, interest and/or readability, i.e., content worth putting down the Pop Tart and reading.

The Bias of Book Marking Frequency
Older computer users don’t bookmark as much as younger users who view the web as their own screen-based playground. Younger users are more likely to express their opinions (1) because they know how and (2) because they believe in their opinions enough to take the time to ping a piece of content.

This slants the tabulation of book marking activity to a much narrower demographic. Pingers are younger, computer savvy and fully functional online. The Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers and the Millennium Generation grew up with mouse in hand and they intend to use it, even though many of these book markers lack authority, experience, expertise and judgment.

So, we have a narrow web segment of non-authorities to determine “the value of content” according to digg’s mission statement above.

While it’s a noble mission and does further the cause of egalitarianism on the web, social book marking must be taken in context. It does not bestow authority. It does not validate an author’s opinion. It does not represent a broad, universal sampling and there’s no way to ascertain the authority, biases, conceptions and misconceptions pingers bring with them when book marking web content.

The only thing diggs and other bookmarks indicate are that, for some reason unknown to all, an unknown web user thought, for some reason untold, that this content was worth your time.

The value of this information must be defined within the above parameters, which doesn’t leave much value at all.

Selecting Keywords: Beating the Competition

 

   Scope out the webmaster sites and industry hubs and you’ll find a lot of content  on the importance of keyword selection. Okay, assuming you know nothing about  keyword selection, let’s start at the beginning.

What Are Keywords?

They’re the words entered by search engine users looking for specific information on a topic, service or product. For example, if you were looking to buy a digital camera online you’d most likely go to Google, Yahoo, Ask or any number of other search engines, type ‘digital cameras’ into the search box and receive the results on the search engine results pages or SERPs.

Keywords are also used by search engines to classify your site according to top secret, highly-classified keyword taxonomies. A taxonomy is simply a sorting system. For example, all living things are sorted by kingdom, phylum, genus, species, etc. Same with keywords. If, as a site owner, you selected ‘digital cameras’ as one of your site’s keywords and included this phrase in your site’s keyword tag, a search engine spider, after making a few checks of the actual text of your site, would classify, or index, your site as one that sold digital cameras. So when search engine users enter ‘digital cameras’ as a search query, your site will show up on the SERPs. Somewhere.

How to Beat the Competition Using Lower-Ranked Keywords
So here’s the thing. If you sell digital cameras (since that’s what we’re using as our example) you’d naturally choose ‘digital cameras’ as a keyword, right? It’s a natural. Problem is, every other online electronics outlet that sells digital cameras will use those same keywords: ‘digital cameras’. And what does this mean to you?

When a search engine user queries ‘digital cameras’ on Google, your site may well end up on page 1320 of Google’s SERPs. And when was the last time you searched through 1320 SERPs looking for anything! In essence, using the keywords ‘digital cameras’ makes you all but invisible to search engine users, i.e., you won’t see any organic (naturally generarted) search-engine-driven site traffic.

But what if your keyword list was comprised of lesser-used keywords and phrases? Well, for one thing you’d still see fewer organic visitors because you’re using lesser employed keywords. However, search engine users often don’t go with the number one or two keyword. Sometimes they go with out-of-left-field keywords based on language differences, education level, current slang and a host of other factors.

As a site owner, you can easily find the most popular keywords for your products or services. You can take them directly from the top ranked sites by viewing the metadata of leading websites using Internet Explorer’s source view, so there are no secrets.

You can also find pricey keyword generators and OSS (open source software, aka FREE) keyword generators to compile lists of the keywords used most frequently on Google (or Ask or Yahoo) within the past seven days. The information is current and accurate.

However, using the most popular keywords isn’t going to do much in generating organic results. For example, on the day of this writing, here are the number of hits generated by Google using variations of the digital camera theme.

Google Hits By Keyword or Phrase

digital cameras = 87,200,000 hits

digital photography = 118,000,000

digital photography equipment = 39,500,000

digital photography cameras = 55,000,000

cheap digital cameras = 21,900,000

really cheap digital cameras = 10,100,000

digital camera prices catalog = 1,750,000

really cheap digital camera catalog = 876,000

‘Digital photography’, as a keyword phrase, generates 118 million hits! Where’s your site in that dog pile? On the other hand, the keyword phrase ‘really cheap digital camera catalog’ generates less than 1 million hits (876K on this day). Get the point?

Sure, a whole lot fewer search engine users will enter ‘really cheap digital camera catalog’ than just plain old ‘digital cameras’ but the dog pile is a whole lot smaller, too.

Just look at the keyword phrases above. The difference between the keyword phrases ‘digital photography’ and ‘digital photography equipment’ is 78,500,000 search engine hits. You’ve just eliminated 78 million competitors simply by adding the word ‘equipment’ to your keyword phrase list.

But smart keyword selection doesn’t end there.

Google AdWords – Saving Money Is Easy
Site owners who use AdWords bid on Google keywords and phrases based on the popularity of those words and phrases. So, you, the site owner, might pay 75 cents per click-through for top-most placement on the AdWords stack found on SERP #1 generated when the search engine user queries ‘digital photography’. (Actually, it’ll probably be more!) However, if you bid on ‘digital photography equipment’, the less popular keyword phrase, you might only have to pay 25 or 30 cents per click. And since you only pay by the click (in other words no click no pay) this is a great way to stretch your marketing dollars. Bid on less popular keywords and phrases (even misspelled keyword phrases, e.g. digital photography quipment; note the missing ‘e’ in equipment) and you’ll stretch those promo dollars to the max, even if it takes longer for enough search engine users to enter your selected keywords.

All Keywords Are Not Created Equal
Thankfully.

You can cut the competition by 90% simply by selecting less popular keywords. Using the most popular words and phrases puts you in head-to-head competition with the most popular competitor sites. Opting for less frequently-used keywords cuts the competition down to size and saves you PPC costs.

So, don’t go with the top ranked keywords if you’re not a top-ranked site. Build organic search engine results through the use of lesser-used keywords. In the web wars for commercial supremacy, less really is more.

Who Handles Order Fulfillment? Not You!

 

Is this how you want to spend your time?

Order fulfillment is an industry unto itself. It’s complex, time-consuming and, for the start up web-based business, a budget buster. So what does the newb entrepreneur do?

 

What’s a better use of your time? Packing up 25 orders and schlepping to the PO or finding your next client or customer. Using a fulfillment house may cost you, but it saves time – something in short supply during the early stages of biz development.

In your business planning, add to the expenses column “order fulfillment.” This is one job you outsource – at least intially. Surprised? Read on.

Hey, this is expensive!

Many soon-to-be, on-line entrepreneurs create business plans that assume that these fledging, commercial sites will handle order fulfillment in-house. That means the Chairman of the Board and CEO will not only empty the waste baskets, she’ll also pack up orders and make a daily trip to the post office.

With any start up, “cash is king.” You need it for everything from hosting fees to site development to postage stamps. Oh, then there’s inventory – 2000 basketballs stored in the spare room. Most start-ups handle every chore, and for some that’s fine. For others, that daily trip to the post office is the least productive chore of the day.

Drop Shippers
These companies are in the business of order fulfillment and there are two kinds in this broad category. The first ships only products it manufactures or distributes. You’ll often see these companies in affiliate programs wherein your site captures the order, it’s sent automatically to the company warehouse from where the product is shipped. You receive a commission and/or flat rate on each affiliate sale you make. That’s drop shipper type one.

The second is the drop shipper for hire. They’ll store your inventory in their warehouse (usually for a fee) then pack and ship as orders are received from you. Some of these businesses are also called fulfillment houses. In addition, most fulfillment houses will assemble, pack and ship items so if “some assembly is required,” look for an active fulfillment house. By the way, it doesn’t have to be close by as long as they have an email address so, if cost is a factor, consider outsourcing assembly and shipping overseas.

In any case, shop around and do some comparison shopping for your shipping. This is a highly-competitive niche sector so you can find good value for your money. And haggling is allowed most times so engage in some negotiation before accepting the drop shippers “standard” S&H fees.

Do I Need One?
Well, obviously if your product is information (data) then no, you don’t need one. But, if you plan to sell a product, or lots of products, consider hiring a drop shipper. Here’s why.

Let’s say you sell aquarium supplies on line and on a typical day you receive 30 new orders. (Good going, btw). Okay, first you need the room to store your inventory. It must be dry and secure. The garage may not be the best place to store aquarium supplies.

Then, you have to pull the 30 orders. Some will include multiple items. Once pulled, you must review the paperwork to determine which customer receives which item(s). Then, there’s the actual packing with bubble wrap or popcorn, taping and securing. An address label must be affixed. The package must be weighed and proper postage glued in place.

Next, load the packages (some are heavy), drive to the post office, wait in line, off-load 30 packages, go back to the office and finally get to work. You can see how much of each day is taken up with shipping and handling. And even if you put the kids to work handling orders, how long do you think that’s going to last?

Lots of start-ups begin as part-time jobs. Come home each day from your 9-to-5 job and start working on your digital dream. In this case, you could find yourself wrapping orders at midnight when that dream starts to look more like a nightmare.

There’s no doubt that drop shipping should be included in many on-line business plans. If you’ve got the time and patience to do it yourself, great. Save the money. But remember, you’re giving up business-building time to handle administrative chores.

How much?
Of course, it depends on how long it takes the drop shipper to wrap an order, its weight, postal zone and other unpredictable factors – another good reason to shop around. The lowest per unit price may not be the lowest total cost if the package is being shipped from half-way around the world.

With affiliate programs, all shipping and handling is managed by the mother company so you don’t have to worry about it. It’s already figured into your commission or fee.

Automation?
Yes, you can automate the order fulfillment process using a number of software packages that track shipping activity. When an order is placed, you receive a copy and the drop shipper also receives a duplicate copy. The order is also entered into your tracking software, so you can monitor the progress of each order.

It simplifies the whole process. The trade-off is that you don’t net as much on each order because some of it goes to the drop shipper.

When searching for a good web host, look for one with a toolbox full of applications, tools and services available to you free. For order processing and shipping and handling, there are several popular software programs designed for on-line business owners looking for simple solutions. Look for: phpCoin for on-line billing; vTiger for better customer care; CubeCart for simple shopping for visitors and osCommerce for everything from site building, shopping cart and an easy-to-use checkout.

With these tools, you can streamline order fulfillment until you’ve grown big enough to require and can afford a drop shipper.

And wouldn’t that be a wonderful problem to have?

Give Your Conversion Ratio a Boost:Seven Simple Steps

 

 

'Slinger on Selling The Goods

If you’ve spent a lot of time (and money) on improving your search engine page rank (PR) but you’re still not generating sales despite increased foot traffic, time to examine your site from a human perspective. The site may be absolutely perfect for search engine spiders but confusing or unattractive to human visitors. And they’re the ones who make purchases. 

 

Lots of Payment Gateways Boost Conversion Rates

You have to optimize your web site to improve your conversion rate – the rate at which visitors become buyers. Window shoppers won’t pay the rent. Buyers will. You don’t need more site traffic (of course, there’s no such thing as too much site traffic) you need more visitors who actually buy something. So, how do you optimize your site for humans? It’s not expensive. It’s all in the site design.

 Keep It Simple

Just because you can have a flashy homepage with lots of bells and whistles doesn’t mean you should. Your home page should be free of distractions. Do you really need that Flash animation? Does that chart or graph really make the point? Use your site’s home page to explain what your site is about and what you can do for the visitor. Lose the animated banner, the 20 links and pictures from a clip art subscription service. Just give visitors the key points. There’s plenty of time to sell once you’ve convinced a visitor to click off the home page.

 Adsense = Nonsense

Google’s Adsense program automatically places “Ads by Goooogle” on site pages, paying the site owner on a PPC basis. These ads are contextual meaning that if Google has identified you as an on-line florist you’ll see a lot of ads for flowers and florists.

 In other words, you may be providing ad space for a competitive site. Now, you can set parameters for the ads you’ll allow to avoid marketing competitors, but each one of those links is a doorway off of your site, providing more opportunities for visitors to pursue another search path.

 Some on-site retailers swear by Adsense and the passive income it delivers. However, you didn’t build your commercial site to generate PPC revenue. You built it to generate sales revenues and frankly, that’s where the real money is. Adsense ads also diminish the overall look of quality you’re going for so most designers shy away from PPC programs. Do-it-yourselfers are more likely to sign up for Adsense but you pay a price for those contextual ads.

The More Payment Gateways the Better

The more payment options you provide visitors, the more sales you’re going to have. Most payments are made by credit card so, at the very least, you’ll need a merchant account and an SSL (encrypted) certification to accept secure orders. But many buyers don’t like to use credit cards on-line because of all the fraud and identity theft stories in the media.

PayPal is a common option that many people prefer. PayPal is an eBay company that enables payments to be made for a fee depending on the dollar amount of the transfer. It’s simple to open an account. All you need is an e-mail address. Fill out the secure PayPal form and you’re ready to accept on-line payments. You have the option of having checks sent or of having the payments deposited directly into your business account. (recommended).

Eliminate Hidden Fees

The are lots of e-tailers improving their margins by charging “$10 shipping and handling” fees for low-cost items. It’s going to make buyers angry if they go to the trouble to shop your site, move to the checkout and discover that S&H adds 30% to the total cost of the product.

Restocking fees and other “hidden” fees won’t make you a lot of sales or friends. The buyer will find the fees soon enough so, if you’re going to improve margins with high S&H costs, make that point clear right off the bat.

Add a Strong Call to Action

The call to action is usually the last section of text the buyer sees before making a purchase. “Act Now!!!” “Call Today and Save 25%” “Don’t Wait Another Minute to Relieve Back Pain!” are all examples of calls to action.

A good call to action does two things: (1) it tells the buyer what is expected of him or her and (2) it should make one last, strong sales pitch: “TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS MIRICLE CURE, JUST CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF THE INFORMATION. FREE!!”

Add Indications of Reliability

Trust builders come in all shapes and sizes. Most are logos that you can display prominently to add to your site’s prestige and trustworthiness. If you have any affiliation with a professional organization (American Association of Optometrists) display the organization’s logo.

The on-line Better Business Bureau seal instills confidence. The PayPal logo is comforting to some. Add association and security logos throughout your site to build visitor trust.

Keep Conducting A/B Tests

Most web hosts provide site metrics software that enable you to quickly determine how successful site changes are to your conversion rate. To be effective you need an A/B test. The A test determines the site’s baseline performance. The way things are now. The B portion of the test measures the same performance parameters against the baseline A test.

Not all changes are going to translate into improved conversion rates. That’s why it’s essential to monitor site performance any time you make changes to site design, navigation or launch a special promotion like a series of auto-responders. In order to determine how well a marketing campaign is working, you need a baseline against which you can measure up or down ticks in site performance.

Every site owner is concerned with improving PR and they’ll spend a ton of dough to improve their site’s SEO. But many site owners don’t consider how simple it is to improve conversion rates and the bottom line. With a few tweaks here and there, coupled with regular A/B testing, you’ll grow your site faster with a much improved conversion rate.

No money required. It’s all in the site design.

 

Paul Lalley

editor@webwordslinger.com

Creating Link Bait: Reel ‘em In

In-bound links of the non-reciprocal kind continue to fascinate SEO and SEM professionals. Many site owners, newbies and long-timers, have followed the axiomatic tactics for link building – from hosted content to outright begging. (PLEASE link to my site.) “Desperation does not a connection build.” I think Calvin Coolidge said that or maybe I read it on a webmaster blog.

Link Bait Creates Inter-Connectivity

Wouldn’t it be nice if you checked your Alexa data and discovered that a couple of higher ranking sites linked to your site, asking nothing in return? Wouldn’t it be nice to attract inbound links without spending hours of each day tweaking, trying to find that perfect combination of keywords and content density?

It takes a lot for a higher ranked site to link to a lower ranked site. The owner of the higher ranked site may actually slip in search engine rankings, unless search engines recognize the value and quality of your site.

1. Your site can not look home-made. Professional and appropriate to the site topic.
Just like Mom said, “People judge you by your looks.” So, if you have an attractive site with all the latest in site features, Flash movies, transparent mouseover flyouts and an animated banner, all in appropriate colors and fonts, you at least look the part.

Yours will be a reflection on any site linking in so you have to look…at least as good as the quality competition in your market segment.

2. Free content. Come and get it!
Can you write? Even a little, if it’s in your area of expertise?

We’ve mentioned content sydicators often in the Website Source blog and, indeed, these sydicators are extremely useful in building in-bound links. But wait. You can also post articles, newsletters, industry information and other content, free and downloadable for the asking, from your own site.

Site owners need to fill pages and though syndicated content won’t win any friends among traveling Googlebots, it will keep a site fresh for return visitors so other site owners will be glad to post your musings on metaphysics in the metadata age (well, some will).

To take best advantage of these give-aways, embed text links back to your site. Don’t go overboard. A couple over a 600-word piece is about tops. Also include an “About the Author” biography, short – no more than three lines even if you are the most vibrant character you know – with another back link.

Syndicated content is great. But when you syndicate through goarticles or helium, you’re creating site popularity for goarticles and helium, not for your site. If you can post a couple of short 600-word pieces a week on the area of your expertise, you’ll have a library of more than 700 articles and blog posts free for download in your archives.

Vary your topics and include content for all ranges of expertise – from rookies to authorities. Don’t forget to add FREE CONTENT to your HTML keyword and description tags for the bots.

Advertise your content give-away on dmoz.org, SEOmoz.org, your website and through links created through other guerilla channels like Facebook and other sites that survive on user-generated content.

3. Get your free gizmos.
There’s plenty of free stuff online. Counters, trackers, free press release software, data feeds, calculators and other useful programs. You can pick up rights free digital gizmos at freesticky.com. Other sites giving it away are send2press, allheadlinenews and freeware.

These freebies should be relevant to the topic of your site and promoted though blogs and other viral marketing outlets like Facebook. If you give it away, people will hook into your freebie gizmos for use on their own sites, each time creating a link back to your site. Now, site owners come to you. Your links begging days are over. (Whew!)

4. Build authority.
Post on your own blog. Be controversial. Be provocative. Incite a web riot. It’s so cool. Your blog should lead to long threads of pro and con opinions. Topicality should have a long shelf life.

If you post on a blog about a news blip in last night’s broadcast, it’s got a 24-36 hour shelf life, unless it’s about Brittney Spears and then it’s got a shelf life of approximately a millennium (at least so far) so show your authority with posts that’ll still have a readership 36 months down the road. Man, content is dated quickly webwise.

5. Post insightful, authoritative, proprietary content on site.
Sole source. That’s what this content is called because it’s available from a single source – your website.

This content should be informational, authoritative, accurate and 100% reliable. Let’s say you’re an optometrist with a couple of brick and mortar outlets. Great, and congrats.

Use your expertise in eye care to create informative content: Choosing An Eye Care Professional; Time for Another Eye Exam; Don’t Forget Eyesight Health Month. If you develop quality content for download, supplemented by copyrighted content available only on your site, site owners within your area of expertise will appreciate the free content and visitors who reach your site via non-reciprocals will appreciate the sole source content.

Keep it hype free and make it printer friendly.

Think of these steps as viral links building. It works in precisely the same manner as viral or word of web marketing. If your site offers something useful to other webmasters free, you’ve made a webbud who looks upon you with favor. If you also provide great, informational content for consumers and end users, sites will link into yours without any links begging.

Provide benefits to site owners and their visitors and your site becomes a self-propagating links magnet. And connectivity is one of the four pillars of site success describe in a previous post.

Connect up the easy way. Take the high road. The others will follow your lead. The result? A dynamic website with ever-changing content, free give-aways and other useful stuff – printable coupons, printable articles, gizmos and gadgets.

Come and get it.

 

'Slinger on Link Bait. Nothing Fishy.