Internal Linking Strategies: SEO in 2008
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If you’ve been slaving away at maximizing Google page-rank for your blog or non-blog type sites, chances are that you’ve been ignoring today’s hottest SEO technique. If your site is at least a few months old, you will have noticed some major changes in its ranking and in the way its SERP (search engine result pages) are displayed. Google has made at least one big, big, big change to the way it ranks pages. What is it?
Internal Linking Now Counts More Toward Page-Rank Than Ever
All of us WEB GURUS or WEB MARKETEERS used to pretty much ignore internal page linking. We thought the only thing that mattered, essentially, was how many high quality back-links we got from external web-sites. We concentrated on getting links from sites with similar content as ours, and sites whose own pagerank was very high, or at least higher than ours. We worked at getting the right keywords inside these links, and surrounding them with a paragraph of related content. We made sure they were non-reciprocated, that they didn’t grow in number too quickly, that they were in a ‘good neighborhood’ of related sites and IP addresses, and so on. This took lots of work.
Sophisticated automatic three tiered and four-tiered link networks were built to help us do all of this. Sometimes this worked and our sites moved to the top positions in search results for our targeted keyword phrases. Until the page-rank of last October (2007). After that new algorithm took effect, the world of web marketing changed dramatically.
Millions of pages and whole sites that used to be highly ranked suddenly were de-ranked or completely disappeared from Google Index. Traffic plummeted. Income from Adsense bottomed-out and we all panicked. What happened?
Internal Ranking Became a Prime Factor in Page-Rank
Internal linking is the way you build pointers to each page of your site. Google now uses internal links as a major factor in the determination of the overall importance of any particular page. If a page in your site is linked only from the site-map, or perhaps from only one other link somewhere else on your site, chances are that Google will now place this page into its supplemental index.
What is the supplemental index? Well this is an index that the biggest search engine in the world keeps of pages that have been reviewed, but have been found to be either duplicated or not very important. And, when a page is in this index, it will be served out in search results only if there is nothing else in the main index.
Being in the supplemental index is something you definitely want to avoid. Why bother to add a page to your site if it will only be served out in search results at the very bottom of the result pages?
Automatic Page Building
If you’re building lots of pages with some kind of scraper program, news aggregator script or plug-in, chances are that nowadays these auto-generated content pages, whether virtual dynamically generated and served, will end up in Google’s supplemental index.
These days, building a site with a million auto-generated pages is a complete waste of time… from two points of view:
1. Chances are these pages are made from either 100% duplicated content or almost anyway.
2. There are probably few if any internal links to each of these pages
And, that’s enough to get the pages sent directly into the supplemental index. So, why waste your time building these automatic scripts and wearing out your server with useless bot traffic?
What Actually Works to Get More Traffic
Write genuine, fresh pages manually. Be sure that you do NOT duplicate someone else’s content. Be sure to build many links to each page, even if you have to have rediculously LONG menus in your navigation. A good rule is to build at least 5 internal links to point to each and every page you write. One way to do this is simply to have a series of departmental or section site-maps that list the titles of your pages, section by section, or department by department. One page for each section, division, department and so on. Make sure there are several of these pages that point down into each of your individual content pages. That should do it.
Time you spend doing this will work for you. Time you spend installing and managing auto-generation scripts is wasted.
Are You Over-Optimizing Your Pages?
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If you’ve been studying dozens of ‘Search Engine Optimization’ techniques and applying them to your web pages, chances are that you are over-doing it.
Like a lot of things on the web, what is true today was not true a few months or years ago. Have you been building web-sites for 2, 3 or more years? If you learned how to optimize your pages for highest rankings in Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, ASK and so on, chances are you learned your craft a bit too well. The web-marketing world has evolved into a new beast in just the last 2-3 years. The SEO rules have changed.
Read through some of our older posts or pages about how to optimize websites or pages. As recent as 2006, we were telling you to build short 150-350 word, punchy, keyword stuffed pages, using each and every SEO trick conceivable (as long as it was ‘legal’ or ‘white hat’ of course). Today, you want to learn different rules. The number one rule is — don’t over-optimize!
Signs That You’ve Over-Optimized
Here are some of the signs that you’ve over-worked and over-edited your site, pages and html code:
- Your TITLE TAG perfectly matches your H1 TAG, word for word
- You have carefully repeated the keyword phrases from the TITLE and H1 TAGS in your H2 subheadings, with exactly the same spelling and word endings
- You have repeated the exact keyword phrases at least 5, 6, or more times throughout your content
- You have repeated your TITLE and H1 wording inside the ALT and TITLE TAGS of images — a dead giveaway!
- Your links to inside-site pages are stuffed with repetitions of your keyword phrases
- You have also stuffed keywords into off-site links
- You have virtually no off-site links, even to related content sites
- Your pages have long lists of similar keywords, all built around a common root that is found in your TITLE/H1 tags
- You have repeated your main keyword phrases in the actual page name in front of the .htm or .html or .php extension ending, separated by hyphens or dashes, underscores, or perhaps all run together without spaces or dashed of any kind
- You have created top level domains using your main keywords
- You have created sub-domains such as ‘keywordphrase.domain.com’
- You have placed your pages inside directories or folders which are themselves named with keywords, such as — http://keyword2.keyword1.com/keyword3/keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.html’
- Your pages’ content are usually relatively short, say from 200 to 500 words
- Every single keyword and phrase in your TITLE and/or H1 tags is featured as the leading or first-word of an H2 sub-heading
- You have several links on other pages that use the same keywords from your TITLE tag to point into each page
Years ago, these tricks seemed the right way to ensure that your page appeared at the top of search engine search result pages for targeted keyword phrases. But things have changed. And boy-oh-boy have they changed!
How Automatic Search Engine Optimization Changed the Web
What happened is that Google began to notice that millions and millions of pages began to show up around the web with high ‘relevancy scores’ for millions of keywords. The proliferation of SEO businesses and ‘web marketing experts’ began to average-up the relevancy contest. Millions of us began to understand how to write pages and design web-sites that were extremely keyword dense and potentially high-ranked for target phrases. The web itself was evolving into an optimized medium. Search engines’ job of finding out which page was the most relevant for any particular search was getting harder and harder.
To make matters worse, at first dozens, then hundreds, and nowadays thousands of automatic page-optimizing software programs appeared. There were plugins and scripts that worked so well that even an amateur could build truly focused, highly dense keyword stuffed pages.
Even though these simple techniques were innocent enough and ‘white hat’, when they began to spread throughout the web, they ended up producing a world where there were very few stand-outs.
Picture a world where everyone wears a crown of jewels and gold. Which one is the King?
Producing Sites and Pages That Win Today’s New Relevancy SEO Rules
Think of the web the way Google and the other web crawler robots see it. With so many crowns, who is the king for any particular search term? Which site wins the ranking and gets listed in the top-10 search results, or maybe even in the top-5?
What SEO Techniques Work Now?
Here are our best guesses about what seems to be working now, in early 2008:
- Never repeat exactly the same keywords, in the same order, in your TITLE and H1 tags
- Use similar words, and words that have different endings of the root keywords in your H2 and H3 sub-headings
- Make your pages considerably larger. Small pages used to look better to the search engine crawlers, since the old robots could crawl them faster. Also they used to appear more dense for each of the main keywords. These factors have changed. The web as a whole is bigger. You need more content to compete with other pages for each of your keywords. Pages with thousands of words work better in today’s over-optimized, keyword-dense relevancy game. And, the search engines are themselves faster and more efficient. They can handle your bigger, richer, longer pages. Content-content-content. The SE robots are hungry for it!
- Be sure to point several of your on-site links into each of your pages. Don’t use the same keywords in each link. Make them different, so they appear natural and organic. Put these links inside paragraphs of appropriate content. Avoid long lists of links.
- Build more keyword-appropriate links to inside pages of your site from other sites that are themselves related by subject matter to your site. Be sure these links are not repeated from site to site. Make each one different, and place them inside of a related-content paragraph if possible.
- Never build pages that obey ALL of the SEO rules we’ve listed at the top of this article. If your pages look too perfect, they will be considered as artificial, SEO traps. If they do show up in the SERPs (search engine ranking positions), they will be listed near the bottom. This is especially true for short pages, and pages with low on-site internal links and few or no off-site inbound links pointing into them.
- The ideal page will look like this: A long page with at least 1,000 or more words, several relevant inbound off-site links using different keywords for each link, several internal links also using different keywords located inside relevant content paragraphs, no ‘keyword stuffing’ tricks like keyword filled ALT or TITLE tags inside IMAGE tags, and no more than a couple of the main keywords used in the URL of the page (including page name, folder or directory, sub-domain, and the top level domain). Highly ranked winning pages in today’s web marketing world will be well-written, properly spelled, grammatically correct pages with 100% unique, fresh content.
- Today’s successful pages with be manually written, not auto-generated garbage.
Follow those rules and you’ll be near the top for your new pages. However, as you may have noticed, that means that you’ll be doing a lot of writing, and rewriting.
Momma never said it would be easy!
How to Avoid Google’s 950 Penalty or Bottom-of-Search-Results Penalty
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You may have heard of the infamous and much-dreaded 950 PENALTY. Some call it a BOTTOM OF SEARCH RESULTS PENALTY.
What is the Goggle 950 Punishment?
This is a penalty, usually only applied to successful websites, that suddenly and without warning pushes all of a site’s pages down below the 950th position for any search result.
Think of that! One day after months or even years of promotional work on your site, all of the Google traffic suddenly goes to the bottom of the 1,000 results that Google will display for any search. Wow.
When you used to come up #1, #5, #20 or anywhere near the top for any particular search, now each and every search anyone in the world does will show up at the last page of the results. Gosh!
What causes this Bottom-of-Results-Pages Google Penalty?
Well, of course Google itself doesn’t say… precisely. But they do give you some very good hints. You are told never to duplicate content — don’t copy other peoples’ pages, their sentences, their exact phraseology, or even lists of links from other sites. Don’t copy period!
Okay, say you don’t copy. However, do you have hundreds of links to affiliate programs on your site? For example, does the site consist largely of page after page of Amazon books and their titles and descriptions? Or, do you sell thousands of eBay products? If you do, you will find that Google will eventually punish you for all this duplicated content. Maybe not today, or not tomorrow, but they will catch up to you.
If the titles and descriptions of products you’re selling are used by other people all over the ‘net, you can be sure that you ARE in fact duplicating other peoples’ content. That’s a no-no, and Google will not report pages with duplicated content near the top of search results.
If this happens to you, how do you get out of the Penalty Box?
Simply remove the offending links, stolen (or borrowed), the copied titles and descriptions, etc. Rewrite them if possible. Remove the duplicated stuff and in a few weeks you’ll see Google auto-magically relist your pages.
Assuming that this happened innocently, and that you never intended to actually copy other sites’ content, you may be surprised when the penalty is applied to you. You may think that it is unfair. However, think of it this way: What is a search engine worth that simply shows lists of thousands of the same pages when someone does a search? If you search for a books sold by Amazon, do you want to see a list of 10,000 pages where you can buy it?
Of course not. So, Google sends those duplicated pages into oblivion.
If you want to sell books from Amazon, you’ll have to find a way to provide unique titles, headings, descriptions, reviews, etc. for each and every book you sell. If you don’t, you’ll end up in the 950 penalty or bottom-of-search-results listings.
Web marketers beware!
How to Generate Backlinks to Increase Your Google Pagerank
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There are 5 basic ways you can develop backlinks for your web-site:
- Affiliate Programs — join an affiliate program, or create one for your website. A good place to checkout is Commission Junction, the world's biggest affiliate network marketing site.
- Invite your friends to post a link to you from their pages. Don't bother to ask to trade links with another site though, since trading links works to cancel-out the effect. The idea is to have your site thought-of by others as being more important. This is a zero-sum game, popularity. If you win, they lose. Everyone cannot be more popular than everyone.
- Buy links on popular sites. Nothing wrong with that. Make sure those sites are page-ranked higher than you are currently, or what's the point? If you get links from UNpopular sites, then that proves that these nobodies think that you are somebody. That's a waste of time, and money too.
- Write articles on subjects related to your site and post them to popular article sourcing sites. These are sites web-authors go to, to find new content for their own site. The rules are that people have to have one link in the article they republish back to the original authoring site. Works great!
- Issue press releases to the many free press release sites now available. You can see a list of free press release sites at Yahoo's press release site list page. Your press release should be newsworthy. This means that you should be making a claim, announcing an event, or commenting on something else in the news, etc. Don't merely discuss how great your product, your store or your service is. Nobody cares about that. Talk about something that you think people would want to know about. Include your web-site URL of course, and also your contact information, including your phone number, email address, etc.
The last two of those five ways are actually the easiest, and pay the highest dividends over time, in our opinion. It may only take a few minutes or an hour or so at most to write an article or a press release about some aspect of your business or web site. And, using the existing social networking, press release, and article submission service sites, you can have that article out there working for you in only a few more minutes. And, it's free!
Nothing else compares to this power. Free backlinks in minutes. Furthermore, some of these article and press release sites have a pagerank of 5, 6 or even 7 — wow!
How to Write an Article in a Few Minutes That Will Attract Backlinks (and traffic) for Years!
For an example of how to get backlinks, here is a guy who did just what we're talking about — He wrote an article on writing articles on backlinks, and, sure enough here we are giving him one! Here is his article on "How to write articles to create backlinks", from his web site blog, called SEO Is Easy:
Anyone should be able to write 250 words on a subject in which they are familiar.
It doesn’t really matter on what the topic or subject, as long as the article is not about illegal activity, is harmful or profane.Create your article in a word processing program so that you can easily edit, spell check and format. Don’t worry about font sizes, bold, italics etc., because most submission services won’t keep that original formatting.
Copy your article into a text file for easy copy and paste when it is time to submit.
An author’s bio section for each article is available on each article submission service. The bio section allows you to insert an html hyperlink. Write one or two sentences referencing your website and include your name. Make sure you use proper hyper linking for your URL.
It is of utmost importance that you do create the proper true HTML hyperlink in the bio section of your article, otherwise the article will be re-published without a true live link to your main site.
Proper codes:
<a xhref="http://www.yourwebsitename"> Your Target Keyword Phrase – www.yoursitename</a>
This will show the words, Your Target Keyword Phrase – www.yoursitename .com with the entire line a live hyperlink.
Submit your Article to several article submission websites.
Here is a List of a few good ones:
- http://www.ezinearticles.com
- http://webpronews.com
- http://www.ideamarketers.com
- http://www.certificate.net
- http://www.goarticles.com
- http://www.articlecentral.com
- http://www.articlefinders.com
Most Article submission sites have RSS feed capability. This allows your article to be shown on multiple websites that utilize the RSS feeds. In addition many webmasters and blogs retrieve articles from article submission sites to add content article to their own sites. Every occurrence of your article “re-published” on a website, creats a free one-way back link to your site.
As time goes by, your articles will be re-published on mutiple sites. An article even on a non-popular topic can still be re-published on 75 or more sites. Popular category topical articles will be published on 100 to 1000’s of websites. Every instance of an republished article creates a backlink if the hyperlinked URL was correctly inserted in the original bio section area of the individual article.
As your articles age on the re-published sites, and the re-publisher work on their own SEO and Page Rank, your article on their site increases in Page Rank as well.
Additional tip for checking your back links.
Do a Google, Yahoo, or MSN search using quotations marks around the name of the article, For example search for “ My article title”, you will find all the results for that name that will consist of mainly the article that you have submitted. Daily you can easily see with a simple search the amount of back links you are gaining through the simple re-publishing of your article. You should check to make sure that the backlink is Live on the new site republishing your article. Also check over time the Page Rank of those new backlinks.
Most sites that house articles allow the option to make comments. You can then make a comment on your article and include a simple phrase to seek more information by going to the same site referenced in the bio while including another hyperlink. If you do make a comment, make sure you reference by name you are the author and don’t attempt to include a hyperlink not already in your article.
In a few months when the next Google Page Rank update occurs, all your articles should have page rank of their own, all passing Page rank back to your main site.
You should also notice some click through traffic in reference to your well written and informative on the article topic.
(End of the SEO Is Easy article.)
How to Find Out What Your Pagerank Is
To monitor your Google Pagerank (PR) you will need to download and install the famous Google Toolbar from Google. Go here to get the Google Toolbar that.
It only takes about 1 or 2 minutes for the whole installation.
- For Windows PCs: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer, or Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or later
- For Macs: Mozilla Firefox 1.5 or later on Macintosh computers.
Once you get it installed, you'll see a little bar in the middle showing your pagerank. For new sites, it will usually be 0/10 or simply an empty white bar about a half-inch long. As your backlinks increase and your pagerank is raised by Google, you'll see the little bar become filled with green.
What does the Green Mean in the Google Toolbar?
When you finally DO get a Googe Pagerank, the green starts creeping across the toolbar. It grows in 1/10th segments until the bar is full. How many hits does it take to get to a 10/10 rating, showing all green in the Pagerank bar? Well, the page rank is not determined or related to your traffic. It does not relate to 'hits' or even to 'unique visitors'. Instead, it merely measures how many backlinks you have on other peoples' web pages, and to what those links say inside the link itself (the keywords used that are underlined on their page), and also to the actual pagerank of those pages who are pointing back to you.
Visit a few well known sites and you'll see the Google.com page ranking system in action. The New York Times is usually a 10, and Walmart.com or OfficeDepot.com would also be highly ranked. That's because thousands and thousands of people have linked to their sites.
How Can You Monitor The Number of Backlinks You Have?
Go to Google.com and type "info:yourdomain.com" (using your domain, of course). Google will show you a short list of info pages with everything they want to reveal about your site. One of the lines will read: "Find web pages that link to ideapro.com". Click that link to phrase, and you'll see how many back link pages they think are important enough to list. It won't be as many as you think.
Google is VERY conservative. Other search engines will show more sites doing the linking. Microsoft's LiveSearch.com will be much more generous. Checkout your domain's back links at Microsoft using this link (making the change for your own domain):
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=link:yourdomain.com
How Long Does It Take to See My Pagerank Increase or Changes?
Google updates their pageranks continuously, but each incremental change in page ranking is displayed only every few weeks. Some updates have happened in only 4 or 5 weeks, but they usually take place about every 6 to 8 weeks. Don't worry about it. Have faith that more high quality, unreciprocated (non-traded), topically relevant and appropriate links from highly ranked sites will certainly increase your Google PR pageranking. It will come!
Now that you know the basics, go out there and get some backlinks and watch your Google Pagerank grow.
10 Ways to Improve Your Web Site’s Sales Copy
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- You could decrease or increase the length of your ad copy. There is no rule on how long your ad copy should be unless space is a consideration. The ad should be long enough to sell your product.
- You could add some sub headlines on your ad copy. Sub headlines act just like headlines; they grab the readers attention. They'll keep the readers interested as they continue to read your ad.
- You could ask your reader questions through out the ad copy. They will answer the questions in their own head as they read your ad copy. The questions you ask should persuade the reader into buying.
- You could highlight keywords through out your ad copy. The keywords should be attractive to your target audience. You could highlight them with color, underlines, italics, etc.
- You could bullet or indent your benefits on your ad copy. Must people won't read a whole ad copy, so make your products benefits standout and you won't lose the sales from all the skimmers.
- You could change the size of your text on your ad copy. You want to make your text large enough so it's not hard to read. You also want your headline and major points to be larger so they will standout.
- You could raise or lower the price on your ad copy. A higher price could increase the perceived value of your product and a lower price could lesson your product's value.
- You could add proof of results on your ad copy. You should include testimonials, endorsements, and factual statistics to prove your product's claims.
- You could add special offers on your ad copy. It's usually easier to sell the offer than the product. You could use discounts, free bonuses, volume sales, etc.
- You could eliminate the hard-to-understand jargon on your ad copy. Unless your product calls for technical words, you want your ad to be read without people pulling out a dictionary.
About the Author: Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing at Marketing Blaster, Inc., a firm dedicated to low-cost, super targeted traffic for small businesses operating on the Internet. For more information: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com
10 Good Ways to Increase Web Store Sales
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- Design your web site to be a targeted resource center. Choose one subject and build on it. You'll gain repeat visitors that are interested in that topic.
- Offer something that is really free. If people go to your site and what you said was free really isn't, you'll lose their trust and they won't buy anything.
- Add a chat room or message board to your web site. People want to interact with other people that have they same interests as them.
- Entice people to link to your web site by giving them something free in return. This'll increase your ranking in some search engines.
- Trigger your reader's emotions in your ad copy. Example, if you sell a book on gambling tips, tell them the feelings they'll get when they win money.
- Make sure your site looks good in all browsers. You could be losing sales because it looks distorted in some web browsers.
- Increase your sales by e-mailing full page ads to your e-zine subscribers. Remember to tell people before they subscribe or they may consider it spam.
- Make inquiries in your ad copy that make people consider their personal issues. An example: Do you want to be debt free?
- Magnify the size of your prospects problem in your ad; show how your product can solve it. The bigger the problem, the more sales you'll have.
- Invest a percentage of your profits right back into your business. Spend it on marketing, product improvement, customer service, advertising, etc.
About The Author: Scott F. Geld is the Marketing V.P. for Marketing Blaster. Feel free to email him with any questions or comments about this article at: http://www.MarketingBlaster.com
How to Make Google Pay You Money with Adsense
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So you want to make money with Google Adsense? I don't blame you, who doesn't want residual income! This article will show you how to better optimize Google Adsense to make more money from your web site(s).
Before we get into it, learn more about Google Adsense here: http://www.google.com/services/adsense_tour/
First and foremost is: Positioning
Where you position your Adsense link boxes and banner ads is extremely important. Trying to make money from the bottom of your pages within your website just won't cut it.
You need to add your Adsense links right in the heart of your template or right in the heart of your content. I would personally suggest both actually.
Adding Adsense in the heart of your template:
Link Units:
Since the introduction of Google Adsense "link units", we can now add what looks like a "menu system" to compliment our menu system within our website. This is HUGE. Have you ever just clicked on a website and kept clicking on the menu links?
I know we all have. By adding a "Google link units" to your menu, you will get more clicks than you thought possible. Try adding the link units near the top for better performance and try creating your link units to match the color of your menu system in place. Once in a while I find myself clicking on a menu link unit without even realizing it which in turn gives more money to the website owner.
Leaderboards and Skyscrapers:
These may very well be your "bread & butter". I only say this because of the sheer size of these ads units. The best place to add these ad units is obvious; Straight across the very top of your website (leaderboards), and straight down the side of your template (skyscrapers). Anywhere else may not look proper within your template and may look unprofessional.
Square and Rectangle Ad Units:
These are great to compliment the mass amount of content within your website and also within your recommended resources. You want to compliment your content, you don't want Adsense to BE your content because this will look poor on your part. Adsense is very popular with webmasters; who doesn't want to make some extra money. However, don't forget that many of your visitors are also used to seeing Adsense within a website, and need a good reason to click on them.
Square and rectangular units are great to use within articles posted on your website or within your link resources. Try adding your Adsense boxes above your resource links within a page to give your Adsense account that added extra exposure. Just remember that Google allows up to 3 ad units per page. Using these 3 strategies will help to better optimize Adsense for positioning! Let's now go onto targeting…
Optimizing Adsense: Taking out non-related ads!
Do you ever wonder how ads like "business card specials" ever get displayed on to your website when your company content is all about baby clothing? Since the introduction of "Adwords Site Targeting", we now have to keep an eye on the ads being displayed on our website(s).
Companies may now specifically target your website for more exposure. There is no restriction whether the website is content related or not, just more marketing exposure for the advertiser.
Filtering Adsense Advertisers:
Within your Adsense manager, you have the option of using the "Competition Filter" which allows us to remove certain websites from the ads being displayed regularly. This is going to be an on-going optimization task in the future. Without filtering the ads being displayed within your website, you might find yourself with ads unrelated to your industry and possibly some ads that have a negative effect within your site. If you don't remove all the unwanted ads being displayed on your website, you might end up hurting your Adsense performance online. The more targeted you can get your Google Adsense ads to display on each page, the better your chances at being able to make more money. Try to take a moment every week to study the ads being displayed on your website. Open up a note pad, or word document and record all the websites you don't want to be displayed anymore.
Add these sites to your "filter list" within your Adsense account. Remember to add the website (within your filter list) like so: smartads.info - without the www. Adding anything after or before the url will only prevent the company from displaying one of their many ads like so (www.site.com/ads/1.html). This way you stop anything from the entire website from showing up within your Adsense campaign online. The more you optimize your Adsense filter, the better your performance will pick up and the less non-related ads will be displayed on your website.
One constant that holds true with Adsense:
The more pages you have with your Adsense campaign being displayed, the more you WILL make. People who have online networks immediately can profit from Google Adwords because they have the power to add their Adsense boxes & banners onto multiple websites, possibly 1000's of pages.
Should you add Adsense to your website?
If you own a small company that has a brochure type website that gets maybe 50-100 visitors a day, I recommend NOT adding Adsense to your site. It will never make enough money with that kind of traffic.
Remember: Your Adsense campaign needs to make over $100 to get paid out. If your company receives around 500-1000+ visitors a day, you can now start considering to make money through Google. Adsense is all about numbers. Play the numbers to make more money. In fact, try making goals for yourself to make X amount of dollars through your Adsense account by a certain time.
Doing this will only increase your business and make your company more powerful online by increasing the amount of traffic it receives. For multiple websites, channels are important: Google allows you to track the performance of multiple websites all in one account which ultimately gives you the ability to track how many visitors you're getting for each website. It also allows you to work harder on those sites that aren't up to par. I consistently look at each individual website channel to work harder at promoting the ones that aren't performing well.
By doing this, we increase the amount of promotion going into the websites that under perform, and in turn eventually increase the business for those websites as well. The more you promote your website, the more the exposure you will ultimately deliver for your Adsense campaign and your company.
Google Search with Adsense:
To top all that off, you can add Google search within your site to give visitors a search function for your content and to allow people to also click on your Adsense program. Please note that for Google search to work, your website and all of its content pages must already be indexed by Google.
Adding the Google search bar to your site right away won't help your visitors at all. For more Google Adsense optimization tips, go here: https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html
Don't forget to read the Google Adsense Policies & Procedures: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies I hope this article helps you to make more money!
About the Author: Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads helps their clients to maintain a strong presence online through up-to-date marketing tactics. Sign up for Martin's weekly newsletter here: http://www.smartads.info/newsletter For a free SEO evaluation, go here: http://www.smartads.info/website-evaluation.html Copyright © 2005 Smartads Advertising Network - Reprints Accepted
How to Create an Internet Sales Web Page that Converts Visitors into Buyers
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Do you have a business web-site with some detailed product and service pages, but you are not converting many visitors into paying customers? The key is to develop an effective sales page that wins them over. Once you have created an internet sales page that works, then you have a template you can use again and again, customizing the basic formula to any product in your line. The key is to be sure to include all the elements of an effective sales page, and use a ‘formula’ that has been tested and is known to work.
If you are hiring a copy writer or writing the copy yourself, here is a checklist of the essential elements to help you organize and plan your next internet sales page.
Headlines: There can be up to three parts to the headline. First, there is the pre-headline, which is a note to attract your target market, letting them know you have something for them in particular. Second, is the main headline, which describes the big benefit of whatever you’re offering. The main headline should be in large font, and nothing elsewhere on the page should be larger or distract from it. Third, is a post-headline, which is only necessary if you need to clarify or elaborate upon the main
headline.
Introduction: The first few sentences of the letter should grab the visitor’s interest at an emotional level. The introduction draws the visitor further into the copy, allowing you to make a presentation of your product and offer. To appeal to the emotions, show the reader the benefits of your product or service by describing how they will feel or how their life will improve once they own and use the product.
Your Credibility: This is especially important on-line, and needs to come early in the letter. Some of the ways you can build credibility include testimonials about real results, that include the full name of the person giving the testimonial. Also, use specific numbers rather than approximations in your copy overall. If you have expertise and credentials related to the product, say so. When applicable, explain product test results. Quote favorable reviews from newspapers or magazines. And give your contact information with an address. This proves you are real. Don’t worry that someone will show up on your doorstep, and if someone calls you, that’s good. You learn from contact with clients.
Benefits of the product or service: Using bullet format, because bullets are easy to scan, itemize all the benefits (not the features). Put them in order of priority. It is better to have too many than too few because it often takes just a single benefit to inspire a prospect to purchase, but every prospect has their unique hot button.
Specifications and features: Tell exactly what the product is. Give details about what the buyer is getting.
Bonuses. Always include something extra, and make sure it has value - that it could be something people would order the product just to get the bonus. Tell the specific dollar value so you can use that information in the value build-up, or close.
Value build-up: Be explicit about the reasons the price of the product is a good value. Make comparisons to other similar products that are more expensive with less gained. Offer a guarantee if at all possible. Anticipate and counter objections. Create a sense of scarcity. That is to say, give a deadline, explain why they need to act now, and keep your deadline real. Help the visitor feel the pain of not ordering~ exactly what won’t change or get better unless they have your product.
Ordering: Make this absurdly easy. Assume the visitor has never ordered on-line, and give clear step-by step instructions and several options of how to purchase. Offer a secure on-line credit card page, Pay Pal, call to order, or how to send a check, (it is rare that anyone ever actually does this). And remember, ask for the order! Write, “Order Now.”
Post Script: This is a summary of your sales page, a one- paragraph sales page in effect. Include a reiteration of the highlights, and ask one last time for the order.
After reviewing this list, find good examples by doing a little online research. You wouldn’t ever copy another sales page, of course. Simply look for inspiring examples, and then say it in your own way.
About the Author: Loren Beckert is Marketing Director at ClickTracs Advertising Service a company that specializes in delivering highly targeted traffic to internet businesses. For additional articles and resources to promote your online business, visit www.ClickTracs.com
How to Write a Business Website Homepage
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Think you know how to write a business website homepage? Read this article to make sure. You probably think you already know what a homepage is. But if you’re like many business website owners, you really don’t. The homepages of many business websites are suffering an identity crisis. They’re trying to do the job of several web pages, and doing none of those jobs well.
What a Business Website Homepage is Not:
- A homepage is not the place to dump a long description of your business. That’s for the “about us” or “company information” page. On the homepage, this information will just bore most people.
- A homepage is not the place where you list and sell all your products (unless you only have one or two). You should have a special products and services page for that, and preferably a shopping cart or catalog. Trying to make people buy right on your homepage is a little pushy. The homepage will also get over-crowded as your offerings expand. Instead, just include a list of product categories with links to inside pages, along with direct links to your biggest sellers.
- A homepage is not the place to include the full text of your announcements and press releases. Just include a teaser paragraph of each article on the homepage, with a link to the web page with the full text. If people want to read the full text, they can. If they don’t, you haven’t bored them to tears.
- A homepage is not your company president’s or owner’s personal blog. It’s OK to rant, rave, or preach the need for world peace. Just don’t do it on wesellwidgets.com
As you’ve probably noticed, a good website has multiple pages. You should have special web pages for special topics: an “about us” page for company information, a products and services catalog, the president’s blog, etc. When you advertise or send out links to your site, you should link directly to the most appropriate page, rather than just the homepage. Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t need a homepage, just that you don’t need it to do every single thing you want your website to accomplish.
Quick Guide to Writing a Business Website Homepage
Important Points to Consider
Target Audience
Your business website’s homepage must be all things to all the people who type your URL in their navigation bar, whether it’s their six-hundredth visit or whether they just happened to catch your web address painted on the back of your car.
Content
For the benefit of new visitors, a homepage must provide a snapshot of who you are and what visitors can do on your website. Your first one to three paragraphs should give a quick overview of what visitors can do on your site. For example, you could include a short paragraph each on “buy widgets,” “learn more about widgets,” and “meet other widget enthusiasts,” with links to your shopping cart, informational articles, and message board, respectively.
For returning visitors, the homepage must serve as a touchstone for navigating the site, announcing new developments and pointing out especially popular or useful pages. For these visitors you don’t have to write anything new especially for your homepage. Anyone who’s coming back to your site is already interested and is going to want to jump right into the deeper pages of your site, rather than linger on the homepage wondering whether it’s worth their time.
That’s why your homepage should include teasers for the inside pages of your site. For instance, you could have a tip of the week, linked to a web page on your site with an article explaining it. Good navigation (list of links to the four to eight most essential web pages on your site) is also a must.
For both new and returning visitors, always give a prominent place to a featured product or service (or two or three) with a picture, one or two-sentence description, and a link to its own web page or its place in your "products and services page," catalog or shopping cart.
You should also always feature a satisfied customer. It’s great if the satisfied customer can send you a picture of himself or herself. But no matter what, always include a testimonial quotation, and a link to a case study or customer story on its own web page, which you should definitely find time to write or have written for you by a website content provider.
Title
Don’t title your homepage “Welcome to [name of your site].” Don’t include that message anywhere on your homepage, in fact. It’s a waste of space. This was normal in 1996 but it’s pretty passé now. Everyone already knows they’re on your site. What you need to tell them is what they can do there. Try something like “Buy, Study, and Discuss Widgets.”
Also make sure your title incorporates any keywords you think people might use to search for your product or service on the internet. Search engines decide how to categorize pages largely based on the homepage title and first heading text.
Length
Ideally, the first few paragraphs of the homepage (the ones aimed at new visitors) should not be more than 100-350 words total. The teasers for inside pages targeted to returning visitors should not be more than about 100 words each.
Making Sure Your Website Has the Best Homepage Possible
Before your homepage goes live, test it out on a few people. Don’t just ask your volunteers how they like your homepage. Courtesy may prevent you from getting an honest response. Instead, ask them to find how to buy your latest product or if they understand what’s the most important development in your company recently. If they can navigate to the correct page within about eight seconds (the average human attention span on the web), you’ve done well.
You may just want to hire a website copywriter, online copywriting firm, or website content provider to create your homepage for you. After all, you wouldn’t build your own office building, would you? Of course, that’s not an entirely fair comparison—more people will see your business website homepage than will ever see your office building.
About the author: Joel Walsh is the head writer for UpMarket Content, a website content firm serving business sites. You can find more information on writing a homepage, including a template, along with the rest of the seven essential web pages for business websites, such as the “about us” and “product and services” pages, at Upmarket Contents Templates.