|
|
The Internet is growing so fast that by the time I finish this article some information will have become outdated. In 1997 the Internet was growing at an average rate of one million new users a month, it is expected to at least double that this year.
There are about 300,000 new web pages going up on the Internet every day. Finding one single web page is like finding a needle in a haystack.
FIRST A FEW GENERAL PRINCIPALS FOR DEVELOPING YOUR INTERNET BUSINESS.
DESIGN YOUR PAGE FOR EASY NAVIGATION Thoroughly plan your web site navigation. Design it so that each major page is linked to all other important pages. Each Main page should stand on it's own.
Offer several front doors to enter your web site. You can then submit each major page separately using separate keywords, titles, descriptions, and meta code for each page.
If you try to bring in all your visitors through one page you are limiting your potential success by a huge factor.
THE INTERNET WAS DEVELOPED FOR FREE INFORMATION EXCHANGE
DEVELOPING YOUR INTERNET BUSINESS One of the most powerful things you can do to bring in visitors is to offer them some of your most valued information. People still get on the Internet to learn, research or find information on something. Develop your niche offering free information.
DEVELOP YOUR MAILING LIST E-mail is still the cheapest and most powerful marketing tool out there. It's important to network and develop relationships with your visitors, studies show that it may take up to seven visits before you make a single sale. So give your visitors a reason to return, start a newsletter, e-mail updates. Learn how often to contact your visitors so that they will want to receive your updates. Don't SPAM it won't work.
DEVELOP A MARKETING STRATEGY There's no way that your page will come up in the top ten for every search done for every keyword. This is impossible.
The process we should learn is how to focus your web page down so that you are able to define its purpose in one or two specific words. Internet marketing is a "pull" medium, The visitor must be "pulled" to you site because of something they want that you have to offer. It's usually information, a service or a product.
So to be successful you need to "pull" people into visiting your web site by using the keywords your perfect customer would type in a search engine if he was looking for the information or product or service you offer. Most good keywords are nouns, they describe a person place or thing, the more specific your keywords the more targeted your submission will be to your niche market.
LEARN TO NETWORK Contact other related web sites and exchange links, banners and information with them. Be co-operative not competitive, you'll go a lot further on the Internet.
In the "real" world businesses band together into malls where they gain the advantage of greater traffic flow. Internet malls are not as useful to bring in traffic but exchanging links with related web sites, joining Web Rings, and banner exchanges all impact on your bottom line.
Cross referrals are also a powerful marketing tool, Since you can't be an expert in everything try to become an information source, help people find what they are looking for, Just having answers and being willing to share brings them back over & over.
MARKET TO YOUR OWN CUSTOMERS FIRST The easiest sale to make will always be to an existing happy customer. Many businesses forget this technique but it's one of the best. Stay in contact and follow up with your customers. On-line it's harder and more important to develop your relationships with your existing customers.
YOUR PROPER SELECTION OF KEYWORDS This is the most important step in a web site design. If you developed the greatest web site for the best product or service and didn't develop your keyword strategy you will not get visitors.
Start by developing a list of the top 40-50 words you can think of. Next put them in order of importance. Now combine your keywords into 2 or 3 key word combinations.
Last test your keywords to determine which are your strongest keywords and keyword combinations. Test your best keyword combinations with several search engines. You can view the source for other pages that come up higher than your site in the listings. Revise your page and re-submit and retest until you are satisfied.
USE POPULAR KEYWORDS BUT ONLY IN POWER COMBINATIONS Always use keyword combinations when using popular keywords You may have a great keyword but if everyone else is also using it you may still be too far down in the listings to get found. Develop keyword combinations with your best key words. You can combine your best keywords with popular keywords. Here is a current list of YAHOO's most popular 200 words. http://www.eyescream.com/yahootop200.html
USE KEYWORDS IN YOUR TITLE Your title is indexed by almost all the important search engines. Make absolutely sure that you place your best keywords in your title. Use your best keyword as the first word of your title, and then repeat it again later in the title if possible.
Use your best keywords over again in your description and again in your keyword list. Use as few words as possible in your title so that each keyword is a bigger percentage of the title.
START THE TITLE WITH "A" OR A NUMBER Several search engines including YAHOO still print the search results in numerical order. Actually "A" isn't first. Starting your title with a space will score higher than an "A" and ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / are all higher than an "A".
If possible start your title with a space, a number or a symbol.
CHANGE YOUR TITLE, DESCRIPTION & KEYWORDS - RE-SUBMIT OFTEN. When you change your web page also change your title and keywords especially in your title. Some search engines will automatically update to your new listing immediately but several will create a second listing with it's own title and description. For a while at least you may have 2 or more listings.
CREATIVE KEYWORDS You want your title & description to be interesting and inviting but you can be a little more creative in selection of your keywords. Using common mis-spellings of common keywords can sometimes work wonders especially when combined with popular keywords. After building your keyword list try some common misspelling of some of some of your power keywords or keyword combinations.
USE THE PLURAL KEYWORD WHEN POSSIBLE If someone searches for "webmaster" and you use webmasters as your keyword your site will be found since webmaster is part of webmasters. If you had just used the singular webmaster and someone types in webmasters plural your site would not be found. In short use the plural whenever possible.
IMPORTANT PROMOTION TOOLS & RESOURCES
THE META TAGS No site is finished without meta tags. Meta is HTML code that you insert into your finished web page. It comes a before the "" tag. The meta tag is like a mini index of your web site. Your Meta tags are found first my the search engines. Most the bigger search engines can read "Meta Code" and some depend on it to index your page correctly. Words contained in the meta tag are given a LOT of weight.
If you repeat your top keywords try to keep the number of repetitions to 6 or under to avoid having your submission automatically getting filtered out when it's indexed.
Many popular web site design programs still do not make it easy to create your own meta tags. There are two tags that should be on every page to be indexed properly. The "DESCRIPTION" and the "KEYWORDS" tags should be added to the HTML code before uploading any files and submitting any page.
META GENERATOR My favorite free Meta generator will write all the meta tag code for you and generate the HTML to paste into your pages.
http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWbot/mk-metas.html
URL SUBMISSION TOOL Here is a free submission tool that will submit to the 18 most important meta capable search engines. You can even customize the page to display your banner when it's linked to your site. I think this Java Tool is the easiest way to submit all your
URLs regularly to the Internet. It will even save your personal information in a cookie.
http://home.sol.no/~nbk/submit/
MORE FREE SITE SUBMISSION TOOLS Submit your site to 1000s of free places on the Internet
http://www.smithfam.com/submission.html
SIMPLE WEB DESIGN TOOL - AOL EXPRESS Has long been considered one of the easiest programs to learn to use and it's free:
http://www.aolpress.com/download.html
GET THE BOOK "INSIDER'S INTERNET MARKETING" This book by Jim Daniels of JDD Publishing is the tell all on Internet Marketing for the do it yourselfer. The information presented is so concise you can digest it in a day. People are selling whole Internet marketing courses for hundreds even thousands of dollars that aren't as practical or useful
as this book.
http://www.bizweb2000.com/d3605.htm
FREE HOSTING SERVICES FOR YOUR HOME PAGE The best sources of free server space to host your home page.
http://www.smithfam.com/freesites.html
LOCATING THE BEST WEB HOSTING COMPANY FOR YOUR BUSINESS I have tried a number of web hosting companies. I'd like to invite you to take a moment to learn from my past experience in this area. There are cheaper hosting services for your home page but if your in business to make money on-line you should consider Virtualisys Hosting services.
http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/rsmith45/
Bob
