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Sep

Make Your Sales Copy Sell

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Categories: Internet Marketing, Online Business and Internet Technology

Writing good sales copy doesn’t have to be hard--you just use a formula. Plug in all the elements, and you’ll create a whole that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. Any one of the copywriting techniques I'm about to tell you about can increase your conversion rate on its own, but use all of them together, and you'll create an unstoppable online salesperson that’ll sell your product or service 24/7.

1. Write to a targeted audience. Unless money is no object, you have to define your audience beyond "people on the internet." You have to know exactly who your niche market is and then target your sales copy to precisely what they're looking for. You can find out a lot about your site visitors' preferences and habits by looking at the server logs your web host supplies:

What's the most popular page on your site?
What pages do visitors stay on for the longest time?
Where do people most often click away from your site?
When do most people visit your site?

Also consider the questions or comments you get from customers after a sale. What do they want to know? What do they like or dislike?

All this hard information will help you come up with copy that addresses your users’ specific needs and anticipates any questions or objections they might have--just the way a sales rep would do in person.

2. Create an attention-grabbing headline. A winning headline gets straight to the point and promises an answer to the problem your visitor wants you to solve. You see limp, irrelevant, ineffective headlines like these all the time:

Welcome to www.MyWebsite.com!
WidgetWorld--the solution to all your drainage problems!
Now take a look at some effective headlines:
- From Penny Halgren's How-To-Quilt.com: Now, in Just 9 Easy Steps, You Can Transform Ordinary Fabric Into a Handmade Quilt That Your Family and Friends Will Love, Admire and Cherish –Even if You Have Never Made a Quilt Before!
- And from Darren Salkeld's Down-Feather-Bedding.com: Have you been searching for luxury goose down comforters--at places such as Amazon.com, Bizrate.com, Overstock.com , eBay.com (just to name a few)--but cannot decipher all the hype from the true quality!? Finally... Get all of the facts that surround the luxury goose down bedding business--including insider information AND closely guarded industry secrets--so you can make a totally informed decision for your entire family's well being!
Both headlines address precisely what the target visitor is looking for. If you keep your headline highly relevant, simple and specific, your visitor will read on. 3. Establish your credibility. Your visitors are just two clicks away from dozens or even hundreds of other sites similar to yours. Why should they believe what you have to say? You have to prove very early on that what you're about to tell them can be trusted. So:
- Provide your credentials. Detailing your credentials helps establish you as an authority on your subject in the eyes of your visitors and will put you one step closer to making the sale.
- Tell a story. Explain the story behind your business or product, and your visitors will relate to you as a person, rather than just seeing a faceless commercial website.
- Use testimonials. Results-packed testimonials from happy customers are the most powerful trust-builder of all. Make sure they’re specific and describe the exact results your customer achieved by using your product or service. Include the person's name, company name and URL if possible to show there’s a real live person behind the rave review.
- Add a strong guarantee. Since your product or service can't be inspected over the internet, many consumers are understandably cautious about buying online. A strong guarantee shows you stand behind what you're selling. We’ve found that the longer your guarantee period is, the fewer returns you'll get!
4. Talk about benefits, not just features. Your potential customers want to know how your product or service will make their lives easier, so focus on benefits, not features. Here’s an example:
- Feature: The Grade A Gardening Shovel is ergonomically designed to remove weeds more efficiently than traditional shovels.
- Benefit: Get your weeding done in half the time and reduce wrist soreness!
A benefit answers the question "What's in it for me?" and gets visitors to imagine using your product to take care of the problem they're trying to solve. 5. Add a sense of urgency for immediate sales. Now that your visitors know where to find you online, they may decide to browse around some more, think things over and come back later--only they won't come back. You need to give your visitors a good reason to buy now rather than later. Offering a limited quantity of products or offering them only for a limited time can give them the nudge they need to pull out their credit cards. Coupons or discounts that expire also motivate potential customers. Another option is to offer a special bonus item for a limited time. For example: "This special bonus is available only to the first 200 people who order!" 6. Format your pages for easy scanning. People scan online rather than reading word by word. Break up your text with these techniques:
- Use bulleted lists and subheads.
- Make short, chunky paragraphs of one to four lines--and mix them up.
- Emphasize important points with bolding, highlighting, or italics.
- Use a plain font like Arial or Verdana.
- Use only relevant graphics and images.
- Put your text on an unpatterned, white or light background.
7. Ask for the order. Once you’ve drawn your visitors through the sales process by explaining the features and benefits of your product or service, you need to spell out exactly what you want your visitor to do. For instance:
- To order now and receive your copy within minutes, click here!
- Click here to take advantage of this limited-time offer!
- To get your widget--backed by our 100% risk-free guarantee--click here now!
If you don't make the next step crystal clear for your visitors, there's no telling how many sales might be slipping through your fingers. When it comes to your online business, your sales copy is your one and only chance to communicate directly with your potential customers and tell them why they should buy from you over someone else. So use these copywriting techniques to make sure your sales copy is doing its job.
Derek Gehl is Entrepreneur.com's "E-Business" columnist and the CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, an internet marketing firm that has helped thousands of people learn to start and run their own online businesses.

Sep

Virtual trade shows, next trend !

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Categories: Cityweb News, Internet Marketing, Internet Technology and Microsoft Product

Virtual trade shows, expos and conventions are coming into their own. While event producers all insist that virtual shows won't replace real-world shows, there are some decided advantages to attending, hosting or exhibiting at online events. Entrepreneurs save on the costs of travel, booth materials and employees' lost productivity. Robin Cowie, president of WorldwideBrands.com, a Maitland, Florida, wholesale and drop-ship resources provider, went from attending virtual B2B e-commerce trade show eComXpo to hosting a booth at the show. "We treat it like a normal convention," says Cowie, 35, whose company reached more than $3 million in sales last year. "We have three staff members dedicated to it. They're constantly chatting and exchanging information during the show, and I don't have to pay for travel." Virtual trade shows have a lot in common with their physical counterparts. There are exhibit halls, educational seminars, booths manned by live staff and networking lounges. Events run the gamut from business trade shows, consumer-oriented trade shows, job fairs and corporate training to events that are open for up to a year. "We've built mechanisms to do very complex reporting and analytics for lead qualification ranking," says Brent Arslaner, vice president of marketing at Unisfair, a virtual event solutions firm. The cost savings and ease-of-use are compelling arguments for virtual events and for virtual online components to physical events. "Physical events are becoming much more tightly coupled with virtual events," says Arslaner. Already, these virtual trade shows and conventions are morphing into business communities--entrepreneurs are using them for ongoing networking and education. Malcolm Lotzof, CEO of virtual event producer InXpo, says, "Online events are getting more cost-effective, faster and easier. It's just a force of nature."

Aug

Time for Change

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Categories: Cityweb News, Internet Marketing and Internet Technology

Meet our e-commerce makeover winners, whose online sales are set to soar. By Gwen Moran Never underestimate the power of a good makeover. That was the message behind the e-Business Boost Challenge, sponsored by Entrepreneur magazine and ProStores, an eBay company and full-service e-commerce solution for SMBs. However, this makeover wasn’t about fashion and grooming. Instead, the winners, who were announced on June 13 at the annual eBay Live! convention, held this year at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center in Las Vegas, received a complete overhaul of their online sales efforts. More than 500 entrepreneurs operating online or through brick-and-mortar stores submitted entries describing their businesses and products as well as why they needed an enhanced online presence. “We wanted to [encourage] business owners to take advantage of a powerful small-business web solution designed to establish and build an online presence,” says Julian Green, director of ProStores. “We are eager to educate entrepreneurs who want to further develop their businesses but don’t know how to actualize their growth potential through online sales channels.” Over a five-month period, the six winning businesses were evaluated, and professionals from Entrepreneur, About.com, PayPal, ProStores and eBay provided consulting services to each business, teaching them how to ramp up their online and offline marketing efforts and business operations. In addition, each winning business received a website overhaul from ProStores, complete with integrated e-commerce functions and a one-year subscription to ProStores’ Business tier service. Here’s a closer look at the six winners, their online challenges and the striking makeovers. Maggie Vasilyadis, 27 Essenceology.com, New York city Projected 2006 Sales: $25,000 The Business: Maggie Vasilyadis knows all about makeovers. Working in the cosmetics industry for nine years, she noticed a distinct trend toward more natural beauty products. “I saw this big change coming, with a lot of demand for natural products, and wanted to start right away,” she explains. So she downloaded a website builder from Yahoo! and created her website in less than a month, launching in January 2006 and sourcing products by turning to trade magazines and attending trade shows. The Challenge: Essenceology.com is run on a very small budget, and Vasilyadis works on it part time while holding her day job. She wasn’t thrilled with the design limitations of the site builder she chose and felt her site could be cleaner and easier to navigate. According to ProStores business advisor Richard Lawrence, the online beauty products space is very crowded, and Essenceology.com needs some basics to survive. “Essenceology must have a sophisticated web design that will allow it to compete with the major beauty product sites,” he says. “The company is focusing on a fast-growing niche in the beauty products industry: natural and organic products. Unlike her competitors, [Vasilyadis’] products are very reasonably priced. [She] has a good eye for the types of beauty products that are in demand, as she shops the world looking for the best values.” The Solution: The key word in the redesign seems to be clarity. The new site, says Vasilyadis, keeps the clean look of her previous endeavor but adds many new features for consumers’ convenience, including clear descriptions of each product and its use, along with better organization of products by category. The site also captures more customer and sales information for future marketing efforts. Checkout is seamless, using ProStores’ interface with PayPal, and Vasilyadis can easily add products as she finds more that fit her mix. “I learned that I don’t have to do everything myself,” Vasilyadis says. “My expertise is in the beauty industry, not in building and designing a site. With help from ProStores, I was able to have control over the design and administrative options to build a site exactly as I pictured it. With more professional design, more consumers will trust the site, and there will be [fewer] abandoned carts.”

Aug

Make Your Website Famous

By admin 1 Comment

Categories: Internet Marketing, Online Business and Internet Technology

Marketing your site on and offline can be just as important as marketing your actual product or service.The question used to be, Do you have a website? Now, the more relevant question is, How do you market your website? It truly isn't a "Build it and they will come" scenario. If people don't know about your website, they can't visit--and learn about what you have to offer. That's why marketing your website online and offline is just as important as marketing your product or service. Promoting your site can be simpler than you think. Here are some suggestions: Offline Marketing Many website owners forget about the offline options for marketing. But you need to make yourself visible in the places your target market lives and that means the offline world as well.

All marketing communication materials should emphasize your URL and entice readers to visit your site. This includes business cards, letterhead, envelopes, brochures, flyers, folders and newsletters.
Print your web address boldly on the front side of direct mail postcards. Sometimes simply printing your URL in a large, attention-getting style will cause the recipient to turn the postcard over and read the other information you want to share with them.
You can issue a press release announcing anything new or newsworthy on your site. Maybe you're offering a free report, a free e-course or a unique approach to the marketplace that the media will be interested in.
On-hold messages are now very popular for directing people to a website, especially with phone systems that use automatic attendants. But live attendants can direct people to your website, too. Make sure they know what information is available and relevant for the caller.
If you ever get the opportunity to be interviewed on the radio, make sure you find ways to drop your URL. You can say things like, "On my website, www.market-for-profits.com, I offer free marketing articles and products for sale to help grow businesses." Don't just say, "On my website ..." without mentioning the URL. This applies to any interviews you might do with a reporter, editor or producer.
Some publications will ask you to write a guest column or a feature article related to your expertise. At the end of the column or article they'll usually let you include a few sentences related to your experience and ways to contact you. Obviously mention your website and e-mail there.
Advertising specialties are great ways to distribute your web address. They include key chains, coffee mugs, mouse pads, pens and pencils, as well as any apparel that might carry your logo or identity.
You can also promote your URL offline with the following: fax cover sheets, vehicles, billboards, license plate frames, Yellow Page ads, other printed ads, T-shirts, and golf balls and bags.

Online Marketing Online marketing should be done in conjunction with the offline marketing mentioned above. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Even though people are at your site, mention it often within the text of your web copy. This will reinforce it in the readers' minds and help with search engine optimization.
Mention your website or include it in your signature for all news group, discussion group or forum postings.
Ask your fusion marketing partners, board members, advisors or other business partners to mention your website on their sites.
Use online press releases and articles just like the offline method mentioned above.
Pay-per-click marketing
Banner advertising on your site, as well as other related sites that your target market visits
Online directories
E-mail signatures

Be creative with both your offline and online marketing. Sometimes the best marketing comes from the wild, crazy, extreme or unique ideas that your competition hasn't thought of. Remember the guy who auctioned off his forehead as advertising space for a URL, or the pregnant lady who offered her pronounced stomach for URL placement for a Super Bowl ad website? Now that's guerrilla marketing.

Al Lautenslager is the "Guerrilla Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is an award-winning marketing and PR consultant and direct-mail promotion specialist. He's also the principal of Market For Profits.

Aug

Freshen Up Your Website

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Categories: Cityweb News and Internet Marketing

Less isn't always more. An oversimplified website may be driving away business. Even the cobbler's kid gets a new pair of shoes sometimes. For almost six years, a placeholder website upgrade sat on my "to do" list, but it never seemed to reach the top. After the first year, my colleagues and I joked that if I did upgrade, my thriving business would start to slow. My excuse was that if someone wanted to find out about me, they would Google me anyway. So anyone who did their homework before a meeting would see my recent speeches or articles, and thus, the website didn't need updating. The people who check your website are competitors. My clients came via referrals and word-of-mouth, not because of our website. I had clients say they liked the simplicity and clear language, but several CEOs also questioned how I'd "gotten away with" such a basic website over the years. I finally ran out of excuses and decided it was time to upgrade our image. I don't recommend waiting almost six years to freshen your look. Although we take a classic approach to marketing, we pride ourselves on being up-to-date on trends and staying relevant as the market matures. I thought about adding a blog or some podcasts I'd done to the new site and decided to start with the updated content and visuals first. The first website was our way of showing we were "real." Like it or not, we live in an online world and people Google your website frequently to make decisions on your credibility. So if your company doesn't have a web presence today, you really don't exist or you aren't serious about your business. For those of you who've been waiting for a kick in the pants, here's your opportunity to start a fresh chapter. If it's been more than two years since you've changed a word on your site, this message is for you.

Find websites you admire for their look, feel and ease of navigation. What is it about those sites that appeal to you? How can you use those applications to reach out to your audience?
Communicate your value proposition clearly. If writing isn't your strength, hire a copywriter who can communicate the benefits of your brand in a voice that's consistent with your company’s culture so that your website has authenticity.
Make time to keep your website (relatively) current. Periodically review your site to see where there are opportunities to update your story. Blogging is an additional way to boost your search engine rankings by generating fresh content regularly.
Stop making excuses and carve out the time to update your site. If you can't make the time to upgrade your website, then pay someone else to do it for you. Anything that can be solved with money is not really a problem.
Find a web services partner you trust and who shares your vision. It'll make the journey more productive and fun, especially if your partner loves doing the work that you don't.

For those of you who remember the old website, I'm curious to hear what you think of the new one. I look at this as the 2.0 version and am confident that a 3.0 will follow in the next year or so. This cobbler's kid may just be getting a shoe habit after all. Paige Arnof-Fenn is the founder and CEO of Mavens & Moguls, a strategic-marketing consulting firm whose clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as early stage and emerging businesses.

Jun

Internet Radio

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Categories: Internet Technology

Beberapa radio ternama di Indonesia mulai melirik web sebagai sarana mereka sebagai salah satu bentuk layanan kepada pelanggan dan layanan ini biasanya disebut sebagai internet radio, dengan adanya fitur ini para pelanggan mereka bisa mengakses radio dimana saja mereka berada, berikut kutipan yang kami sadur dari rri-online.com.

Dalam dunia internet, streaming yaitu mengkompresi ukuran file menjadi bagian-bagian kecil agar mudah ditransmisikan melalui jaringan internet. Pengguna dapat menjalankan file tanpa menunggu file tersebut selesai di download, misalkan file video yang besarnya 10 Mb, maka kita kita memerlukan sekitar 15 menit jika menggunakan akses Internet dengan kecepatan 56 KBps. Dilihat dari proses tersebut maka streaming data yaitu mentransmisikan data secara terus menerus dari server ke client melalui jaringan packet based semacam internet. File tersebut berupa serangkaian paket time-stamped yang disebut stream. Sebenarnya file apa saja sih yang bisa di-streaming-kakitn? Semua jenis file sebenarnya bisa. Baik file audio, video, image, text, data 3D, software, dan sebagainya. Tetapi streaming lebih mengacu kepada time-based media, khususnya audio dan video, yang harus dapat dinikmati sesegera mungkin dan berdasarkan waktu yang tepat, karena untuk dapat menikmati lagu atau film, haruslah dimainkan secara berurutan dari awal hingga akhir (sequensial) tanpa terputus-putus (uninterrupted). Salah satu aplikasi yang sangat akrab dengan teknologi streaming adalah aplikasi Internet broadcasting, yaitu penyiaran audio ataupun video yang berbasis Internet Protocol (IP). Internet Broadcasting. Penggunaan teknologi streaming pada Internet broadcasting ini memungkinkan sebuah stasiun radio atau televisi melakukan siarannya menggunakan jalur Internet. Sebenarnya ada dua jenis layanan yang dapat disuguhkan oleh Internet broadcasting ini, yaitu on-demand dan live. Untuk yang on-demand, biasanya adalah broadcasting yang menyiarkan file media yang telah direkam sebelumnya. Untuk stasiun radio yang on-demand misalnya siaran radio BBC edisi bahasa Indonesia yang dapat didengar di situs http://www.bbc.co.uk/indonesian. Sedangkan Internet broadcasting yang live, atau biasa dikenal pula dengan istilah livecasting, menyiarkan suatu file media saat itu juga ketika suatu kejadian tengah berlangsung (real time). Salah satu stasiun radio Indonesia yang menggunakan teknologi livecasting ini misalnya radio Elshinta Jakarta, yang siarannya dapat didengar melalui situs mms://202.158.49.136/elshinta. Stasiun radio yang menggunakan fitur layanan on-demand dan livecasting bisa dilihat di VOI atau Voice of indonesia http://www.voi.co.id/ milik RRI. Sedangkan untuk stasiun televisi di Indonesia, belum ada yang melakukan livecasting, kecuali untuk satu-dua acara tertentu saja yang sifatnya insidentil. Masalah utamanya adalah pada kesiapan infrastruktur Internet di Indonesia, karena livecasting ini memerlukan jaringan Internet dengan bandwidth dan kecepatan yang memadai. Radio Internet dikuasai oleh 5 penyedia portal besar dunia maya, yaitu: AOL Radio Network, Yahoo!Music, MSN Radio, WindowsMedia.Com maupun Live365.Com. Selain itu muncul Radio Internet yang dikelola oleh individu maupun kelompok, baik untuk tujuan hobi, iseng, dakwah, komunikasi dengan komunitasnya, maupun untuk tujuan membantu pembelajaran. Mengapa Radio Internet sangat pesat perkembangannya dan digandrungi oleh pendengar dan broadcaster? Yang pasti ada beberapa sebab yang bisa kita diskusikan: 1. Internet Radio memungkinkan kita mencari dan memilih siaran berdasarkan karakteristik negara, bahasa yang digunakan, jenis radio, dsb dengan cepat dan sesuai dengan yang kita inginkan. Kita dapat menyimpannya dalam bookmark atau shortlist, dan tinggal meng-klik untuk memutarnya. Komputer membantu kita mengelola bookmark dan shortlist kita. 2. Radio konvensional memiliki keterbatasan geografis. Siaran yang disajikan hanya dapat dinikmati dalam wilayah yang kecil, baik kecamatan maupun kabupaten/kotamadya. Ini berbeda dengan radio internet yang begitu kita broadcast, seluruh dunia akan mendengarkan siaran kita, tak peduli kita ada di sebuah rumah mungil yang terletak di Ujung Aspal, Pondok Gede, maupun yang ada di pusat kota Jakarta 3. Investasi relatif lebih murah, baik investasi awal, operasional maupun maintenace 4. Kualitas suara yang tidak kalah dengan kualitas suara pada radio konvensional Setting hardware / alat maupun software lebih mudah dan sederhana 5. Tidak memerlukan ijin khusus untuk membuatnya Di Indonesia masih belum banyak yang memanfaatkan teknologi ini karena koneksi Internet kita yang tidak terlalu baik. Kalaupun kita mau gunakan, harus dipilih software streaming yang tidak menggunakan resource bandwidth yang besar, juga setting encoder kita harus buat sekecil mungkin, misalnya dengan menggunakan 16-24kbps (mono). Sebagai catatan, beberapa server radio internet memiliki ukuran yang tidak terlalu besar, misalnya Shoutcast server hanya berukuran 136kb bahkan sekarang ada juga software audio player yang memungkinkan membuat internet radio station di rumah sendiri seperti SAM Broadcaster www.spacialaudio.com. Salam Teknologi, Team RnD of City Web Indonesia

Jun

How to pick an SEO Company

By admin 0 Comments

Categories: Search Engine Marketing and Online Business

Not all of us are prepared to do our own SEO. If we're focused on building our site, we're probably more passionate about our site's topic (dog grooming, candy, toys, technology news and reviews, or what have you) than learning the SEO that will take it to the top of the SERPs. Fortunately, you can hire someone else to do it -- but there are a lot of scam artists out there. This article explains what to look for when hiring an SEO.Writing for SEO Chat has given me the opportunity to write on a variety of issues that I am pretty much just "subjective" about. Nobody likes to be wrong, but nobody can be right all the time (even Nostradamus saw only in part). As Soros stated in his theory of fallibility "everything I say may be wrong, act accordingly." That's the best I can do by way of a disclaimer, now note that apart from the disclaimer at the end of the article, I pretty much write with as much conviction as I can muster, but here is a topic that even "angels would fear to thread;" fortunately, I am not renowned for my angelic qualities. SEO is a pretty much open and shut case, it either it achieves set objectives or it doesn't. If it doesn't the optimization process has failed. If it works the optimization process has succeeded. The objectives may (and probably will) involve achieving certain ranking positions on a particular search engine in a stipulated time. That sounds easy enough, but we have to consider the environment in which SEO professionals work: the search engines. Search Engines Search currently is a billion dollar business. With over a billion searches done every day using the search engines, search engines take their SERPs pretty seriously. The only reason users come is get relevant results, and each of the major search engines want a bigger slice of the growing search market (more users). Sometimes Search Engine Optimization does not help the search engines achieve their goals. And it seems that with the Google Web spam team led by Matt Cutts, SEO could get penalized. This being said, Google does not mind sites ranking high as long as they got to that position "organically." If the site tries to rank via some other means (such as use of doorway pages or link and content spamming) and is discovered, it is likely to be de-listed. Another thing to remember is that search engines continually change their secret ranking algorithms, and this makes SEO an inexact science (like medicine) at best, and a farce at worst -- you do a lot of good work, and you don't see any changes. This is actually one of the best reasons why you should have an SEO professional working on your site. There is no degree in Search Engine Optimization offered in colleges and universities, but there are accreditations from various organizations like SEMPO and Bruceclay. Search marketing has become a course in marketing schools world wide (from universities in the United States to universities in Spain). Search Engine Optimization requires a mix of skills that range from the hard (technical) to the soft (people skills and "spin" marketing). This article is aimed at institutions who are looking to get professional SEO done on their site, and want to identify their needs and what to look for in an SEO "professional." It is also aimed at those who simply want to get their web sites optimized for the search engines. Before we go deeper into what kind of SEO professional you need, let's look at whether you need an SEO professional at all. DIY or Outsourcing Depending on your needs, you could actually just draw up your objectives and learn how to do SEO yourself. Some knowledge of server technology is required, as well as web development skills. Everything else requires an ability to write some text and send persuasive emails. But most importantly you must have time on your hands. To do organic SEO you need a lot of time -- time to source/write and edit copy and time to trade links; time to totally redesign your site from scratch if you see it is not meeting your traffic needs. You do not need to work on your SEO full time, but you need a lot of time. Think of it as taking on a second job. Automated DIY A good way of doing your search engine optimization yourself is by using SEO software, one of the most common programs being seoelite. The software is pretty user friendly and costs less than $200. Apart from that it satisfies some of the conditions traditionally required of SEO professionals (especially that of ranking well on the SERPs for your key words). Type in SEO software and the web site for this software ranks number one. DIY Not for Everybody Note that this is only for small sites which can be comfortably run by a single individual, not for a mega site with thousands of pages. Your SEO is a full time job. DIY is good only if you have time. If you want to spend most of your time on whatever your core skill is, you may have to hire an SEO professional to handle your optimization. It is in this area that most individuals find out that picking an SEO professional is a lot like picking a financial consultant: if you pick an inept one, you lose money. We will look at how SEO professionals develop (from my perspective), some good ways to pick professionals and what to ask for when doing "due diligence." We'll also look at one common myth about SEO professionals, and how they bill. The first thing we find is that a lot of "professionals" won't make our cut if these requirements are followed rigorously, and there are exceptions to every rule. To look at how SEO professionals become "professional," I would dare to say most of them start their careers as something else on the Internet. The major starting point is "webmaster" or "Internet marketer." A webmaster is a web developer who is involved in the day to day running, administration and marketing (note the M word) of a particular website. An Internet marketer is someone who wants to sell products online. Both by the nature of their fields seek to gain high search engine rankings, and then proceed to develop (or hire) a skill set which will get them these rankings. SEO becomes more important if the webmaster runs an ecommerce site. Others may have entered the SEO field as business development managers who were told to get "traffic on the site" or "generate leads." And recently, young programmers who build web applications have also found their way into SEO. Note that there is hardly anyone who was an "SEO" from the get go (apart from full time Internet marketers). As a profession it is a service, and most of the professionals are called professionals not because they generate results but because a circle of "insiders" endorse them (more on this later). SEO calls for team work; one man can do a lot, but only so much. Ideally SEO involves a copy writer and a developer working together (with a marketer/manager type person acting as an overseer) because they can get the job done faster than any single one of them. As with web development, everybody has specialties. This kind of service may turn out to be expensive for small web sites (since it's mostly relatively large SEO companies that work like this). If you get just one person to do your SEO, I will be surprised if the person is working alone (especially if you have a very big site). Considerations Ideally your SEO professional should have a few top ranking sites under his or her belt, all ranking for varying difficulties of key words (ranking for "computer monitors" is different from ranking for "Black Samsung CRT Monitors"). They should also NOT use tactics that could get you banned (or should have the good sense not to be caught). Ideally you should get a referral from someone else you know. Individual SEO professionals should have ranked well on the search engines (so ask for screen shots of previous rankings); s/he should also be reasonably articulate, with good writing skills. I see SEO from a copy writing perspective so good writing skills are a must. Now note that most (not all) SEO professionals and companies charge a fixed monthly fee with no guarantee of success. And if you give your money to the wrong person, you are most likely to lose all your money without getting any results. Forget about fancy degrees or qualifications; pick an individual or company with a proven track record, someone who can deliver on demand. Consider legal issues in picking your SEO specialist. There are SEO professionals all over the world, but if you want your money back and the fellow stays in Bangladesh, you might have a spot of bother collecting. Again I cannot repeat this enough; for a single individual get referrals, you can ask the professional to supply them. Or you can ask other professionals in the industry to refer you. A good place to find referrals for individual SEO specialists is the forum right here at SEO Chat. Just post at the SEO Professionals forum (read the guidelines if you are a newbie), ask for contact details in the messages sent to you, and also feel free to ask the moderators. SEO professionals can be very picky (there is a lot of work). If it looks like your site is a "dog" so to speak, or that you will be difficult to work with, some will not work with you regardless of how much you are willing to pay. There are various companies with various competitive advantages. Some guarantee results, some are pay per performance, others may take your money and take forever. You should be warned that a certain level of professionalism is expected of you if you are working with a big company, and there will be a great deal more paper work. Apart from that, some companies have a really bad reputation on the Internet (and in case you don't know yet, in service industries reputation is everything) so if you want to pick an SEO company, come over and start a discussion on it at the forums. In the past few months some SEO companies have had a microscope directed at them in the forums. Internet Advancement, etraffic jams and several others have had prospective clients start a discussion about them. Watch for current or past clients and what they have to say, and disregard hearsay as much as possible (even the forums are not infallible).

"You get what you pay for." Unknown

Cost Considerations Unless you want SEO from an unverified source or from a total novice in the profession, do not expect bargain prices. If you get cheap SEO, I think Christmas either came early or you are being taken for a ride. Now this is totally my opinion because maybe, just maybe, some professional is charging low to undercut his competition; it's a classic disruptive technique. But it's a pretty big market, so anyone who is any good gets a whole lot of work one way or the other. The best thing is to get some sort of pay for performance model, so that you only pay when certain benchmarks are achieved. Most that would agree to these model are solo professionals or SEO companies that practice "disruptive" marketing models; they have an edge over their competition when it comes to marketing. I will be talking more about charges and marketing techniques in a follow up article talking about how to become an SEO professional. Quick summary: ask for references, and if it's a company, seek previous clients on forums and discussion boards. There is a discussion board under this article and a forum around here somewhere; just watch out for scammers and "shady" characters (you may have to use your judgment on that one, but the moderators will help) and you should be on a roll.(seochat)

Jun

Managing Your Marketing Career in a Web 2.0 World

By admin 0 Comments

Categories: Internet Technology

It's no longer the world of work you knew when you graduated from college. The tried and true career management techniques you've been using just don't work in today's marketplace. Working hard, writing a compelling resume, staying connected to head hunters are all so... 20th century. To achieve the highest level of success and fulfillment today, you must immerse yourself in the Web 2.0 frame of mind. That means developing a new set of career management habits. Consider these facts:

There are over 106 million members of MySpace. If MySpace were a country and members were citizens, it would be the 11th largest in the world, according to Karl Fisch at fischbowl.blogspot.com.
A former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, stated recently that the top 10 jobs that will be in the greatest demand in 2010 didn't exist in 2004.
A Harris Interactive poll revealed that 40% of respondents google people to learn about them.
According to Business Week, 87% of headhunters use Google and social networks to make decisions about candidates, and 35% of them have eliminated candidates based on what Google revealed.

Welcome to the world of Web 2.0. According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second-generation of Web based communities and hosted services—such as social networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies—that facilitate collaboration and sharing among users. Web 2.0 is having a major effect on the way we do virtually everything... or do everything virtually. And that impact is more profound on marketers. As a marketer, you are likely immersed in all the novel opportunities that exist in this new connected reality. You probably spend a great deal of time looking for ways to exploit these burgeoning Web 2.0 applications in support of your company's revenue goals. But have you thought about how to leverage Web 2.0 for your career? If you want to stay ahead of your peers and keep your career in gear, you must employ the latest techniques in support of your professional growth. Here are three ways to leverage Web 2.0 to get ahead. Become the perfect passive job candidate Soon, you will move from hunting for jobs to being hunted. Job boards will be a thing of the past, and open positions will come looking for you. That means you need to make yourself visible to prospective hiring managers and executive recruiters. Social-networking sites and online portals are a great way to connect with like-minded professionals and increase your visibility in your area of thought leadership. The MarketingProfs Know-how Exchange, LinkedIn, Ryze, and countless other portals and social-networking sites are your opportunity to become selectively famous. But like most tools, you need to use them if you want them to add value to your career. When's the last time you logged into a social-networking site? Build your own fan club Establish a blog. Make your point of view clear. Build an SEO strategy for your blog so you can attract people who are interested in what you have to say. With RSS feeds and open commenting, you can stay connected to a community. Those with whom your message resonates will subscribe to your blog and/or post comments. This is a great way to express your thought-leadership, expand your virtual network, and increase your GQ (Google Quotient). Remember, every post you make is one more item that Google will return when someone googles your name. And visibility is essential to professional success. Use multimedia to express your views Audio and video abound on the Web. They provide a fun, multifaceted way to clearly express your message. With over 50,000 new clips added to MySpace today (the day I wrote this article), video is no longer the exception. And with cool, free audio tools like Audacity, anyone can create sound clips that are professional-sounding. A drab resume or Web site that does not take advantage of images, sounds, and movies will likely bore those who some across it. In a world where the average 20-year-old is an amateur film producer and sound engineer, you want to make sure you are using multimedia effectively to communicate your message. Sometimes, the medium is the message.

* * *

If you want to stand head and shoulders above the crowd and be in charge of your career, you must employ the latest Web 2.0 techniques and be willing to change those techniques as they are replaced by newer opportunities. The only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing. So the Web 2.0 world of today will certainly be replaced by Web 3.0—probably before you know it. ( by : William Arruda )

Jun

Upgrade Server - 16.00 WIB 6 Juni 2007

By admin 0 Comments

Categories: Cityweb News

Kami akan mengadakan upgrade server ke php5 pada seluruh server Windows pada pukul 16.00 WIB, tanggal 6 Juni 2007. Kami akan mengsuspend seluruh account di Cityweb Indonesia. Sistem akan bekerja dengan baik kembali pada pukul 19.00 WIB. Atas kerja seluruh pihak kami ucapkan terima kasih. Dan juga kami mohon maaf atas ketidaknyamanan ini.

Jun

Search Marketing 101

By admin 0 Comments

Categories: Search Engine Marketing and Internet Marketing

How do you look for information? You search the internet, right? If so, you're not alone. According to Marketing Sherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. Of that number, 63 percent look only at the first page of results--at most. And if you want your site to be there, you need to put a family of strategies called search marketing--a catch-all term for search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising--to work for your business. Search Engine Optimization SEO encompasses the strategies for earning top rankings in free search engines. These are called "organic" or "natural" listings. You can actually direct the way your site's listed--and improve your ranking--by giving the search engines what they’re looking for. The goal is to optimize your site so search engines will consider it relevant. Then, they’ll place your site in the top results when people are searching for your product or service. Here are some key SEO strategies:

Find the hottest keywords for your market. This is the starting point for any search marketing campaign.
Plug keywords into the right locations in your copy and code. Your website is full of hot spots search engine spiders check regularly for keywords. Put your keywords in the headlines, subheads and body copy of your web pages. In your code, use them in anchor text, alt text, title tags, image tags and meta tags. But use them sparingly: The old strategy of loading up your meta tags with keywords doesn’t work anymore.
Use keywords that relate directly to your content. If you sprinkle keywords like "guaranteed weight loss" through your site that sells shoes, search engines will ignore you. Your keywords will work best if they reflect what your site is about.
Keep the spiders coming back with frequent new content. The more fresh, relevant content they find, the higher the search engine spiders are likely to rank your site. Keep all the copy on your pages current, including any changes or updates to your business or products. And archive your newsletters or bulletins on your site. A blog or forum also keeps people heading back for daily updates and discussion.
Fine-tune your keyword density. Make sure you integrate your keywords as naturally as possible into your copy. You won't keep your visitors' attention if the text on your site is just a jumbled bunch of keywords. Aim for keyword density of 4 to 6 percent.
Collect links from other sites that are considered reputable and relevant. Natural, relevant inbound links are search engine gold. Focus your strategy on requesting one-way links from sites with high natural rankings in search engines. Also, put out "link bait"--quality content that contains a link back to your site. Distributing free articles and press releases is a great way to get quality inbound links. Learn more on this subject in "Write a Keyword-Rich Article to Increase Site Traffic."And don't forget the power of social networking. By taking part in online communities or uploading your video to a site like YouTube, you can drive new traffic to your website and get new sites linking to yours.
Use a site map to boost your ranking in Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live Search. Site maps help spiders find their way through all your pages. And with the new sitemapsformatting protocol, the three search titans are giving site owners more clues than ever about how to help index their sites.

SEO should be at the core of your overall internet marketing strategy. It's one of the most inexpensive and effective approaches available. In fact, much of what you can do to optimize your site for the organic search engines is totally free. However, it can be slow. When starting out, you'll probably have to wait before you show up in search results. So here’s something that'll get you targeted traffic faster. Pay-Per-Click Advertising Do a search on Google or Yahoo!, and you'll notice a different type of listings set around the organic results. These "sponsored results" are pay-per-click ads that appear when people search using the keywords in the ads. PPC has some tremendous advantages for online businesses:

PPC ads show up immediately. You can drive traffic to your site right away, even if you haven't been indexed by search engines yet.
You only pay for results. No matter how many times your ad is displayed, you pay only when someone clicks on it. And by watching your results carefully, you can determine how well each ad is converting and if it's worth continuing.
It's a great testing tool. With PPC, you can run several ads simultaneously, allowing you to see very quickly which ones work best. Test your keywords this way and use the best ones on your site to boost your organic search results.In fact, you can use PPC to test everything from your product offerings and price points to your ad headlines and sales copy. Read "How to Attract Visitors to Your Site" for more PPC information.

With a combination of PPC and SEO you can make sure your target market will find you. No other set of strategies offers you so much scope as search marketing. You can dramatically improve your search engine rankings and direct quality, targeted traffic to your website--often without spending a single dime. A lot of the techniques here are basic, but some techniques come and go. What worked last year may fizzle this year. And discovering a great new search marketing trick could put you far ahead of the competition. So have the basics covered, but also try new techniques and strategies. With ongoing search marketing, you'll be where your market can find you--front and center in the search results. (Derek Gehl: E-Business)

Time to 'Mobilize' Your Site?

07/11/07 0 comments
Few weeks ago, New Yorkers--myself included--experienced some severe thunderstorms, as happens to most of us from time to time. The result of a lot of rain is that often our transit systems break down, leaving riders frustrated, late and at times downright angry. While I was waiting for the train during one of these extended delays I used my new smartphone to check out the schedule of the local commuter bus company. Until recently I had been using a basic cell combined with a PDA. But I got tired of carrying two devices and decided to purchase a Motorola Q instead. I'm not alone in this transition. Millions of consumers and business professionals are ditching their basic cell phones in favor of more advanced cell phones and smartphones that combine the functions of a PDA, cell phone and web browser. In November 2006, Arizona technology research company In-Stat said that smartphone unit sales almost tripled from 2004 to 2005, and increased by 50 percent in the first half of 2006 compared to the same period in 2005. Mobile internet access is going to continue growing. What It Means for Your Business It's time to consider updating your website and making it compatible for mobile web browsers. Say you're a florist. With your current website, you probably have big, bold and beautiful pictures. Maybe a video on the front page of your website gives your customers a weekly tip on arranging flowers for an office environment. After a few seconds a pop-up window displays, encouraging visitors to sign up for your monthly floral e-newsletter. Your website works well for your corporate customers accessing it from their high-speed telecommunication lines. But the corporate event planner that typically accesses your website via his computer at work might need to access it in a taxi cab using his new cell phone or smartphone with internet-enabled connectivity. Or maybe a soon-to-be bride wants to share your flower selections with her mom while she's standing in line at a mall. Is your website ready for these "new" customers wanting to access it in a mobile environment? If it's not ready, now's the time to consider who your audience is and how they access your site. Work with your technology professional to analyze your traffic logs and see what types of browsers are accessing your site. Do you see mobile traffic? Take the time to poll some of your customers about the likelihood of them accessing your website and others on their smartphones. Once you've decided a mobile site is right for you, it's time to create one.How to Create a Mobile-Optimized Site If you have a very large website with thousands of pages, it might not be necessary to configure your entire site for mobile access. I would guess that many of your mobile customers visit your website for a specific purpose--perhaps to check on orders or search your inventory. Find out what they want from your site and work from there. The simplest way to create a site compatible with mobile browsers is to use a website creation wizard tool, which will help you create a basic site from scratch. Choose the design you want, add pages and content, and you're done. Unlike traditional website creation tools, this wizard is specifically designed to create mobile websites. You can find a wizard at Network Solutions or domain registrar .mobi. Creating a mobile website using one of these wizards is simple and low-cost, however, you'll have two websites: one for your mobile customers and one for your other customers. Keeping them both updated could be a hassle. But I would encourage you to test the waters with a dual website strategy. If you don't want to create a mobile website from scratch and want the benefit of having one website, work with a professional web developer to code your site so that when users access your main website, different content is served to web browsers depending on whether they're mobile. If you visit Google on your PC or Mac and a mobile web browser, you'll find two different screens. On your computer's web browser you'll find the full Google site. On your smartphone's web browser you'll find minimal content--a simple search box and not much more. What's Next Think about your business, your website and your customers. Consider whether you have--or should have--content that mobile customers would want to access. If so, experimenting with a mobile website is probably worth the effort. If you have a database of product information and want mobile customers to access it, you might want to try 4info.net, which offers a service that enables mobile users to search content on your website or retrieve it via short message service.

Start an E-Business Without a Website

17/10/07 0 comments
How to make money online--for free--on someone else's site. Back in the early days of internet marketing, there wasn't much you could do to get started with marketing your online until you actually launched your own website. Before you could make money, you had to:

Choose a domain
Set up your hosting
Design your website
Put it all online
Optimize and test your website

But maybe you want the chance to "get your feet wet" before you commit to building a website and getting really serious about marketing your business online. Or maybe you're trying to discover your online business niche: the problem you want to solve, the people you want to sell to, and the best possible way to create a viable business. Maybe you don't want to commit to a website until you've had a better chance to experiment with different ideas. Well, fortunately for web newbies, there are more options for getting started with e-commerce than ever before. Now you can actually market and sell products without ever creating your own website. Here's just a few. Start Selling on eBay eBay.com is the hottest e-commerce site on the web today, and for good reason:

More than 2 million people visit eBay.com every single day, spending an average of two hours navigating through eBay's pages and listings.
More than $1,000 in sales happen on eBay every single second.
72% of eBay users have incomes in excess of $50,000 per year--so they come ready to spend!

And--most important to you--95% of eBay users are individuals or small businesses. eBay is clearly a place where newbies can go to find instant profit and success--and you can get started selling in less than an hour. And while those listings will cost you only pennies to place on eBay's pages, you gain immediate access to millions of buyers who are looking for items just like yours. To get started selling on eBay today, go to: http://cgi5.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?SellHub2. But what items are you going to sell? This is the real beauty of eBay: There's a market for practically everything on the giant online auction site. If you're not sure what you want to sell, try checking out what products are popular at http://pulse.ebay.com, or by reading these strategies for finding items that'll sell like hotcakes. Start a Blog You can create your own website in less than five minutes (and for free!) by starting a blog. (Read "Harness the Marketing Power of Blogs.") Business blogs have become one of the hottest tools for marketing on the web today. And while some companies use them to promote their products in addition to their main websites, you don't need to have a website--or even have a business yet--to start a blog. Anyone can create a blog for free and have an active, functioning presence online in just minutes. Even complete internet newbies find the set-up process simple and easy to understand. You don't have to know anything about web design or pay a single cent for a domain name or web hosting. And once you've got your blog online, you can start making money instantly. Here are some tips to get you started:

Start a Google AdSense campaign to generate advertising revenue from your blog. It's easy to set up an AdSense account, and have targeted ads displayed to your online readers. This can be a great source of revenue, though of course the amount of income you can expect from your AdSense ads will depend on the amount of traffic to your blog. The more traffic you receive, the more people are likely to click through the ads displayed on your site--and the more revenue for you!
Join an affiliate program, or a few affiliate programs, and start promoting their products on your blog. You don't even need your own product to get started. You can place ads for your affiliate products on your blog, or write articles or product reviews that contain your affiliate link. You receive a percentage of each sale made when readers click through your links and make a purchase.
Sell products directly from your blog. If you do have a product that you're ready to sell, you can write articles on your blog telling readers about the benefits of your widget. Once they get excited about what you have to offer and decide to take action, you can direct them with a sidebar button to your PayPal account (which is free and easy to set up).

With PayPal, they can order your product and pay for it in seconds, and it only takes you a few moments to get set up to take payments. You can create a blog in five minutes, absolutely free, with a free blog hosting service. These are considered the top options for blogging beginners:

Use Google Page Creator to Get Free Exposure Google Page Creator is a brand-new program that enables anyone with a Google ID to set up their very own website. The most obvious benefit of the program is that your pages are rapidly indexed by the Google search engine spiders. Some new website owners spend a ton of time and effort trying to show up in search engine results for their keywords, but with a Google Page, you jumpstart that process. Within minutes, you have a fully functioning website that you can use to make money online right away. You can generate profits with Google Page Creator in much the same way as with a blog:

You can promote your own product on your Google Page with a salesletter or ad, and then direct your visitors to your PayPal checkout system to purchase your product right away.
You can also promote other people's products on your Google Page through content, links or ads, and make quick cash from affiliate commissions.
And naturally, Google Pages are the perfect place to set up a Google AdSense campaign.

When your account is approved, Google offers a simple page setup process with an easy-to-use WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editor. You can add your own text by typing it straight into the editor, or by cutting and pasting from any kind of text file. You can also upload pictures, create links, and even edit the raw HTML code if you wish. In order to get started with Google Page Creator, you'll need a Google ID, which you can sign up for at: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount. Once you've got an account, you can head to the Page Creator homepage (http://pages.google.com) to add your name to the waiting list (demand is so huge that they're currently not accepting real-time submissions). Final Thoughts Of course, if you're getting serious about starting a business online, we always recommend that you create a website of your own. It's never been easier to build an e-commerce presence online than it is now, with the rise in popularity of blogging, auction websites like eBay.com, and quick web hosting solutions like Google Page Creator. Each of these options offers you the opportunity to determine the viability of your business model, test your strategies and salescopy, establish a ranking in the search engines, and gain credibility and a reputation in your industry. Best of all, you can get started making money online today.

Derek Gehl is Entrepreneur.com's "E-Business" columnist and the CEO of the internet Marketing Center, an internet marketing firm that has helped thousands of people learn to start and run their own online businesses.

5 New Places to Advertise

09/08/07 0 comments
It takes a lot to make things new, especially in advertising. The world has never been more saturated with logos, messages, images and branding. They're on the mug that holds your morning coffee, the radio in your car, the walls of your train car and even in the pages of the restaurant menu at lunch. As Americans become desensitized to traditional media, marketers are finding new places to capture their attention. The new frontiers of advertising are as varied as the old--from ad panels on employee uniforms to laminates on airplane tray tables--which means there are opportunities for both small startups and national brands. Here are five of the newest places to pitch your brand, service or product. 1. Tray tables in the sky Imagine having hours of a consumer's rapt attention. It's just your ad and their eyes; they can't leave, and they can't use their phone. They can use their computer, but that will likely bring their eyes right back to your ad. Advertising has finally hit airplanes in a more in-your-face way than the in-flight TV programming or magazine. New York-based Brand Connections SkyMedia has already lined up contracts with America West and US Airways to put laminated ads on airline tray tables. "This is the anti-clutter," Brian Martin, CEO of Brand Connections, says. "It's purely captive." He says the ad space is ideal for brands with high-ticket items. 2. Employee uniforms (not your own) Bartenders can hold a lot of sway over what people choose to drink. A talented mixologist at a trendy club suggesting an açaí berry liqueur is a powerful way to get consumers to drink acai cocktails. So imagine if the bartender's shirt bore a giant, color-rich, graphic panel advertisement of a particular liquor or mixer. That's the marketing concept behind Los Angeles-based Eye Level Marketing. The company is pitching the interchangeable shirt panels to theme parks, stadiums, shopping centers and retail stores. 3. Golf cart hubcaps Golf club and golf clothing makers have long had the monopoly on golf course branding. Tournaments have offered opportunities for corporate exposure, but often the visibility for hole sponsors is minimal at best. Enter Static Media Group and its non-rotating golf cart hubcaps. The Woodstock, Georgia-based firm launched the concept in Atlanta in November. "It's going very well," says Neil Johnson, director of sales. The company is expecting to launch in six markets, from Southern California to Tampa Bay, within the next three months, Johnson adds. The concept is appropriate for any company targeting high-end consumers, from beverage companies to mortgage lenders. An executive playing at a recent golf tournament told Johnson, "You know, I can't tell you who a single hole sponsor was, but I can tell you who was riding along on the wheels." 4. On your shirttails Most companies have ponied up for T-shirts that feature their name and logo, whether for employees to wear at promotional events or as handouts to customers. But aside from a company's name, the shirts don't offer much additional information. Montoloking, N.J.-based Telme Clothing, however, has been helping companies get a more personal message across to customers. The company sells customized tees bearing the traditional full-front or left-chest logo, but it adds an unexpected twist on the inside back bottom of the shirt. There, a company can include several paragraphs of its mission statement or all of its contact information. Owner and President Kevin Shane says Telme's main market is in promotional shirts for companies, and they're a hit with smaller firms. "We don't have minimums," Shane says. "We don't like to turn any business away." 5. Around town Keep an eye out for advertising opportunities on the municipal vehicles, city-owned buildings or recycling bins in your area. More municipalities are considering ways to boost revenue without hitting up taxpayers and are seeing advertising opportunities on local infrastructure. Allentown, Pennsylvania, for example, is exploring ways to raise revenue by selling municipal marketing space. And the police cars in Toledo, Ohio, will soon host the logos and phone numbers of sponsors. The ad sponsorships are the city council's solution to a deteriorating fleet.