I'm not exactly sure what the problem is with blogger - yesterday it wouldn't let me in - today it has been difficult to post. I'll try to figure out what the problem is.

I know I had mentioned continuing our series - but just got an important tidbit in the mail yesterday. For those of you that have been around for a while you might remember Snap. We'll they're back at it again. You may want to make sure your site is listed and that you take advantage of their logo service. Details are at the link below.

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3493061

I know I had mentioned continuing our series - but just got an important tidbit in the mail yesterday. For those of you that have been around for a while you might remember Snap. We'll they're back at it again. You may want to make sure your site is listed and that you take advantage of their logo service. Details are at the link below.

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3493061

If there is a double post then there is some type of glitch - This week we'll be continuing our discussion on numbers. Also just a reminder - Saturday night you need to set your clock up an hour - Spring Forward - since Daylight Savings Time starts.

Our weekend was great - hope yours was as well. This week if things go well we'll continue our discussion on numbers. One reminder - don't forget this coming weekend it's time to Spring Forward by setting your clocks up an hour on Saturday night.

Have a great Monday.

An excellent article on the importance of content -

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3492496


Have a wonderful weekend.

I've had a few folks ask some questions about the recent update / algo change from Google.

One of the better explanations of it can be found here -

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-0305.htm#TWO

Some take away notes:

1. The sand box may be easing up a bit - it has been long thought that Google sometimes put's new sites in a sand box of sorts before allowing them to be ranked.

2. Some changes on how links / linking works. The 15 tips they include there are excellent.

3. Stale sites rank worst - if you haven't updated the content of your site in a while - make it a priority to do it today.

To continue a bit on our conversation and numbers - we first need to review some definitions. Review the following terms from the Marketing Terms site - you may want to bookmark them for future reference.

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/keyword_research/

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/2/

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/1/

I get an excellent newsletter every few weeks from DEMC.

http://www.demc.com/newsletters/3_16_05.html

There was an excellent article in that latest newsletter about niches - you can find it at the link below.

http://www.demc.com/newsletters/3_16_05.html#4

Have a good one.

Last week went by way too fast - hopefully your picks did well in the NCAA. Yesterday I started reinstalling XP ... again. If you have a firewall don't be a goofball like me and turn it off. I turned it off for ten seconds and got about 20 bits of spyware, some which I couldn't remove no matter how hard I tried and it was very annoying.

I will also take my own advice and not use explorer (using firefox now). I don't know if using firefox would have saved me, we shall see. I'm still working on reinstalling things so hopefully you have a more productive Monday.

Hmm this is a second try - having some technical difficulties.

MSN starts a new PPC program -
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3490346

More info on tracking eyeballs -
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3490486

Have a great weekend.

This week has flown by - I am a huge basketball fan and with my daughter being home on her spring break blogging time has been short.

I did manage to find some excellent articles for you to review -

I mentioned eyetracking before - some more great information can be found here -

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3490486

MSN is going to launch its own pay per click program - similar to Goggle and (Goto / Overture / Yahoo Search).

http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3490346

Have a great weekend.

Today we're going to talk a little about testing - we'll be expanding on this as we go on but this is just a basic lesson. It will help us with numbers because when we start working on improving things we'll use testing and those numbers.

Test Basics -

Testing is trying different things in order to improve our results.
You can test any number of things - your ad copy, pictures on the site, colors etc.
Just like in an experiment you have to use a control - in our case the site before we change things - and the experiment - the changed site.
You need to make sure you test only one change - why? If you test more than one thing at a time then you won't know what made the change.

Have a good one.

We hope to continue this week where we left off on our talk of the magic of numbers. My daughter is on her spring break for a few days this week so some days we may not post.

Hope you enjoy your week.

A very interesting study shows some things that you could have probably figured out by yourself but it's nice to see it in print anyway. It tracked where people looked when they were presented with search engine results. Is your site in the golden triangle?

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/3/prweb213516.htm

Take a break from our regularly scheduled stuff today for this... if you haven't heard yet, Google is beta testing Auto Linking an addition to the toolbar - for now it will supposedly be just for certain items. If you remember a while back Microsoft was going to try the same thing (Smart Tags) - embedding links in your site. More details can be found at the article below -

http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/opt/article.php/3488166

You have a nice stats package now - so what do you do with it / how do you read it. The link below will take you to an excellent article on how to read them.

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/visitortracking.htm

The big thing about tracking numbers is monitoring changes. Step one is being able to monitor your web traffic. If you have a good stats package then you can take the day off (:o) if not then start working on getting one. We talked in some of our previous entries about choosing a good package. You can find those posts by starting here -

http://smallbizpromo.blogspot.com/2004/08/this-week-were-going-to-be-talking.html

You can also see the whole series at a glance - just remember to scroll down to the August 9th post first - then scroll up.

http://smallbizpromo.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_smallbizpromo_archive.html

Found a very useful site for getting free content for your site (photos, video, etc.)

http://creativecommons.org/find/

Have a great weekend.

Numbers... using numbers you can improve a lot with your business.

If you aren't tracking the numbers you should be. Say your site gets a hundred visitors a day and you make one sale a day. With everything remaining constant (mostly the quality of the visitor) if you got 200 visitors you would make 2 sales, 300 visitors 3 sales, 1,000 visitors 10 sales. I think many people don't grasp that concept. It is VERY powerful.

If you cold call 10 people and make a sale - if you cold call 20 you should make 2. There are many different variables of course, but the numbers should remain constant. I think next week we might expound a bit more on the power of numbers.

Have a good one.

So you've broken down your goals into smaller bites - now what do you do with those bites.

Now you need to create an action plan. Let's say you have a goal to save $20.00 a day or $100.00 a week. List five or so ways you can achieve this. Saving is all about either making more or spending less. So you could perhaps do the following.

1) Save loose change in a jar - $5.00 / week.
2) Eat the value meal for lunch - $10.00 / week.
3) Eat out only once a week instead of three times - $40.00 / week.
4) Plan grocery shopping - coupons / buy in bulk / track sales etc. $20.00 week.
5) Review expenses - do I really need all those things on the phone / 3 cell phones etc. $25.00 week.

Make sure to put the money you save in the bank.

Tomorrow we'll talk more about numbers.

Tim

You have your long range goals - now we're going to work on turning the mountains into molehills.

Lets say for instance that you have this long range goal.

I will double my business in five years.

Currently let's say you're doing $100,000.00.
So in five years your goal would be $200,000.00
Each year you would need to increase your business by $20,000.00.

So the first year you would need about $2300.00 / week in sales.
Year 2 - $2700.00
Year 3 - $3100.00
Year 4 - $3500.00
Year 5 - $3850.00

Say your goal was to save $50,000.00 in five years.

(Not counting your interest ) That would be $10,000 / year - $193.00 / week or $38.50 / day (just the work days of the week).

Breaking the goals down will make them much more doable.
Tomorrow we'll start talking about the doing.

Tim