This week.... if I can get this crazy thing to work we're going to talk about planting seeds. Spring has sprung and it's a perfect time to think about growing your business in terms of planting a garden. One thought to get you started. If you don't plant anything (advertise / promote) how can you expect anything to grow. Something to think about.

I really hate paying taxes... I don't guess that many people do. I give you permission to take the weekend off. My wife though has a good way of looking at it - she said it could be worse.... you could have not made any more. So I guess that is true, still I really don't like writing out the checks much. I guess the April 15th one makes it worse, because you pay the double whammy - taxes owed and the first ES form. So enjoy your weekend... you deserve it!!

So how do you make it easy for new customers to shop at your site -

1) Explain everything - then explain everything again. While shopping on the net is easy for you, this will be the first experience for them. Explain exactly how the process works. Explain what happens after they push a button.

2)Inspire confidence - even though they may not have shopped - I'm pretty certain that they have heard horror stories about the web. Make them feel secure - offer them an alternate means of ordering your products - the phone.

3) Explain what happens after the order - how long does it take the order to be processed, when will it be shipped etc.

4) Detail how you will communicate with them.

Have a good one.

I had someone ask me how that gas prices could relate to increases in web traffic. Here goes a simple but worthwhile explanation.

1. I live in a very small town - while we do have a Wal-Mart :o) - say I want something that isn't mass produced / but unique. Lets say I want a certain video game.

2. I now have a choice - I can drive two hours to the nearest "big" city that may have it - or I could buy it online. If I drive the four hours I'll spend an extra $20 or so dollars in gas. Online I find the game - same price as the store in the big city - shipping is four bucks.

I don't know about you but I would much rather save the $16 bucks. Next time I need to make the purchase I'll think about the video - how easy it was - didn't have to drive - came to the door - no traffic hassles - no big gas expenditure - so I buy something on the web again.

Once you do things a few times it starts to be a habit. So even if gas prices do come down after my happy experiences of buying on the web, I'm more likely to continue that.

Tomorrow we'll talks some about dealing with these first time buyers, to make their experience a pleasant one.

Hope your weekend went as planned. It was great here - for once it didn't rain and temps were in the 70's. In fact we had to turn on the AC. Have you noticed the price at the gas station lately - filling up your tank is getting a bit out of control. What isn't great for your car, may be great for your website. Personally I think this will increase web sales - where folks may have only visited your site around the holidays - they may actually come by more often for other purchases. Just something to think about.

Have a great Monday.

If you have a site that caters to kids - you may want to make sure your site is listed in the search engines that are at the following url - especially pay attention to those that are near the bottom of the page - starts with - "Other Children's Search Engines".

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156191

Have a great weekend.

I got another update on the Google Auto Link program. I don't really see much wrong about how they're doing things now... but what could happen in the future. Take a moment to check out the following article -

http://www.clickz.com/experts/search/opt/article.php/3490576

Pay particle attention to code you can add to your site to kill the auto link.

http://www.threadwatch.org/node/1562

Even if you don't have links to books - I think this move by Google definitely bears watching.

Someone asked about how we got rid of the spyware / viruses.

After trying various methods (and none of those working), I decided that it would be much easier just to reinstall xp - but this time to include service pack 2 - and to stay far far away from windows explorer.

1) I made sure all the important files were backed up - emails, code, programs I own that are downloads only, passwords etc. I backed all these up to an external hard drive. You don't want to back up settings etc., because these might have been compromised by the malware.
2) Check again to make sure you have everything. Don't forget your bookmarks, you may also want to include your address book.
3) Format the hard drive. There is a fast method - which I've found doesn't do the job, and a slow method.
4) Reinstall XP
5) Reinstall all the drivers and programs that came with the computer.
6) Install and update your virus protection / firewalls.
7) Install SP 2.
8) Download any additional windows updates.
9) Install your other programs and make sure they work.
10) Run a virus scan.
11) Take a break.
12) Setup your email.
13) Install Mozilla.

I have a slow internet connection - not by choice we just live in the boonies - the whole process took about six hours or so. I figure though that it was time well spent since my computer runs faster and the spyware doesn't take over things (knock on wood).

I had the leisure of planning my reinstall. Sometimes you won't have that luxury. Make sure if you haven't backed up things in a while that today (or this week) you do it.

Tim

Recently our computer got infected with some nasty spy ware. We have the the firewalls, blockers, etc., but for some reason we got them anyway. One of the first things I do when this happens to me is to check out what kind of windows processes are going on (by hitting ctl - alt - del with xp). Some of these processes I have no clue what exactly they are. Now you can find out what they are and what you may need to do to stop them.

http://www.processlibrary.com/

Just enter the process in the search box and you'll find out what the process is. They do sell a product - which I don't own yet which is supposed to remove some of the pesky ones.

Hopefully on the blogging forefront this week will go better than last (ie I couldn't post). If you didn't move your clocks ahead last weekend then you're late.... was kind of funny on Sunday I thought I woke up early till I logged on my computer and found that I hadn't. Have a great Monday.

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

Was a mess here last week so we'll try to do better :o) - Tuesday we'll resume the goal discussion.

A very informative article on when people open emails and how it varies by season.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2927

Tim

Completely forgot that Monday was a holiday - spent most of the day goofing off with my daughter. Tomorrow we'll resume our goals discussion.

Hope everyone enjoys the weekend - if you haven't done so make those goals we talked about earlier in the week.

Hopefully your goals are going well - today the goals you're going to write down have to do with your finances - different than your business - think personal, retirement, debt, things you may really want - you could also put here. Don't just say out of debt - say exactly how much ... ex. I want to pay off my debt of $22,000.00 in five years or seven or ten etc. Another ex. I want to buy (pay cash) for a new Hummer in five years. You get the idea, now go for it.

Next week we're going to work on turning these goals into a reality (think turning mountains into molehills)

Did you get those goals written yesterday - if not .... STOP... Do not pass go and don't keep reading. Do that before you continue. Each step builds on the last.

Today - using yesterdays template - write five long range goals you want to accomplish in your family life. Sometimes it hard to quantify love - but you could have a goal like - In ten years I want to have enough money saved for my childs education at the college of her choice. (Insert that dollar amount somewhere in the statement).

Five by tomorrow.

Today we're going to work on making our first long range goal. By now you should have some notes on where you want things going in various areas of your life. Today we're going to think about business for a moment and make our first long range goal.

You should remember that you don't want to be vague - in other words grow my business beyond my wildest dreams, while that may be good we want some solid numbers. Provide better customer service would be a good goal - but again there is no way that you can see if you achieve the goal. So a good goal would be - In 5 years I want to increase my business by 500%. ... or In 5 years my returns / refunds will decrease to 0.1%.

So today write five long range goals for your business.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend. We'll be talking more this week about goals... if you haven't done your homework from Thursdays post - get with it!!

Have a great Monday.

Saw this interesting article this week. Its about standards and function - but the main tidbit I got from the article was this.

"Yahoo's Tim Mayer said speed is a major concern, and to ensure fast loading page the company uses standards to reduce file size. Tim went on to say Yahoo's crawlers prefer fast loading sites and that they really don't put a lot of emphasis on validation. They have not seen a correlation between validated sites and good quality relevant sites. "

You can view the entire article here -
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3482116

We hope you have a wonderful weekend - don't forget your goal homework.

We've talked a bit on making goals - and the benefits of making long range goals - so what areas should you make goals in. Don't worry next week we'll set to work on actually making goals.

Your business
Your health
Your wealth - this is different than business - when do you want to retire... how do you want to retire.
Your family -
Spiritual -
Yourself - what would you like to learn how to do - what hobbies would you enjoy - if you could go anywhere where would that be

Now write these headings down on a sheet of paper -
Your homework for the weekend is to jot down some general things under each heading - think 5 or 10 years from now. Dream BIG!!

Have a good one.

Yesterday we talked a little about creating goals and the proper format - today we're going to be talking about long range goals.

The goal ( :o)) of goal making should be to provide you with some steps that you can take daily to meet them. In order to do this the first thing we need to do is create some long range goals. Like we talked about these can be dreams but they need to be specific as to amounts / times. These global goals don't have to be as specific as short term ones - think 5 or 10 years down the road.

So a good one might be - I want to double my business income in five years. I want to be able to pay for my child's college tuition in 10 years.

Tomorrow we'll talk a bit about the types of goals.

The next couple of days we're going to talk about some goal basics.

To create a good goal it must have the following components -

1) It must be clearly defined - losing weight is not a good goal - lose 10 pounds by June 1st is. So it must have
a) Specific - think numbers
b) Time - must have a time limit
c) Clearly defined - make more money in my business - that isn't clearly defined - make $1 million dollars by next year is - but not really as clearly defined as I like - we would call that a global goal. Get 20 new customers in 6 months is a great goal.

Lets think a bit about Global Goals - these are long range goals or dreams that you may have.

Homework - keep thinking about goals - but start focusing now on your global goals a bit more - where would you like to be in ten years from now.

More tomorrow.

This week we're going to begin an in depth discussion of goals - if everything goes well.

If you haven't done so yet make sure to check out the start of our goals guide which you can find in the last issue of our ezine.

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz246-febr05.htm

Next week we're going to be talking about goals - so make sure that you stay tuned.

Got this in the email this morning and it's an excellent article on how USA Today gets more subscribers to its newsletter. With a little tweaking it would be valid for almost any business.

http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2907

Have a wonderful weekend.

Tim and Lisa.

Now you should have a list of sites to contact for possible links -

1) Review their site for how to link - many of them will include clear instructions - ie how to link, who to contact, if you qualify for the link etc.... by the way - you need to make sure you have this included on your site, it will make your life much easier.

2) Contact them using the information they provide in #1. Make sure to chart on your spreadsheet when you contacted them, put their link up, when they put yours up, etc.

If they don't provide that information -

1) Contact them using a contact form or email address - make sure to
a)Address them by name if possible.
b) Explain how / where you will link them.
c) Mention something about their site that lets them know you visited.
d) Include your - link information, how to contact you, what to do if they have questions.

Then do it - it's not fun, it will take a while, but it does help.

Tim

An excellent article that reviews the things we've been talking about can be found here -

http://www.marketposition.com/mp-1204.htm#ONE

One note when you get the part that talks about links to get first - you can also use those directories as a good starting off point to gather links.

Gather sites that are in similar categories as your site.
Then go to the sites / review their links page and gather some more.

It's usually much easier to gather numerous sites before actually contacting them.
When you gather the site information make sure to get -

URL-
Site Name-
Page rank -
How to link -
Contact Information -

Tomorrow we'll talk some about the contact process.

Tim

We just posted the Feb. edition of our newsletter - when you get a chance make sure you read it. This week we'll finish Weds. and Thurs. with the how to get links series and next week we'll start working on creating goals.

Here is the link to the newsletter -
Enjoy -

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz246-febr05.htm

Most of the bad weather missed us so that's good - this week the plan is to continue on telling you about some easy ways to get links.

Till tomorrow we hope that everyone enjoys their Monday.

Tim

Something to read over the weekend - an article on optimizing not just for Google.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/The-Various-Search-Engines-Their-Whims-and-Wishes/

We're supposed to get some ice this weekend - and if we do then it may take a while to dig out / get power restored - so we'll see you Monday (or later :o)).

First what exactly are you looking for when you search for links -

1) Sites that aren't competitors.
2) Sites that look good without excessive popups / ads / etc.
3) Sites that deliver a service for visitors of your site - ie you sell baby gifts and link to a parenting advice site.
4) Sites that have a PR greater than zero - a PR of zero may mean they are in trouble with Google - beyond this don't worry much about PR - think first of #3 - a service to your readers. If it's an excellent site and they have a PR of 1 - rest assured that as word gets around their PR will climb. Conversely if their site is junk and has a PR of 9 forget them because their deeds will eventually catch up with them.
5) Make sure the sites resources page has a clearly visible link for the front page. It is better if it is a text link.
6) Review their links page - do links actually link from the site or do they use a code to link. I would be wary of linking to sites with a code because that doesn't actually deliver you any PR at all.
7) Take a moment to review some of the links from their links page - what are they like - would they provide value to your customers.

Next week we'll talk about the actual process of finding links.

Have a good one.
Tim

Lets review a bit of what we've talked about so far on linking -

Creating the links page.
Can you be peanalized for certain linking practices.
Keeping track of your links.
Creating your linking text.
Getting your website in order.

Tomorrow we'll talk some about the process of getting good links.

Sorry for my absence last week - long story so I won't bore you with it.

Does Google have an aging delay - this article makes some good sense.

http://www.searchengineguide.com/claiborne/2005/0117_sc1.html

Hope to get things back on track tomorrow.

Tim and Lisa

Hopefully the weather is not too wild where you are - the past week it's seemed like spring time here. Now today it has turned winter time - after thunder storms and high wind yesterday.

An idea of getting prospective links into your inbox can be found at the link below -

http://links-for-you.com

We'll be taking Monday off so we'll see you on Tuesday.

Enjoy the weekend.

We all know one of the main reasons for working on linking is to improve our page rank - are there ways you can adversely impact it - certainly - and you can find out more information at the following link -

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=361407

Tomorrow we'll review a bit about what we've talked about so far.

Hopefully you had a good weekend. Our pooch of 14 years hasn't been feeling to well lately, he walks around like a drunk man - believe it or not the vet says that is from an inner ear infection. It's like his whole world is leaning to the right... enough about that though. This week (I promise) we'll start / resume our talk on links. Till then I got this in my in box over the weekend -

http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

It is a list of various directories on the web as well as costs involved with submitting your site to them.

Have a good one.

This week has been a little busier than I expected it would be (not complaining mind you). Hopefully we'll get back into our regular swing by next week. Till then if you have a chance check out our latest newsletter -

http://www.blitzpromotions.com/blitz245-05jan.htm

Happy New Year !!

So how many resolutions have you broke :o) - this week we'll work on continuing our discussion about linking / how to link. We want to wish everyone a wonderful, safe, prosperous New Year.

Tim and Lisa.

We just want to take a moment to wish everyone a wonderful holiday. We've decided to scale back a bit during the holidays so our next useful post :o) will be on Jan. 3rd. We hope during this season you take some time out to spend with your family and friends.

We had talkes some earlier about upselling and cross selling on your site - the following article gives a nice explanation along with ten tips on making it work (or making it work better).

http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/customer_relations/article.php/3448341

Have a great weekend.

How is search engine marketing doing? How is it growing. You can find details and a nice report on the following link.

http://www.sempo.org/research/sem-trends-2004.php

The barrel is pretty full today so we'll give you some wrap up thoughts tomorrow and then talk some more about links next week.

One of the things we need to make sure of before we work on contacting links is to make sure we have our own site in order. Today we'll talk about our links page -

Some people speculate that it is better to name the resources page something other than links.htm. They suggest using something like resources.htm. That however is up to you - if your site has been around a while and your page has some good page rank then don't change it.

Make sure that the links page is linked to every page in your site.
Once you get more than 20 links or so on the page make sure to subdivide that page into individual category pages. Then you want to make sure these individual category page are listed on your site map.

On the links page make sure that you have instructions and requirements for how people can contact you for a link - include html code that they can cut / copy / paste. List the types of links your looking for and one's that you won't accept.

Make sure to include specific steps on how to contact you. As you get questions from potential link partners make sure to list those questions/answers in a mini faq.

Till tomorrow take care.
Tim

One thing about links before we go further is can links to your site penalize you... let's thing about this for a moment. If bad sites linking to you could penalize you then your competitors would all be putting your links on bad sites. You have no control over who links to you ... only who you link to. We'll discuss this further as we go along on how to choose a site that would be a good link.

A good article discusses this on SEO Chat -

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Link-Trading-Help/Can-You-Get-Penalized-for-Inbound-Links-to-Your-Site/

The rest of the week we'll talk about choosing sites you want to link with.

Tim

Hope you enjoyed your weekend and got all your shopping done. This week we'll continue talking about links and how to do them. Till tomorrow we hope you enjoy your Monday.

Hope you enjoyed your week. We're going on a shopping adventure today and hopefully it will all be finished by the time we hit the check out counter. I found this article pretty interesting in my inbox this morning - eight ways to not optimize your site. Some good reading.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Eight-worst-search-optimization-techniques/

Have a good weekend.

Tim

One thing I think many people forget about during the link process is keeping track. It's pretty easy to do -

1) Create a spreadsheet.
2) Across the top list the following - Site - Link page - Page rank - Contact info - Contacted - Link up - Recontact - Recip link - check link.

Site - Name / URL of the site.
Link page - Where their links page is.
Page rank - Page rank of the links page.
Contact info - How to contact them / Form or email address.
Contacted - Date you contacted them.
Link up - Date you put their link on your site.
Recontact - Date you recontacted them.
Recip link - Date your link is on their site.
Link page - Where your link is located on their site.
check link - Every month or two make sure your link is still on their site.

We'll continue or discussion on this next week.

See you tomorrow.

So on with some talk of getting links - first before we talk about anything you need to decide how you are going to get other sites to link with you.

Let's pretend for a moment that you sell socks online.

Your main keywords are:

black socks
white socks
mens socks
ugly socks

So you need to create some links / link text for each of those keywords - the MAIN thing to remember is that we want those keywords in the link text and in the descriptive text. Another thing is that you do not have to point that page to the index page on your site - after you have a good pagerank on the front page - 5 or 6 - you can start working on targetting individual pages.

So a link for black socks would look something like this -

Black Socks - Black socks and more can be found at My Ugly Socks.

Then create the links for the other keywords. Now when you are seeking links rotate them. More tomorrow on links.

Tim

I know I mentioned we were going to be talking some about links - but in reading my email this morning I came across some instructions on creating a Christmas greeting / Movie. You might find it interesting as well.

http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp?g=msoffice&seqNum=107

Hope you enjoy it as well.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend. Just a reminder we'll be talking this week a bit about links and link strategies. If you aren't subscribed to our newsletter make sure that you check it out on the web.

Have a good one.
Tim

Couple of articles of note -

Explorer loses more market share -
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox34.html

And there is some talk of a Google link dampening change - I think we'll discuss a little more about links in next weeks discussion.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Google-Optimization-Help/New-Links-Does-Google-Use-a-Dampening-Filter/

So make sure to read it and next week starting on Tuesday we'll talk more about it.
Till then have a wonderful weekend.

The federal government is offering a free credit report every year. You can find details at the following site -
https://www.annualcreditreport.com/

It's on a rollout schedule based on where you live.

I had a client call us this morning excited about getting their first order from their site - they were excited about getting it, but were wondering how someone found them when the site had been only open for a day.

My response to her was to ask the client. Just explain that you're doing market research and ask them how they found you. Some folks won't remember exactly how they found you but others will.

Till tomorrow,

Have a wonderful day. Tim

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving - we had a great time eating turkey, watching football and playing with my daughter Haley, so needless to say we had a very enjoyable time.

This week I'm not sure exactly what we're going to talk about yet, so we'll play it by ear.

Tim

We've had some computer malfunctions this week - a reminder if you haven't done a backup recently then don't forget to do it... today, right now!

We'll resume our posting after the Thanksgiving holidays - just want to take a moment to wish you and yours a safe, happy, fun holiday.

Tim and Lisa

It's Monday - hope your email is bustling with those holiday orders. Seems like the holiday shopping season starts earlier every year. Have you made your site shopper friendly -if not, or if you're in doubt make sure to check out the archives. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is next week.... Not sure yet what exactly we'll be talking about this week but hopefully it will be something useful.

Take care,
Tim

Hope you had a good week. Big news this week is Microsoft unveiled their "new" search engine - check out how your sites ranking for the keywords at the link below.

http://beta.search.msn.com/

Have a great weekend.

Got this article a couple of days ago and it's pretty interesting.


Do I Need an RSS Feed?
By S. Housley
RSS has been around for more than 10 years but has only recently become popular. RSS provides headlines and summaries of information in a concise and standardized way.
Benefits for Publishers
1.) Avoid Spam Filters
Statisticians estimate that 70% of the email transferred each day is spam (unsolicited email). With that statistic, even opt-in users risk losing valuable messages in the cesspool of spam. RSS feeds effectively nullify spam as an issue. Requesting feeds allow users to maintain complete control over the content they view. Users can easily opt-in and out of feeds that provide content of interest or importance.
2.) Expanded Reach
RSS allows publishers to reach a number of new and different markets that typically are less crowded with competition. Many small businesses are often slow to adopt or learn new technologies, giving businesses that lead the way a competitive advantage.
3.) Content Syndication
Syndication of feeds increases exposure.

4.) Repeat Visitors
RSS is all about repeat visitors. Users who have previously visited a site often have a stronger connection to the site and are more likely to purchase or trust the information on the site.

5.) Free web traffic
As the internet has evolved, many webmasters have found that what was once free traffic must now be paid for in order to sustain decent visitor statistics. RSS is in a unique position to bring free traffic because they are content-driven, and if they include interesting or valuable information, will pique the curiosity of web-surfers and entice them to visit a particular site.

6.) Less Effort
Newsletters and E-zines undeniably bring visitors, but the effort involved in creating, distributing and maintaining a newsletter can be a burden. Maintaining the list, ensuring the list is clean, growing the subscriber base, updating and removing bad e-mail addresses, all take time. RSS feeds are not burdened with those issues. There are easy-to-use RSS feed creation tools that require little effort, allowing publishers to recycle content, often simply cutting and pasting into RSS feed creation software.

FeedForAll RSS feed creation - http://www.feedforall.com

Consider supplementing existing communication venues with RSS. Place the contents of newsletters into feeds and measure the results. You might be surprised at the added traffic.
Examples of various feeds with different intended purposes -

RSS feed - http://www.rss-specifications.com/blog-feed.xml

Establishing expertise in a specific field.
Business Feed - http://www.notepage.net/blog-feed.xml

Contains product and industry information.
Marketing Feed - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog-feed.xml

Builds relationships, endorses products in industry sector.

RSS has potential to help companies develop strong relationships with consumers and creating brand loyalty with customers. While the world will not end tomorrow, nor will business come to a screeching halt if you don't use an RSS feed, there are a number of reasons online businesses should consider using RSS feeds.

About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net and FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com .

We talked about Firefox a little last week - Search Day is doing a series on the browser - you can check it out at the following link.

http://searchenginewatch.com/

Also another good article on some obvious web design mistakes.

http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_11_08_navigation.htm

Have a good one.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be talking about this week. I guess we'll play it by ear.

I am horrible at copywriting - if you're in the same boat you may want to check out this book from Ken Evoy and crowd -


http://mycps.sitesell.com/blitzpromotions.html

Till tomorrow - we hope you have a wonderful day.

A few days ago we talked about making sure your site looks good in any browser, below is some evidence to back that up.

http://www.computerworld.com/developmenttopics/websitemgmt/story/0,10801,97176,00.html?f=x259

Now may be a good time - if you haven't already - to see how your site looks using Firefox.
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Tim

A while back there was some discussion about a three click rule - basically it was assumed that your customers would click three times and then leave. Does that rule still apply. Click on the link below for some nice discussion on that subject.


http://www.uie.com/articles/three_click_rule/

Till tomorrow,
Tim

So how can you make your site comfortable?

1) Make sure everything is spelled out - make sure they know things like -
a) when will there order ship.
b) exactly what is your refund policy.
c) can they track their order.
d) make sure they know you'll be sending them email - filters etc. block out a lot of mail, make sure that they know the email address you'll be using.

2) Use good descriptions / images for your product. Include the exact size / color / of the product.

3) Make sure you have all your contact information on each page.

4) Explain exactly how the order process will work.

Sorry for the non posts a couple of times last week. Tomorrow don't forget to vote - doesn't matter who you vote for - just do it. We won't be posting on the blog tomorrow - we'll resume Weds. with some things that we missed last week.

Till then have a wonderful Monday.
Tim

Confidence -

So how can you instill confidence in your buyers?

1) Provide testimonials from your current customers. How do you get testimonials? Believe it or not the easiest way is to ask them for one. Some will trickle in on their on, but the easiest way is to email them and ask how they like your product, what can you do to make it better.

2) Include an about us page that tells about you , why you decided to start the business, what makes you different from some of the other folks.

3) Include your phone number and easy to find contact information.

Till tomorrow,
have a good one.
Tim

Warm and Fuzzy - so what does that mean? There are several different ways that you can make your site warm and fuzzy.

1. Security.
2. Confidence.
3. Comfort.

Today we're going to talk a little about security. Prospective buyers want to know and be assured that -

a) No one is going to take there credit card information.
b) There personal information is going to be safe.
c) They won't be getting spam if they ordered.

So here are some tips -

1) Make sure your order process is secure - make sure that you tell your customers it is secure.
2) Have a privacy policy - tell them exactly what you're going to do with their personal information. Make sure that you explicity tell them what you're going to do with their information (I know I repeated myself, but it is important).
3) Explain to them how and what kind of email communication they'll get from you (and what they won't get).

Tomorrow we'll talk some more, till then have a wonderful day.
Tim

This week we're going to continue our talk on getting ready for the holidays - sorry we missed Friday :o) Below is an article I also think is relavent -


Internet Tip of the Week
by Bob Osgoodby
Information Overload
We receive so much information on the Internet, especially via email, that many times we have difficulty separating the good "stuff" from the junk. Most of us put unsolicited email (spam) in the junk category. By the time we weed through all that "stuff" however, we are approaching information overload, and may give "short shrift" to the really good information we receive.
One way to overcome this very real problem, is to create email filters for things you may wish to read at a future time. For example, create a generic filter for the ezines or newsletters you subscribe to, or one for each. This will then automatically separate this good "stuff" from the junk. You can then keep your "inbox" clean and read the information at your leisure when you are less harried.
Use your email filters to weed out the junk. It only takes a moment or so to create a filter, and this will keep all the repeat spam out of your inbox. The best way to filter spam, is not to filter on the senders email address. Most of these are forged anyway, and are different every time. Pick out some "key words" contained in the body of the message. "Stop Snoring, Own an offshore retirement fund, $16,000+ with ONE $20 gift" just to name a few. Filter out those emails that match your key words.
Some of the spam is one time only and you don't need to be concerned with that. One way to do it, is to create a folder titled "Spam". Every day, instead of simply deleting them, transfer them to this folder. If you see a pattern developing, you can easily pick out the worst offenders, and create a filter for them.
When you subscribe to an ezine or newsletter, don't make a summary judgment that you don't want it. Most publishers try to provide a "variety" of items, and it may take several issues before you both click. Like a baseball player, don't expect a "homerun" every time at bat. Give it a half-dozen or so issues before making up your mind. You may simply get an issue that doesn't appeal to you, but the next might be a winner.
Some people go so far as to set up a separate email account just for their personal use, and another for their ezines, which is not a bad idea. But, if you do this, for goodness sake remember which one you used. Most publishers use list servers for their mailings. You can't unsubscribe from a publication except from the address that they have on file. To prevent the "cranksters" from running amok, they require you to be signed on the address they have on file in order to be removed.
If you decide you don't want a particular publication any longer, try to unsubscribe, and if you get a message that you are not on the list, it does little good to rant and rave. If you're not there, you're not there - period. While most publishers don't want people on their list who don't wish to receive it, they have no idea what email address you used when subscribing.
Most publishers will make an honest effort to remove you from their list, and threats to report them for spamming, will not help them to remove you. The majority of the time the people who complain are using a free email account, and are automatically forwarding the mail to their main address. To compound matters, they forgot they are doing this, and get aggravated when they can't unsubscribe under their main email address.
If you are receiving a publication and cannot unsubscribe, filter their publication automatically into your trash basket. This will save you and the publisher a lot of aggravation.
There is a great deal of information on the Internet. If you approach it wisely, you will benefit. If you don't, you may be suffering from information overload, and deleting some really good information mixed in with all the junk mail you receive.
-----
Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine the "Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business at his Web Site? Great Business and Computer Tips – Monday. Wednesday. and Friday. Instructions on how to place an ad are in the Newsletter. Subscribe at: http://adv-marketing.com/business/subscribe2.htm

I got this article yesterday and thought I would substitute it for what I was going to talk about today - it's still very pertinant - about keeping things simple.


Simplify for Success
The distractions of complexity are everywhere.
Look Around!
Your customer’s business, decisions, interactions and communications with their
customers are continuing to get more complex. Today’s sales landscape offers more
products, more services, more options, more choices and more providers than ever
before. Business is moving at a dizzying pace and people are trying to juggle more
projects, more priorities, more responsibility and more balance.
Salespeople and business owners are trying to manage more customers, more
information, more technology and more distractions that have nothing to do with
selling more products and services.

This is not a picture of doom and gloom but rather a picture of opportunity. This is an opportunity to communicate more effectively, to follow-through more thoroughly and
your opportunity to make your customer’s life easier, and more profitable! To sell
more and increase profits immediately, simplify the following areas:

SIMPLIFY COMMUNICATION and CONTENT.

GET TO THE POINT! Never say in 100 words what can be said in 25 words. The
important part is the substance of what you say rather than how long you take to say it. Simplify by cutting in half any written, verbal or e-mail communication with your
customer. Begin a proposal or presentation by simply stating the three key points
around which you will provide impact to your customer. Be clear and concise in all
that you say.

SIMPLIFY PREPARATION

This doesn’t mean eliminate preparation and start "winging it" through sales
presentations. Break planning into fifteen minute segments and designate a topic
for each block.

SIMPLIFY HELPING THEM BUY

Help your customers buy rather than just trying to sell them. Help your customers
buy in both short and long cycles through the use of multiple resources, decision
making levels and relationships.

SIMPLIFY TONE AND PACE

Repeatedly practice your delivery and presentation with an emphasis on being
conversational. Emphasize the skill of talking with your customer rather than talking
to your customer. Breathing is the key to both tone and pace so insure that you have
plenty of air in your lungs.

SIMPLIFY FOLLOW-THROUGH

When it comes to productive sales behavior, follow-through ranks as the highest
priority. It is the most talked about and least executed activity in the sales toolbox. You will service your customers at a higher level and sell more when you execute on follow-through relentlessly. It is the one or two things you do differently that make
you memorable in the mind of your customer. Never underestimate the power of
urgency and immediacy. Stated simply, you must do what you say you will do
consistently and with greater focus if you want to put significant distance between
you and your competition!

SIMPLIFY THE EXPERIENCE

Here’s the bottom line: Your customer wants you to simplify their life by simplifying their experience! Your customer is looking for every way possible to increase their
sales and improve the profitability and performance of their company. You possess
key strategies, services and products to make these goals a reality.

SIMPLIFY the experience for your customers and get ready to increase your sales,
margin and effectiveness BIG TIME!

Brent Patmos is President & CEO of Perpetual Development, Inc., specializing in
Sales Training, sales seminars and consulting. Mr. Patmos can be reached at
480-812-2200. http://www.perpetualdevelopment.com

Till tomorrow,
Tim

Load times - Even though many people have high speed internet access, many people don't (about half of your potential customers). If your site takes a month to load then they aren't going to wait.

A great place to check your load times can be found at the following link -

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

So how can you speed up your site -

1) Keep flash etc. to a minimum.
2) Optimize your images.
3) Use thumbnails if you have a lot of images - make sure that you have two images saved - a large one for when folks click on the link and a smaller one for the thumbnail - many times I've seen sites that have both saved as the same image, that basically defeats the purpose.

Have a good one.
Tim

Browser compatability - a while back you could safely design your site for Explorer and forget about it. These days with all the security problems many people are switching to different browsers. The main browsers these folks are checking out are -

Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/

Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Safari - http://www.apple.com/safari/ This is apples alternative.


The best thing to do is -

a) download the browser.
b) check out your site.
c) place an order.

How do things work - any glaring problems work on correcting them.

This week we're going to continue our series on getting your site ready for the holidays. This week we're going to talk some about the look and feel.

Tuesday - Browser compatability.
Weds - Load times.
Thursday - Warm and fuzzy - how secure is your site.

Hope you have a great Monday.

Tim

Hopefully you learned a bit this week in our series on prepping your site for the holidays - really I should have started the series sooner but better late than ever.

Remember that many times we get blinded when working on our sites - what may be simple and plain for us may not be for someone else. Things we look at day in and day out may be hidden to others. That's why it is extremely important to get feedback - from your friends and especially from your customers.

The next week or two we'll continue talking about some tweaks that you can make to your site.

Have a great weekend.
Tim

Here are some questions to ask the test subject -

1) Was their anything difficult about the order process - if so what?
2) What would be one thing that would make the process easier?
3) Do you have any suggestions for additional products?
4) Could you easily find -
a) Sign up for the newsletter.
b) Toll free / phone number.
c) Contact information.
5) Did you feel secure on the site?

Now some things to consider -

1) How long did it take them to buy the products. If its more than 4 or 5 minutes how can you streamline the process.
2) Did they ever appear to get lost in the process - if they did get lost - where did they get lost at. Did you provide an easy map to get unlost?
3) Did they hesitate any during the order process - why did they hesitate. If something was unclear, what was it, how you can you make it clear.
4) Was it easy for them to find the second product. If not why? What can you do to correct it.

The order process should be no more than two or three clicks at the most to order.
At each stage of the order process - the next step should be outlined clearly - as well as instructions for how to do the current step.
Contact information - including a telephone number - should be provided in case folks get lost along the way.
Security of your site / pages / should be highlighted during the process.
Explain to people what you're going to be doing with their personal information.
Reiterate why they should trust you.
Perhaps include a testimonial or two within the process.

Tomorrow we'll talk a little about some questions you can ask your test subjects.

Tim

The next thing to do to get your site ready for the holidays is to think of five or so good friends that you know well that aren't your current customers. Invite them individually to your house and give them an assignment on your site - you can't give them hints.

Ask them to pretend they are shopping for "x item". Point the browser to your front page and watch them as they navigate to buy the product. Just before they enter in their credit card information tell them that they just remembered that they need "y item" as well.

The more obscure the "x and y item" the better - ie it shouldn't be visible on your front page at all. Tomorrow we'll talk about some things that you could learn from this experiment.

Tim

This week we'll be talking about some more things you can do to your site to get ready for the holidays.

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful weekend, I know we did. It is getting cooler hear and the leaves are starting to change colors. So we know that winter is just around the corner (whether we like it or not).

Tim

Hopefully you enjoyed the series this past week. Haley has a day off from school, so if everything goes according to plan it may be a long weekend for us as well :o).

Next week I think we'll continue on some touch-ups you can do in preperation for the holiday season. Hope you have a great weekend too!

Tim

Spread the word - one of the best methods of promotion is word of mouth. Whenever we get a client referral we know that the "selling" part of our job is so much easier. So how can you get referrals:

1. Ask - ask and you shall receive! When you send a follow up note to make sure your product arrived, and they are satisfied with it ask them to send you more business.
2. Bribe them - you can include that if they send you a new customer and they buy something you'll give them a discount or something free.
3. Make it easy - make sure to include your websites URL / contact information where it's appropriate on your product. You may want to include a small free gift like a magnet, pencil etc. Remember out of site is usually out of mind.

Till tomorrow,
Tim

Why Buy? Some things you need to make sure you do in order to answer this question.

1. Make sure you include testimonials from your satisfied customers.
2. Ensure that your shipping policies, return policies, frequently asked questions are listed prominently on your site.
3. Give them a reason to buy now - today.
4. Explain to them about security and how your order is secure.
5. If they don't buy then encourage them to sign up for your newsletter / literature.
6. Make sure to compare your prices to other sites - if your prices are more expensive make sure to list plenty of benefits / reasons why.

Tim

The big thing to make sure you do this holiday season is to offer folks the option of buying a gift card or gift certificate. Billions were spent last year on gift cards. When you use this you also get two customers instead of one (the person who buys the card - and the person who redeems the card). You can find a ton of vendors (check the paid links) by searching Google - click here.

Make sure to price shop to compare rates etc. If you can't take advantage of it for this holiday season, make sure to put on it next years "to do" list.

Tim

We didn't get any questions last week, so we'll continue on as before. This week as you prepare for the holiday rush (which some folks are having right now). We're going to give you a few hints on how to maximize things.

1. Gift cards and Certificates.
2. Why Buy.
3. Spread the word.

Have a great day!!