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Why is it not enough to have a website?

You may ask, why is it not enough to have a website to succeed online? The answer is simple. There are over 100 million domain names registered today. Your website in just one of millions of websites. Your site in itself is a start, but without visitors it is an exercise in futility.

To succeed online you need visitors. Visitors, for the most part, come from search engines. Your websites is only as valuable as the search engines think it is. Once your website is online your mission is to make your website stand out. I am sorry, but it is true. You have to work very hard, or you have to hire a professional internet marketing firm, to help your website stand out. All those people telling you that succeeding online is quick and simple, well, they were not being honest with you.

You have to work very hard to get the search engines notice your website. Without a proactive approach to optimizing your web presence, you websites only visitors will be you and some of your family members.

Links - The Difference Between Success and Failure On the Web

Even though links are considered among the most important factors of achieving desirable search engine rankings, most business owners fail to understand their significance. Links to websites are what doors are to retail stores, without links search engines will place little value on your website. To put it in one sentence, the more websites link to your website the more value the search engines place on your site. 

Some business owners think that linking to other sites is the secret to high search engine ranking. They are wrong. Linking to certain sites such as an industry organization website may mildly help you, but it will really help you to get a one way link from their site.

Not all links were created equal. Yes, it is true. In terms of value, there is a huge value difference between reciprocal links and one way links. One way links are much more valuable than reciprocal links. The logic is simple, it is more valuable to have another site link to your site than to do a link exchange. Search engines understand the difference between a one way link and a reciprocal link. They know that reciprocal links are much more likely the result of search engine ranking manipulation.

If you have been paying attention to links in the past, you have most likely noticed e-mails asking you for a link exchange. Such e-mails usually solicit a link exchange. Most of them are interested in reciprocal link exchanges, and some are asking for three way links. Three way linking is beyond the scope of this article, but you should educate yourself on the topic.

By now, you might ask yourself, how do I get one way links? Don’t worry, you have many options. If you are busy you should hire a company to build one way links for your company.
You can also write articles such as this and post your articles to article directories. Article directories are the place for many webmasters to search for website content for their own sites. When your article is posted on their website, you will get a one way link pointing to your website.  Article submission is a  numbers game. The more articles you write, the more opportunities you get for getting one way links to your website. In addition, each of your articles could be posted on multiple websites. As a result, you could end up with multiple links for each of your articles. The better quality article you post, the better chances you have for others to publish it on to their websites. You can also e-mail other webmaster in your industry and ask them if they would be interested in posting some of your articles. If they are not interested in any of your article topics, ask them what topics would be of interest to them.

If you don’t trust your own writing skills you can hire others to write articles for you. When you outsource your article writing make sure it is someone with experience. The quality of the articles you post is important.

Press releases offer another way to obtain one way links to your website. The concept is the same as article submissions, except press release content is more about your company than an article which is more about your industry.

Don’t forget. One way links equal success on the Web!

Don’t Turn On Video to Turn Off Your Customers

Video is an ever more important part of communicating with our customers online. It is becoming more-and-more popular for obvious reasons.
If done right, it can help your business communicate more effectively. If done incorrectly, video can drive people off your website.

There are are a few simple rules you should follow to help you succeed with video in your web presence:

Your video must serve a real purpose.
Are you making a point? Does your customer benefit from your video, or you are simply serving your corporate ego? Your web presence shouldn’t have a video because of the cool factor, or because others have video too. It has to help you communicate your corporate message to your customers in a clear and concise manner.

Your video must be fast.
The other day I was invited to view a video on a website, but I have lost my patience. The video file was so huge, that it kept stopping. The file size prevented me from view the video without constant interruptions. The stop and go video is a huge turn off, and it should be avoided at all cost. Even the best video won’t save you if it takes minutes to load. As we all know by now, web surfers have the patience of a 6 month old. Whatever you do online it has to be fast because your competitor is just one click away.
Don’t turn off the sound of your video to reduce file size. This is the digital age, not the silent movie age. People expect to hear sound.

Increasing Your Revenue with Link Marketing

Many businesses believe that having a website is enough to attract customers online. They think that “if you build it they will come”, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you want your website to be visible to web searchers, you have to actively market your website. The most important technique to attract qualified visitors to your site is through link building.

Many businesses invest thousands of dollars into developing a web presence, completely ignoring the importance of driving traffic to their website. Even people who know a little about search engine optimization are relying on old information, or techniques that have not been working for years. For example, some think that Meta tags are the end-all-and-be-all to search engine optimization when most search engines, ignore Meta tags.

Links are important because they speak to the value of the site. The keyword here is value. The way the major search engines rank websites has to do with value. If the search engines consider your site more valuable than another site, your site will rank higher in the results. Higher-ranking means more traffic, and more traffic means more revenue.

The difference between the way search engines value a website today compared to how they valued websites in the past has to do with the importance of what others say about your site. Let me explain, in the past it was very easy to manipulate the search engines because they only considered the content of your site content such as your meta tags, keyword saturation, headers, etc. In other words, whatever you have said about your site they believed. If you said that your website is about  “super product one” in the body of your site, in your page title, in your meta tags, in your headers, etc. they believed you. Very naive, isn’t it?

Today, search engines no longer believe you so much. They still believe you a little such as your page title, and they still consider the body of text on your site, but what you say about your site on your site has become much less significant when it comes to your search engine rankings. If you want good rankings for competitive keywords, you have to get other websites to link to your site. Yes, your goal is to get other sites linking to your site. When another site links to your site the search engines consider it a vote. If another site thinks that your site is worth linking to, your site must be important. Consequently, your site is going to rise in the results.

Getting a link from one site, is a good start, but it is only the beginning. The more competitive keywords you wish to rank for, the more links you have to get. It is always good to study sites that have top ranking for your target keywords, and study how many links they have pointing to their sites.

Link building is not a project with a beginning or an end. Your company has to be committed to link building on an on going basis. If you want to get great search engine ranking results your company has to make a long term commitment to link building. Unless you have a large in-house IT department that appreciates link building, you should consider outsourcing this essential task. You have to set monthly goals to meet, so it is understood that link building is a numbers game. The more links you build the better your rankings will become, and the more traffic you will receive, and the more your revenue will be.

If you rely on Pay Per Click to drive traffic to your site, one day you may realize that the ever-increasing cost of bidding for your keywords have become too expensive for your margins. Pay Per Click is a great supplement to organic search engine results, but it is no substitute.

How to increase your revenue in a Recession?

The buzz word is recession. You can’t open a newspaper or listen to a news broadcast without learning about a growing concern for recession. Times like this require us all to think long and hard about what we can do to continue to grow our business.

The most cost effective way to grow your business is with your web presence. For example, doubling your conversion can double your revenue resulting from your web presence. Even if you don’t have an e-commerce site, you can grow your business online. Think of your web presence as the dimension of your business that has the power of getting you through the tough times.

Don’t just have a website, build a web presence.

Winning Money Online with Web Analytics

Instead of looking at web analytics as a tool to make improvements to your web presence, you must look at web analytics as what it would cost your company if you ignored its significance. Would I have your attention, if with the use of web analytics it is possible that your next e-mail campaign would result in 50 percent more revenue than your last e-mail. Think of how much revenue your business is losing because you don’t take advantage of web analytics.

 Many companies don’t realize the potential for positive impact that web analytics can have on their business. Often, our ignorance prevents us from acknowledging the potential of web analytics. Companies with defined analytics programs are realizing double-digit growth in new Web site visitors, returning visitor traffic and conversion rates. With growing pressure to make your marketing efforts, more profitable web analytics is becoming more-and-more critical. Let’s say you suspect that your website has to improve its usability. With web analytics, you can measure the effectiveness of your site usability. Then, based on the intelligence you gather, you can make the necessary changes. Due to the improvements you have made you may be able to improve your conversion substantially. As a result, you can measure the value of web analytics in terms of revenue.

The barriers to entry for adopting analytics technologies that can dramatically improve online businesses have never been lower. There are many inexpensive and even free options to start web analytics integrating into your business processes. Web analytics is not about technology. It is much more about people. Before you invest money in web analytics, you must invest in people. People within your organization must realize the importance of measuring your web presence.

Every business with a web presence must build a strategy around web analytics. Our goal is to get the highest possible value from KPIs. According to Forrester B2B, tech companies have realized 500-800% return on a 100K/yr in house analyst. Retail businesses realized 1000-3000% return on the same 100K/yr web analyst. In the early days of online business, websites were built with ill-defined goals and very little consideration for ROI. If you want to succeed online today, you should not spend a dime without commercial benefit. Unless your decisions are based KPIs measure through your web analytics efforts, you are most likely to fail. You cannot compete without knowing exactly how effective your initiatives are. In every business, the focus is on the bottom line, and the same is true for web analytics. Imagine how much more revenue you could be generating by analyzing the proper KPIs. Even better, imagine how much money your business is losing by not taking advantage of web analytics. Today, we have to necessary tools to make decisions based on data instead of intuition. We have to have a strategy to measure success and failure to maximize ROI. Always look at how much something costs. A bad business decision may cost loss of revenue. A business without web analytics will result in continuous bad decisions that is very likely will result in a failing business.

Proactive vs. Reactive Web Analytics

Proactive web analytics is necessary for successful web presence. Everything that is meant to help your business succeed online must be tied into your web analytics strategy. Every web site, e-mail campaign, Pay Per Click ad, landing page, and blog must be measured. There is no improvement possible without rigorous measurement of what is happening to your web presence.

The reactive approach to web analytics equates to running your business in crisis mode. It’s not pretty. You should not make a change, spend another dollar, and start a new marketing campaign without measurable goals. Web analytics is your tool to measure your level of success and failure.

A web presence that does not include a proactive web analytics strategy creates an environment where decisions are based on assumptions instead of information based on data. Such a system is a recipe for disaster. Before your start a new e-mail campaign, you must list specific goals to measure its effectiveness. Once you have set your goals, you must determine your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Then, you have to determine what tool you are going to use to capture the data.

With proactive web analytics, you can quantify the elements of your web presence. The insight you get through proactive web analytics is going to help you understand how all that affects your profit.

Reactive web analytics means that you are waiting for something bad to happen before you examine the data. There is benefit in using web analytics reactively, but the greatest value is in proactive web analytics.  

For example, if you have been measuring the effectiveness of a landing page for your previous e-mail campaigns, you can get a good understanding of what worked and what was less effective. With the proactive approach, you are armed with useful information that can be readily applied to new projects.

Proactive web analytics empowers you to prevent failure, or at least minimize the likelihood of failure. The fix it later, or reactive approach, is most likely to fail because it is always a step behind. The reactive approach to web analytics is the same as putting out fires. Unfortunately, putting out fires results in damage, while preventing fires, the proactive approach to web analytics, avoids damage.

Call To Action

Your website may be your most important marketing material. For best results, it must contain call to action.

Call to action should be present throughout your site, not just on your home page or some other landing page.

Don’t assume that people will call you, e-mail you, place an order, complete a form, or whatever you want them to do as a result of visiting your site.

Make it simple to understand and easy to do.

The website visitors have to clearly see, understand, and take action.

The more complicated you make it, the lower your conversion will be.

Welcome Me Not

Please not another "Welcome to my website" headline. It’s soooo boring.

I want you to talk about what I came to your web site for.

• What you have to offer.
• The benefits of your products or services.
• What differentiates you from the competition.
• What your customers say about you.
• What are your credentials.
• Where are you located.

The best way to welcome your website visitors is by providing them with great content.