Monday, May 26, 2008

Fastest growing Internet Marketing and Webmaster Forum Interview

Interview With The Admin Of DreamTeamMoney Forum

DreamTeamMoney Forum

What can be more helpful in this money making industry that a positive attitude towards things? I’m sure that a positive attitude is a very important factor when it comes to money making. And not only myself thinks that positive thinking is a must if you want to become successful.

DreamTeamMoney forum was initially created as a community of positive minded money makers. Maybe this new attitude made DTM forum so popular after just a short period of time? Now it’s the third forum after MMG and TG and I think it has the best chance to overtake them soon.

Recently I was honored to get their Approved/Informative Blog status and created a thread there where I can communicate with my readers. I think after reading the following interview with one of the administrators of DTM Forum you will understand why I chose them.

1. Please introduce yourself to my readers and tell us what function you perform in DTM forum.

Hello readers of Money-News-Online Blog. My name is John Raven and I am one of the Administrators of the forum.

You can take a look at our forum here: http://www.dreamteammoney.com

Here is the splashpage of the Online Marketing Forum: http://www.dreamteammoney.com/splash

2. How did you come with an idea of creating a new forum for money makers? What purpose did you have in mind when creating it?

Over the past few years, we have come to the understanding that networking is a very important part of money making especially on the Internet. Learning how to make money the correct way is also an essential ingredient to success. The problem with most online forums is members are just trying to spam and promote their programs, earning them a one time commission and that is the wrong way. We want to create a networking forum where serious internet marketers help each other make money and build strong teams for many years to come. Not only do we focus on money making, we are also into General discussion like, Webmaster, SEO, Articles, Internet Marketing, Pets, Vacations, Health and so much more. We believe that money making comes only after friendship.

We want a forum where members can get to know each other better and interact with each other the traditional way. That is the reason why we feel the need to really educate online marketers on the true way on money making and networking. DTM is created for serious like minded money makers where not only do they want to make money, but friends too.

3. What is the history behind DTM forum? How did it develop and grow in popularity?

Initially it started as a small money making forum but with constant care, love and serious effort and ideas we put into the forum it grew popular with the love from time. Listening to our member’s feedback and the sincere attitude attract a lot of positive minded money makers to gather in DTM which is what make DTM so well known as a platform for free discussion of all kinds of money making opportunity.

4. Tell us about the DTM forum team. How many people are working on it online and who is behind the scenes?

We have an amazing team from the US and Malaysia. There are 5 staff now and we work all day and night to make sure we fight spam to the minimum as well as implement and inject new ideas whenever we have the time. We have lots of plans coming up and you are bound to see a huge growth very soon.

5. Can you tell us about the main threads one can read and discuss on DTM forum? What are the most popular threads?

There are many hot and educating forums on the DTM Network but I will just highlight 3 of them.

1) Our HYIP, Autosurf and other money making opportunity like Affiliate, GPT and MLM are very hot discussion forum where serious money makers gather and find informations and money making opportunities.

You can take a look at the Make Money from home forum here: http://www.dreamteammoney.com/index.php?showforum=128

2) The Internet Marketing is also one very hot forum where serious Marketers meet to Learn the latest Internet marketing tricks, Network with the gurus and read about the latest trend on money making on the internet.

Take a look at the Internet Marketing forum here: http://www.dreamteammoney.com/index.php?showforum=869

3) The Money Making Educational Contest is one place you must go to if you are serious about money making online. We have quality answers on various money making contest. You can participate in the contest here and you might just win a contest award and even some cash.

Take a look here: http://www.dreamteammoney.com/index.php?showforum=689

6. Please tell us about the type of memberships you are offering. What advantages do you have for your supporters?

Take a look at our current promotion on the Life Time supporter account here: http://www.dreamteammoney.com/crazy

Why You Should Upgrade Your DTM Network Account to get a Paid Subscription?

1) Access to Lifetime Supporter Private Forum with Countless great products and resources! You will be able to access our special private Lifetime Supporter forum where you can find countless of amazing products and resources. The private forum will be updated from time to time so you will be able to get tons of free products from your one time Investment! This alone is well worth over $250 USD.

2) 380% or More Exposure of your Topics and Replies with the Unique Username Color System! With the Unique Username Color assigned to your paid subscriptions, every comment, topic or reply your make will appear with your username shown in a unique coloring system. Thus increasing the exposure of your comment or topic by an ASTOUNDING 380% or MORE! Thus increasing the exposure of your Business!

3) Special Group Logo and Name Assigned For You! Stand out from the rest with the Special Group logo and name, increasing your credibility and be outstanding!

4) Your Choice of Tagline Under Your Username and Avatar! You will have the choice of adding anything you want in your Tagline. You can also advertise your website in the Tagline. This is what we call Effective Advertising and Branding!

5) Your Name Always Stays at the Top of the User List on the Homepage! Your Username will always stay On Top of the User List on DTM Homepage in front of thousand of other Usernames. It is a great way to Grab More Attention and branding your name!

6) 250 Private Message Box Storage Slots! With your 250 Private Message Box Storage Slots (Normally 50 PM Slots), you do not have to worry about your private message inbox being full. You can now store your Important Messages or Information without deleting them very often. This save you time and make sure you will never have to miss another important PM again.

7) Be the First Group of Leaders to join the DTM Network Builder before the Rest of the World! Great Passive Income Deal! (Coming soon). Our Network Builder Program is in the Pre-Launch Phrase and you will have the Opportunity to be the Top Leaders to Join and Build once and enjoy a Lifetime of Multiple Source of Passive Income.

8) $35 worth of Banner Advertisement Impressions for You to Advertise Your Business to all the Like Minded Netrepreneur! (This one alone cost over your one time investment!). You will be given 35,000 468×60 banner impression worth $35 where you can Advertise any of your Money Making Opportunity to over 30,000 Like-Minded Netrepreneur! This alone is well worth over your one time investment! Total Value: $640.00 at only $34 now.

7.What advertising options do you have on DTM forum for programs’ admins? Is your site popular among advertisers?

This question is very well answered here:
http://www.dreamteammoney.com/index.php?autocom=pages&do=show&id=1 We are very popular among online investment advertisers. We even have Affiliate, e-currencies, online journal and even MLM promoter advertising with us.

8. Is DTM forum secured and safe for visitors? Do you have any protection from DDoS-attacks that occur quite often nowadays?

DTM is very safe for any visitors. We do have DDOS protection. Attacks are not frequent but we are doing our best to avoid it.

9. In your opinion what distinguishes DTM from your main competitors - MMG and TG forums? What unique features do you have what others don’t?

MMG and TG are very good online forums as well. In fact we are regular visitors to their forums. We have a unique points system that makes us different from them. We are more of a Webmaster and Internet Marketing forum and they are more of an Investment forum.

10. What are your plans for the near future? What other features do you plan to implement soon to make DTM forum even more popular among investors?

We have serious plans coming very soon. We are still not looking at the looks of the forum, we are building the system first before we revamp the look of the forum. Stay tuned and you will see the increased value of the Dream Points. We have 101 ideas in mind to make the forum a better place for everyone. Our mission is to create a dream forum and we will do everything to achieve that for you!

11. What is your honest opinion about my blog? Do you like the info I provide investors with? What will be your suggestions for making it more useful for my readers?

I can see the enthusiasm in you and your blog. You are very hardworking so keep up the good work. The interviews on your blogs are great information for any investors. So far so good, we really love your blog. I think you are well on your way to becoming one of the best investment review blogs.

I’d like to thank John for this detailed and informative interview and hope that you will join me on DTM forum and visit my thread there. As usual you will be able to read the daily news from the online investments world tomorrow on my blog. So stay tuned!

Source: Money-news-online.com

Forum Marketing


Source: http://web-social-marketing.com/forum-marketing.html


How to use forums to learn anything you need to know as well as position yourself as an expert in your niche

Forums are one of my favorite forms of Web 2.0 marketing, hands down.

It was my participation and the response and traffic I recieved from forum marketing that turned me into the Web 2.0 enthusiast I am today.

Forums not only allow you to interact with others within your niche and ask questions and offer advice but there are some other great benefits as well:
  • Get more traffic to your website or blog with forum signatures.
  • Get one-way backlinks to your sites with every post you make
  • Get conversations going and become a "forum star"
  • Learn new things with every visit
  • Position yourself as an expert
So how do you do this forum thing the right way?

Well, first of all, you never want to promote anything directly (even if the forum has a "promote your business" section). You should be there strictly to network with others in your industry and to freely give of yourself and your advice. No strings attached.

I know what you're thinking.

How am I supposed to get business from forums if I don't promote?

Well, that's the beauty.

Because of your signature links, they can automatically be directed to more of your wisdom and expertise.

Forum Marketing Tips:
  • Always introduce yourself
  • Ask questions
  • Answer questions in topics that you know about
  • Start conversations
  • Help people without asking anything in return
  • Don't post just for the sake of posting. Post when you actually have something thoughtful to say and useful.
  • Always read the forum rules
As you post, you're getting backlinks to your site which helps you in the search engine rankings.

Now, you should already have a nice list of keyword phrases which can ne used for anchor text. Remember, you want to switch your anchor text between a few different keyword phrases. For example, use one phrase in one forum then another in some of the social bookmarks and so on and so forth.

Don't forget to add a friendly picture of yourself and fill out your profile!

If you're a serious marketer, you will make an effort to post often in your favorite forums. Trust me, this works. I have probably gotten at least 50% of my subscribers through forums at least in the beginning before my rankings went up.

Hot Tip:

Stay away from negativity. Sometimes you'll find people bashing products, opportunities, or even other marketers. This is the type of thread you do not want to get sucked into. Negativity breeds more negativity and you don't want those kind of people in your business anyway.

Now get out there and start posting!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

What is Social Media Marketing?


Social Media

Social media describes the online technologies & practices used to share content, insights, experiences, perspectives, opinions, and media.

Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. The social media sites typically use tools like message boards, forums, podcasts, bookmarks, communities, wikis, weblogs etc. (Wikipedia - Social Media)


Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing (SMM) combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Facebook, Digg, Del.icio.us, Flickr, MySpace, Wikipedia, Reddit, Newsvine, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Technorati, Yahoo! Answers, Ma.gnolia, Yahoo!360, LinkedIn, Squidoo, Wikihow, and others. Social Media Marketing goals are different for every organization, however most will involve some form of viral marketing to build idea or brand awareness, increase visibility, or sell a product. (Wikipedia - Social Media Marketing)

How to Analyze a Competitor’s Website



www.marketingtitan.com/analyze_competitor

How to Analyze a Competitor’s Website

Competitors' websites, if analyzed properly, can give you all sorts of information that you can use to increase the traffic and the popularity of your site. Here is an article on how to analyze a competitor's website.

Identifying the Leaders

Start off by identifying the major players. A good place to do this is Yahoo’s directory. It is good to view the major players in similar fields to your own so that you have a better view of your web site as perceived by others. You may want to print out the directory to take a closer look. Check some of the bigger companies and find out some of the innovative approaches and new products offered.

Sites like Media Metrix 500 can tell you which companies get the most traffic, and you can learn about the relative traffic by using Alexa. It is a free add-on to your browser that ranks the traffic for each site you visit and informing you whether it is in the top 100 or top 1000 ranking. This gives you a rough idea of where your competitors are in the ranking order.

Scrutinize the Leaders

The next step is to study the top 5 or 10 competitors very closely. There is a lot that can be learned by looking at competitors' web sites and analyzing them. These are the things that you should look for:

1. Make sure you check to see what products or services competitors offer, and note anything that’s different from your own offerings.

2. Look for gaps that you could fill.

3. Think about the look, feel and functionality of the competitors' web sites.

4. Check the advertising campaigns and offers they are running.

5. Look at their strengths and weaknesses, from the customer’s point of view.

6. See if you can figure out their strategy.

If you are dealing with a public company then you can get detailed information from proper sources and write down the names of their key players. Then it is possible to look for any interviews, articles or speeches they might have made about relating to their web site.

Look for Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and Gaps

Now summarize the information you have found into few sentences for each competitor, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Note down the strategies to be followed to counter your competitor’s offering.

With this research, you can create or modify your marketing plan. Be sure to include how you intend to deal with competition, and what steps you think you would require getting top rankings in the search engines. On the basis of your research on your competitors' websites, you need to make a decision of either to compete with your competitor or walk out of the competition and focus on other areas.

Don’t get frightened away prematurely, though – make sure you know what you are getting into before you start, and don’t let big companies intimidate you. Remember that you can move faster than your competitors if you have confidence in your abilities. All you need to do is offer your customers things that they cannot find anywhere else.

Basic Seo, Tricks And Tips

www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Basic-SEO-Tricks-and-Tips

I wrote an article recently about what search engines hate the most when they are combing through a site, trying to decide whether or not to index it. Well, hate was probably too strong a word. It should have been more along the lines of what search engines find annoying. This article, on the other hand, will delve into what they truly hate – namely, when web developers try to trick them. We will then get into ways to add content to your site.

Tricking a search engine generally involves showing the searchbot a different web page from the one shown to the visitor. Unfortunately, searchbots are not that sophisticated when it comes to what they will or will not read on a web page. However, as search engines have grown over the years, they've gotten a lot better at recognizing when tricks are being used. Getting caught can result in a much lower ranking or an all-out ban from the search engine. Either way, it's important to know what techniques are considered deception so that, if anything, you'll know what to avoid.

Some of the most ubiquitous techniques involve manipulating keywords in some way. Keyword stacking (or stuffing), in which the same words or phrases are repeated over and over, or using keywords that are unrelated to your site are fairly obvious methods. Granted, these are very old and barbaric techniques, but they have proven to be effective in the past. For example, hiding keywords is usually done by making the text the same color as the background and using a very small font size. . You can often check for hidden text by either checking the source code or clicking the top of the page and dragging to the bottom, highlighting everything in between.

Hiding links became popular because search engines rely so heavily on links to determine a site's purpose. You can easily make a link look exactly like the rest of the text on a page, or at least the text surrounding it. And any piece of text can be turned into a link, even punctuation marks. Basically, links can be hidden in the same way as ordinary text.

Some people have been known to make duplicate pages. This is where they make copies of their own keyword-rich pages and add them to their site or to a site with a different URL. The purpose of this is to get more than one top entry on a search results page (some search engines display more than one page from a site). However, search engines have tools to help find duplicate pages, so people have turned to slightly modifying the page before using it again. One of the more unethical variations of duplication is called page jacking, in which people steal pages from other sites because they have performed well.

Basic SEO: Tricks and Tips - Doorways and Redirects

It's important to understand the difference between a doorway page an information page. Doorway pages are bad, information pages are good. Got it? Good, let's go have a beer. But seriously, the difference is much more ambiguous. By definition, doorway pages are overly optimized for search engines and are used simply as a means to direct traffic to your site. An information page is used to advertise your site and its affiliates and is actually useful for both the visitor and the search engine. The key word here is "useful," because determining whether a page is useful is always in the eye of the beholder. But if you're honest, and stop trying to kid yourself, you can tell whether you really created the page for your site's visitors or the search engines.

Redirects and cloaking are some of the more notorious techniques web developers use to get their site indexed. They are essentially the same thing in that they both involve showing one page to the search engine and a different page to the visitor. This can be a touchy subject because there are some web developers who feel that the limits of the search algorithms are forcing them to design their sites specifically for the search engines. Adding more fuel to the fire is the fact that search engines have trusted feeds (a legal form of cloaking), which will guarantee that your site is indexed, if you pay them.

A redirect is when you click to load a web page and the loaded page immediately disappears, only to have a new one appear in its stead. It can best be done by using JavaScript to either automatically grab the page within a split second or grab the page when a user action (e.g. a mouseover event) triggers it. In the past, people used the REFRESH meta tag, but search engines have long since caught on to this technique and will ignore the redirect page and move on to the destination page.

Cloaking is a bit more sophisticated and is harder for search engines to detect, although it certainly isn't undetectable. It generally works by having a cloaking program identify the searchbot requesting the page (if it is a searchbot and not a browser) and sending a different, better optimized page. This doesn't have to be as insidious as it sounds. In my last article, I described how it can be used to show search engines dynamic pages that would otherwise be invisible. So basically, if you aren't intentionally trying to deceive the search engines, cloaking may be a viable option.

Some of you may think all of these methods are unethical no matter what. Well, have no fear. In the next section, I'm going to discuss the more legitimate ways to create relevant content and optimize your web page.

Basic SEO: Tricks and Tips - How to Get Content

When adding content to your site, it's probably a good idea to compare your site to its relevant competitors that rank well in the search engines. If you think your site has better optimized content than they do, you can start to focus on other aspects of your site, like links. But this section is for when you need content and there are three different ways to get it: writing it yourself, getting someone else to write it, or using content that exists somewhere else.

Writing content yourself can entail several different techniques, but for the purpose of this article, I'm going to focus on writing articles and writing summaries of other online articles. And since writing your own articles is self-explanatory, I'll just say that this is a time consuming process and not everyone is a good writer (trust me). If you're going to summarize other articles that are linked to your site, make sure the summaries have the appropriate keywords and that the article is indeed related to your site. This is obviously much quicker than writing entire articles, but you do need the original author's permission. Instead of writing full-blown articles, you can also write short reviews about websites or products that are relevant to your site.

Getting someone else to write your content should fall in line with the dirty tricks I mentioned in the first two sections, at least in my opinion. For the most part, you're getting someone else to do the work for you for as little pay as possible, possibly even for free, if you're a good liar. I won't lie, writers are cheap (again, trust me), despite the fact that good ones are hard to find. If you do find one and are willing to pay them, it would be smart to draw up some kind of contract stating that it is “work for hire” and that you are buying all rights to the work. This probably isn't necessary, though, if it's a large company and the person works for you full time.

Using content that already exists is the quick and easy way to add content to your site. It is important, however, to avoid copyright infringement – putting someone else's material on your site without their permission – unless, of course, you like getting sued. The main thing to remember is that you do not need to register for a copyright for it to still be copyrighted material. In the next section, I'll go over some of the places you can look for content to put on your site.

Basic SEO: Tricks and Tips - Where to Get Content

There are numerous places to get content for your site. Keep in mind that all material you use should be appropriate to your site; this article is about SEO after all. Check out the following list of useful sources:

Websites – You can use material from either articles or newsletters, but you must contact the owner and get their permission.
Products – If you sell products on your site, ask the manufacturer for material about the product in question.
Content Syndication Sites – Material on these sites is free when you provide a link back to the original author's website. There are also sites that allow you to pay for material. Make sure you manually put the material on your site to preclude any SEO-related conflicts caused by browser-side inclusion methods (searchbots don't read browser-side code).
Government – Material made by (not for) the U.S. government does not have copyright protection, meaning it is free and in the public domain (the U.S. Postal Service and National Technical Information Service are exceptions).
Open Content – This is content that is available for modification and redistribution because of what's called copyleft, which basically means the original author released their work on the condition that no one else can claim original authorship. You might also want to check into content released under a Creative Commons license; there are several variations of this license, and not all of them will let you repost content freely. You will need to do a little homework.
RSS feeds – If you find a site that provides an RSS feed with boatloads of material related to your site, you should install an RSS aggregator to put the material from the feed into your website. This can be complicated for those without experience, so I suggest you do your research or get someone who knows what they're doing.
Create User-Generated Content – You can get content from your visitors by adding a Question and Answer or Frequently Ask Questions section to your site. You can also add a forum (sometimes called a Bulletin Board System) or blog on which your users can comment. Just search for the appropriate software on any search engine.

When finding content to put on your site, don't forget that you're doing so in order to optimize your site for the search engines. Make sure you search for content with your keywords. Just search for the specific type of material you want and add your keyword(s) to it. If you have a site focused on the Great Lakes, you could search for Great Lakes press release, for example.

That's all the tips I have for now. I'll see you next time.

Friday, May 23, 2008

How To Increase Your Website Conversion Rate

Improve Web Sales Figures Forever And Ever Amen!

"How do I improve web site sales figures?" The CEO roared at the web developer. The web developer looked at his boss a little confused and mumbled something about it not being his core competence with him being a programmer and all. So next the CEO went to his marketing department and bellowed "How do I improve our web site sales conversion rates?" A few mouths opened as if to speak but nothing came out until finally exasperated the CEO tearing at his hair in frustration turned to a guy painting the wall and said, "Can you answer this question? How do I increase my web site sales figures?"

The painter smiled knowingly, winked, dipped his brush into his paint tin, before evenly applying more paint to the wall in calm considered strokes. Then without looking away from his work he continued, "When you asked me to paint this wall, you knew why you wanted it painted. Yes, I told you what it was going to cost you and I told you why it was going to cost you what it's costing you. But you knew what the problem was, you knew you had a crack appearing in the paint. What I would do is calm down, take a few deep breaths and ask yourself the same questions. First you need to know exactly what it is that isn't working, find the cracks in your wall."

The CEO laughed, slapped his head and went back to his office to consider this gem of wisdom. This article explains what the CEO should've done before asking impossible questions of his staff and what I've learned from our own failures and successes.
You Need To Know, Not Guess.

It's easy to bawl at people when things don't work out and you don't sell what you expected to sell through your web site. It's easy to blame the programmer who talks about missing include files and something called 'pee h pee' or 'asp' not working properly, as if a venomous snake could help you.

What will help is finding out what the problem is so you can learn how to put it right. When it comes to web site sales, we've learned that it could be any number of a great many things that you're doing wrong. So first you need to diagnose the problem.

1. Get Web Analytics

Start measuring the website traffic. This is the only surefire way you can learn about how people do or don't do what you want them to do. Now people keep telling me that web analytics is a science all to itself. I find it easy now because I know what to look for given a particular problem. I used to get things wrong all the time, but practice makes perfect. Getting things wrong is a pain in the rear, especially if it costs money, but I put it down to research and development. Simply put if you make a mistake put it back to the way it was before the mistake. Now I just watch out for trends which I think are good and trends which I think are bad.

For instance, one trend I look for are pages where people enter your site and leave those pages without doing anything. This is called a bounce rate. If you have lots of bounces you have a problem. Once for example, I released an article which was re-printed in a very popular newsletter. I got about 6000 free visitors from a very on target newsletter, so with our good monthly conversion rate you would expect I would get lots of subscriptions to my site.

Wrong! My analytics program told me that I was getting a 90% bounce rate, which in all honesty infuriated me. So I went to the article in question and compared it to another article which had a low bounce rate of about 38%. The one with the better bounce rate had four related links within the article content (often referred to as embedded links).

Had I simply put embedded links in the other article I might have reduced bounce by 50% or more which would then transpose to 3000 more people getting deeper into my site. Had 3000 more people got deeper into my site (and further into the persuasive process), I know that more of them would have subscribed than before. It's just a statistical fact that when people read more than one page they subscribe with greater frequency. I checked, only 9% of my visitors subscribed immediately last month from arriving at our site, the other 91% took more than 2 pages before giving me their email address. In fact since we added embedded links to all our pages we have reduced overall bounce considerably and subscriptions have improved as a whole.

The same thing happens with sales. Reduce bounce to your landing pages by comparing the ones that sell well to the ones that don't. It's a method that's more scientific than guessing and it will improve sales if you gradually improve bounce rates site wide. If you don't have any good bounce rates on sales pages, test something, which brings me nicely onto the next way to know what the problems are.

2. Test things.

You can't test anything until you have got web analytics. So if you haven't already done so, do not pass go, do not collect $200 just go and get a good web analytics system. There are plenty to choose from. IRIS Metrics, HitBox, WebTrends are three we'd recommend but there are now plenty of others on the market that allow you to follow what people are doing on your site. Once you have a system then you can learn to test. For instance if you haven't got any sales pages that are selling then you have an easy time of it. Any improvement is good. So take the worst page (the one with the highest bounce rate) and change maybe the headline to imply a unique customer benefit. Measure this. If bounce improves keep it. If it gets worse change it again until it gets better.

Some variables you might want to test:

- Headlines. (We improved bounce by 36% on one page with a better headline).

- Scan Proofing (Bold benefits so that the reader gets the point without having to read - 33% improvement in bounce).

- Bullet point benefits versus long copy. On one site last year we actually improved sales from nearly zero conversion to 2.4% sales conversion on a landing page by changing long copy to bulleted psychological benefits.

- Testimonials and other social evidence. Add these to pages where you can, we increased conversion of one lead generation system to 1.5% overall from nothing simply by adding client testimonials to a page with the registration form on it.

- Calls to action. It sounds stupid but if you don't have a way to capture the sale or the lead then really please don't expect to be inundated with phone calls. It doesn't work like that. Put calls to action in different places and test which method works best.

- Graphics. Test how to use them. All communication should lead to change and graphics are no exception, use them to persuade, inform, brand or intrude. Don't use them for the sake of using them.

3. Target your market

If you're going to optimize for search engines make sure you get the target market right by selecting the right keywords to optimize for. Basically you want the highest levels of traffic you can attain which also converts highly. PPC traffic, or other traffic you have to pay for should be negatively targeted with factors like price and location for big ticket items. You don't want to pay thousands for people only mildly interested, you want to pay hundreds for the few who have their wallets open.

Think about the market you have, what makes them tick? What is it about the product that they want? What about the extras and bonus benefits you can offer? Are you telling them everything? Remember above all else that different people have different wants and needs. One of our customers sells amongst other things nebulizers (an asthmatic product). A young mother with children might be closed to the sale by being told the fact that the nebulizer fits in her purse so it's convenient for her, whereas a guy whose old nebulizer just broke might need a new one shipped pretty quickly so shipping time is more important to him. What you have to do is tell your audience all of these needs are catered for so that you have optimum chance of a sale. Tell your audience the whole story.

The good thing about search marketing is that it's all possible to measure, so you can see where exactly people have arrived from. It makes it easy for you to concentrate your best time and effort on what works and forget about what doesn't and it's a cheaper form of marketing than say sticking an ad in the news paper.

Summary

Had the CEO looked through his web analytics package (or paid someone else to do it) he might have found that his bounce rates were very high on his product pages. He might have seen that the traffic directed to his offers were largely from the wrong kind of target audience. He might have realized that his content and copy was poorly organized and that his information architecture needed improvement. He might have figured out that by changing the size of a graphic on a page he could better influence the outcome of a call to action.

Improving web site sales happens with lots of testing, time and patience, but eventually it comes. It's about learning how to sell to your online target audience by testing and optimising pages through observation. Once you have learned the basics of doing this it becomes easy to continue your testing so that you continuously improve. Forever and ever!

------------------------
About the Author: Steve Jackson is CEO of Aboavista, editor of The Conversion Chronicles and a published writer. You can get a free copy of his e-book sent to you upon subscription to the Chronicles web site (www.conversionchronicles.com).

Why Internet Marketing Webmaster Forum blog?


Hi,

This blog is setup to share information on Internet Marketing and webmaster related topics like SEO Search Engines Optimization, copywriting, affiliate marketing, article marketing and much more.

Our mission is to educate you to become more internet marketing savvy on various important online marketing topics.

So have fun reading and learning. Share your opinion if you can!

IMWF - Internet Marketing Webmaster forum!