Internet Business Marketing

Age of Domain for Better Ranking

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:47:00 GMT

When competing for top search results for a particular keyword phrase search engines such as Google® needs to know that your web site has authority over others in the same niche topic. It is of popular belief by most Web Architects that this authority factor is based on both the number of quality incoming links and the age of the site.

A common misconception is that the age of the site is solely based on the date the domain was registered. However, what seems to be much more the case is that both the registration date and how long the web site has been online and indexable by search engines. In other words, a domain that has been consistantly used and has not been dropped by domain registrars will generally rank higher than a brand new domain that has never been used before.

So, if your domain is relatively new as compared to your competitors depending on where you are with your web site there are a couple moves you can consider:

Brand New Site – if you are starting a brand new site you might consider purchasing a domain that has some history and has not been dropped from Google’s index and using that domain as opposed to a brand new one.

Existing Site – if you have a site and want to continue to use the same domain because you like it and/or already have frequent visitors to that domain then you can still purchase a used domain and point (301 redirect) it to your exisintg site. According to Google’s own Andy Lasnik a 301 redirect passes PR (page rank) and related signals appropriately.

So what the heck is a 301 redirect? Basically once you contral a domain you can setup a URL Forward from your registrar setting the forward as a 301 or permanent redirect to any other web page on the internet. Very easy but you can ask the registar (e.g. GoDaddy.com, etc.) how to do this within their control panel.

IMPORTANT NOTE…

When you purchase a used domain setup an account with the same registrar to which the domain currently resides. This is so that you don’t lose the domain age. For example, a good place to look for domains is at GoDaddy Domain Auctions as where goDaddy is the registrar of course. When you buy a domain from there the domain is automatically “pushed” to your GoDaddy account leaving the domain age in tact.

Also, checkout freshdrop.net which monitors domains that are soon to expire. There is a paid subscription to this but there is a free side to lookup domains.

How to Find a Profitable Niche Market

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:38:00 GMT

In offline business you’ve no doubt heard the phrase “location, location, location” as it relates to its importance. Well, that’s because it’s true. If your “brick and mortar” business relies on a constant flow of fresh traffic than you need to be were the traffic already is right?

Translated to an online market you can pretty much say the same thing about keywords which of course is the phrase people search to hopefully find your web site. Since your web site does rely on traffic it needs to be where the traffic already is which online is almost always dictated by keywords.

One of the first mistakes many make is to think they already know what to offer the world, how to offer it and what keywords people are searching to find it without doing any research. You might as well hand a shotgun loaded with buckshot to a blind man at the county fair and tell him to shoot the duck with the red dot.

Keyword research is VITAL to your online business because done correctly it means always being where the traffic already is. It is also probably the most difficult step. You probably know of online tools to find keyword data already but when looking at a list of hundreds of keyword phrases which ones are really worth the time and effort to pursue? The answer can be found in learning how to cluster them.

Whenever someone enters a keyword phrase into any search box they do so with some intention right? They are looking for something… ultimately trying to solve a problem. They are looking for a solution. Sometimes the solution is a new pair of shoes but what they are really searching for is the best place to buy that new pair of shoes.

Learn to group your keywords by this intention (a.k.a. cluster) and the path to your profitable business becomes much more clear. Be careful not to confuse intention with topic because there is a considerable difference in this context. For example…

The following keyword phrases all have different intentions but would be considered of the same topic… not a cluster:

The best organic dog food stores
How to grow organic dog food
How is organic dog food better for your dog

… and here are keyword phrases that share the same intention… a cluster:

How to build a dog house
Tips building a dog house
Dog house construction plans

Do you understand the difference? Everyone searching any of the terms in the cluster all have the same intention in mind which of course is to build a dog house. In the first group, although all the phrases are closely related to organic dog food the searchers do not share the same intention.

Why is this important? Because with phrases organized by intention you can quickly determine the number of people that are searching for what type of information. This is so you have no doubt as to what specific problems active internet users are trying to solve and what the demand is for solutions to these problems. Answer these questions and you have successfully identified a profitable business opportunity.

This process is simple but not always easy. Identifying a profitable niche especially within a specific topic can sometimes take weeks or even months of around the clock research. But if you respect the importance of this step and understand the value of the information you obtain here you’ve just learned how to turn a blind man at a county fair with a shotgun full of buckshot into an Olympic sharp shooter without spending a dime.

SEO is Knowing What Battles to Fight

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:45:00 GMT

One of my favorite movie lines was from Without A Paddle. When encountering a bear one of three friends was preparing to run when he was told he couldn’t out run a bear. His response, “I don’t have to. I only have to out run you.”

There is much speculation as to all the factors that go into how search engines analyze a web site when determining how it should fall in it’s search results. Search engines love to keep web site owners concerned with this on their toes. I mean afterall they live and breath by the quality of their search results so protecting their systems from unauthorized manipulation is of the utmost importance.

So many web site owners feel like they have to have every single aspect they read in place in order to beat out their competition which isn’t the case at all… in most all cases. You see, Google is not the enemy here. You are not fighting Google to climb to the top of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). You are battling your competition, or more specifically, who currently holds the spot you want.

This may seem like common sense to you now but it is amazing how often this one point alone is missed. In fact, knowing this actually lays down your golden path to success. How?

I don’t think there is any better way to learn anything than by example and with a web site sitting where you want to be you have the perfect example. Just learn to analyze what they are doing to hold that covetted spot and then learn how to do it better. It may not always be easy or overnight but you might be surprised how much a few small tweaks to your online marketing plan can sometime change things.

So as impossible as, running from the bear, or trying to overpower Google, actually is it’s equally as unnecessary. You just have to out run your competition. Just employ the srategies you can and then meter the results. You might be surprised how quickly you can make a considerable difference.

Ranking well for Highly Competitive Keywords

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:41:00 GMT

I continue to read about so many marketing experts solely focusing on the “lowest hanging fruit” by targetting keyword phrase with low competition. In fact, I can’t tell you how many software tools there are out there that help people find these magical phrases and some of which are pretty good.

But what about those highly competitive phrases that just seem impossible for which to rank? Have you ever said something like “Boy, I wish I could rank well for [insert impossible keyword here] because that would be life-changing”? Then you know exactly what I am talking about right?

Outside of the possibility of time travel back to say 1996, in order to fight this battle you have to understand Breadth of Coverage (a.k.a. BOC). This term comes from a Patent Google filed in 2003 describing BOC as one of the factors used to heuristically solve for the most qualified news article. This factor continues to play a more important role and consistently impacts site rankings in the organic algorithm.

So what is BOC? Simply stated it is the total number of qualified web pages in a domain that are thematically/semantically relevant to your keyword(s). Basically the more credible your pages the more authority you have on the subject matter which in turn means a greater opportunity for a fruitful placement in search results.

Here are some quick ideas to help you accomplish BOC:

Use “Silos” by building a logical higharchy using related terms

Your home page will get the most incoming links meaning you should focus on your most competitve terms there. However, page rank will “trickle” down to your other pages so by creating a logical tree of relative themes off the home page creating “sub home pages” with their own sub pages you can get more related themes and keywords ranked as well. Just remember to do what you can to get some deeper well structured incoming links directly into your theme index (or silo home) pages.

Make sure visitors (and search engine spiders) can easily crawl your pages via well structured links

Just like human visitors, search engine indexing spiders will crawl your site’s pages one at a time via the links you place. Also, the links themselves need to have the keyword your targeting in the link anchor itself telling the search engine what content to expect once it gets there. Best case, your link anchors will have the same keywords in them as the title tags of the destination pages.

Try to avoid having to create multiple domains to cover all of your themes

It seems that more and more emphasis is being placed on brand favoritism especially as the web becomes more and more of a social network. It is becoming easier for internet users to tell the world what sites they like to visit simply by bookmarking the site on one of many social bookmarking sites. There also have been many advances in helpful toolbars being installed on PCs that are free but report back that users web activity and don’t think for a second that Google isn’t using this information to rank web sites.

What this means is that to rank well for top phrases it is becoming more and more important to focus on branding your site and not only getting people there but to get them there more often. Since this is all domain specific the more domains you actively manage the more of this you have to do. There are good reasons today to have multiple domains/sites in various situations because Google especially seems to like tightly themed web sites. But if you can successfully structure one larger site to carry all of these themes you benefit from the branding and link juice (page rank) built up all under that one domain.

Concentrate on great content for your readers

This should go without saying but none of this is worth considering if you are publishing poor content. It’s like a vacuum cleaner salesmen going door-to-door selling broken vacuums. What’s the point? Creating good content takes time and effort but is worth it’s weight in gold. Do it once and it pays off over and over again. When creating content take a look at your competition (the sites currently ranking where you want to be) and focus on better quality, a braoder scope and depth in knowledge. Make sure to include keyword rich headlines and title tags on the page, more than 300 words, broken content logically subdivided into keyword rich sub-headlines and bullet points and don’t be affraid to link out to other sites with related content. This makes the site seem more natural.

Most important think Wikipedia. Make your content as noteworthy and useful as possible using robust content with powerful text, optimized images and video where possible.

So, this is somewhat of a simplified description of BOC (Breadth of Coverage) but is enough to give you a strong overall understanding. I hope this helps you better understand its necessity particularly when wanting to rank well for the more competitive terms and stay in the search engines for a long time to come.

Content Syndication and Article Marketing

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:33:00 GMT

Content syndication is one of the oldest tricks in the book for link building and is still one of my personal favorites. Why? Because the idea and process is very simple. You simply write articles that contain links to your site(s) and then distribute them to directories that syndicate the content out to other sites.

There are many article directories available to accept your content. Just search for “article directories” and you will find the most prominant ones. My favorite is www.ezinearticles.com but there are many good ones.

Submitting the same article out to many directories isn’t as effective as it once was however… especially with Google. This is because of Google’s duplicate content (a.k.a. boilerplate) filter. You see, Google doesn’t want to display the same content more than once under any given search phrase so it filters out duplicate content.

Google appears to determine which content was the original and then places all duplicates into its “supplemental index” or backup index which means the links in those won’t mean as much to your web site. So make sure your new articles are indexed under the most beneficial domain before submitting the same article to other locations so that Google will atribute the content to the correct domain.

I personally don’t think duplicate content filters are a big concern because any targeted incoming link is better than no link at all and you can always rewrite the same article a little mutliple times before posting. Besides, there are many opinions as to the actual value of links steming from Googles supplemental index and there are a few other search engines out there other than Google.

Another tactic I have found useful I learned is after submitting content monitor what sites actually use your content using Google Alerts and CopyScape and then contact those sites directly about publishing future articles. You can sometimes quickly build a list of your own content distribution channels in a niche so that when you do have fresh content you send it straight to your distribution list bypassing the article directories completely.

Another great place to syndicate content with links is in the form of an online press release. A well written and timely press release can be spread quickly which will build many incoming links which won’t trigger Google’s SPAM czars (those who look out for and punish spammers). Why? Because press releases are designed for news worthy content and breaking news, often distributed in the form of a press release, naturally travels quickly.

How to articles are also a popular content type online these days. Why? Most people go online to solve a problem making how to information a target. Solve a problem in any niche and you will be rewarded with traffic. Because of this there are many places as where you can answer people’s questions online on very popular domains including a link back to your site(s) in either the article itself or in your signature file. (e.g. LinkedIn, Yahoo Answers, About.com, etc.)

Finally there’s blogging. Blog networks and RSS feeds have made syndicating content even easier. The more blogs out there the more places that need your content and with RSS feeds setup to automatically pull related content to a network of blogs it’s much faster than article networks. However some respected article directories will get your article ranked highly quickly and even keep them there as where often blog posts can be somewhat short-lived because of the frequency of updates.

So, content syndication, although an old link building tactic, still has its place and will be effective as long as search engines weight a site’s authority at least in part by the number of relative incoming structured links. With a little creativity and by doing things a little bit different than everyone else can be very advantageous in you SEO efforts.

Much more to come on this topic…

Thinking Backwards Is Forward Thinking

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:23:00 GMT

Almost everyone I talk with has an idea of a new product or service they want to offer online which is why they came to me in the first place. Some times they already have a business, or some kind of experience related to this product. Other times they just have an interest or a “gut feeling” that makes them believe it’s a worthwhile project.

When this happens the first thing I advise is to forget about the product you think is so hot, or that great idea for a web site you think you have and concentrate on why you thought of it in the first place…. to make some money right?

Now this doesn’t mean your idea is a bad one by no means. It just means you have to come to terms with the fact that you really have no idea at this point if it is or it isn’t. Also, even if your product or service is needed you don’t really know how you can reach the people who need it and can afford it.

In other words, if you start with a product idea without any idea if there is a need for it or how to get it in front of those who need it then you are most likely facing a long and rocky up hill path. However, if you first find a hungry market with a problem needed solving that is relatively easy to reach you have already won the largest battle before it was ever fought.

This is not easy to do especially when you feel that your hot idea is why you are reading this article in the first place. Again, I am not saying your idea is not a good one. I am only saying you will be doing yourself an incredible favor by identifying a market (group of people who will buy your product) you can afford to reach first. This is what defines rather you are on a path to success or failure regardless of how good your product actually is. If you can’t get it the people who want it, nothing else matters.

So, how do we do this? We first have to identify a niche market in which we will be targeting. It is extremely expensive and actually impossible to market to everyone and there is no such product or service that everyone needs or even wants to buy… at least not from you. So, you must first identify your niche, define what it is that niche is looking for and figure out how to provide it to them.

Here’s a true example…

The late Corey Rudl, an undisputed pioneer of marketing online, after buying his first Ferrari he learned of a common problem among Ferrari owners of Ferrari emblem plates being stolen off of these sports cars all over the world.

Instead of “going with his gut” and quickly creating a website offering these emblems for a price he thought to be fair and marketing it to the world he decided to send a simple survey to Ferrari owners asking if he supplied them with replacements at a specified price would they purchase them? It was only when he analyzed his responses did he decide to source the product and put up the web site to solve their problem.

His website, which was nothing at all to look at, quickly brought in well into the six figures in sales in a very short time making it one of the most successful ecommerce sites of its day. Why? Because he knew he would be successful before he spent any amount of time or money and knew exactly how to reach his market long before he made his first sale.

In my next post I will discuss what exactly a niche market actually is and how you can go about finding yours.

Web Site Directory Submissions

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:26:00 GMT

There are thousands of “web directories” online today some of which are even niche directories containing links to only sites in a particular niche. The question we are going to analyze in this post is rather or not it is worth the time, effort and sometimes expense to post links to your sites within these directories.

The truth is that there are many different opinions on this topic within the search engine marketing community. Most agree that Google, for example, does not weight these links very highly at best. Some even think these links are worthless as it pertains to search engine placement and too many of them can even hurt your site. What I personally have seen is the true answer is… it just depends.

First and foremost, as we should always keep in mind, let’s remember two very important points. The first is that Google likes natural linking behavior and will reward sites that appear to be gaining incoming links in a natural manner. For example, if you publish a new web site and within a few days you accumulate thousands of incoming links from automated submit-able directory sites it is very possible your site could be flagged for a manual audit.

The second very important point to remember here is that you are not battling Google’s algorithm or any of its rules. You are only competing with your competition. In other words studying your competition will answer all your questions about what you should be doing. Is their site listed in directories and if so, how are they listed?

Thinking natural linking here it stands to reason that your site, if all links were obtained completely naturally, would have many different types of links, with various anchor text (words you click on), from all kinds of sources linking to various pages of your web site. Some would be some kind of URL link with anchor text such as www.yourdomain.com, yourdomain.com or even just yourdomain.

Another point to analyze is the number of links your competition appears to have from sites not indexed at all… seemingly worthless links? There’s no doubt you need quality structured incoming links to your site to favor well in search results but again, thinking natural link building, would it be natural to ONLY have top quality inbound links. What I mean here is that if you were not actively building links coming into your web site and were strictly relying on links to your site showing up on other sites naturally you would have to be the most fortunate person alive if everyone of those links were from grade A link partners. Even if everyone were from sites actually indexed would be phenomenally remarkable.

These would be reasons to find a service or software you can afford to submit your site to free directories but not too fast… remember, natural link building is a key in a competitive market.

One more point… there are a few notable paid directories that should be considered by anyone serious about getting a web site indexed and ranked. These directories are managed by human beings and each submission is manually checked. Why is this important? Google knows these directories and weights links from these sites differently because of it. (e.g. Yahoo! Directory and Best of the Web) DMOZ.org is free and also managed by humans but volunteers so it can take a while to get your site listed here.

So, the bottom line, in my humble opinion, is to keep your link building natural-like, study the site(s) that are in the positions you would like your site to have and keep track of any changes they or you make noting the results. This may seem like a lot of work at first and the truth is it can be. But if it were easy everyone would be doing it right?

Using Del.icio.us in Link Building

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:35:00 GMT

When driving inbound links to your web site(s) finding a new place to get good quality links for free is like finding a fifty-dollar bill in your pocket you didn’t know you had. This is a quick post on how I have learned to use the most popular social bookmarking site effectively to build links to my web sites.

You probably have heard of the social bookmarking web site call del.icio.us right? It’s basically an online service that allows anyone to store and share their favorite places on the internet using bookmarks. This is like your favorites list in your browser only they are stored online where they can be shared in various ways.

Many search engine “experts” have deemed del.isio.us as useless for link building because the links on the user profile page are set to “nofollow” so search engine spiders, when indexing the page, will not follow the links off that page hence not carrying and SEO weight back to the linked destinations.

However, your user profile has a page that shows the pages you have bookmarked which is an RSS (real simple syndication) feed. Well this RSS feed does NOT have the nofollow tag in it.

So, what does this mean? It’s simple. Using a del.icio.us browser plugin (or other tool of choice) bookmark pages and they will go right into that RSS feed in your del.icio.us profile page of bookmarked sites. You can then link to this RSS feed from your blogs and other sites to make sure this feed gets into the search engine index.

What does this do? Well by following this simple technique you are leveraging the popularity of the http://del.icio.us (a.k.a. delicious.com) domain/site by placing links back to wherever you want. Just be careful not to spam the site by only linking (or bookmarking) your own sites. You should add value as well as mix in a bit of self-promotion from time to time making it a win/win for everyone. Remember, keep things natural-like and stay off the spam czar radar!

One Aspect at a Time

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:14:00 GMT

There’s a lot of information available about marketing online. Some good, some not so good, some out of date, some current and some cutting edge. Like anything worth doing there is a lot of work and even more learning involved to master it.

You’re going to get better at this by doing it and testing what you read and see others doing with your own projects. As you try and fail… that’s right, fail… you will learn what to do, what not to do and what to do better. Yes, you are smart to try to learn from the mistakes and experience of others as long as you understand that this is just a starting point and you have to cross the starting line if you ever expect to reach the finish.

So, concentrate on one discipline, get the best you can at it within your market, before moving on. Some successful marketers never venture off from one discipline because they are too busy making money at the one they have become so proficient at. They then use some of that money to hire someone else to handle the other disciplines for them. Also, it’s amazing how making a little money can boost a person’s confidence quickly.

The point is that you’re not going to get better by buying courses on every topic someone decides to write about so don’t become an information junkie. One of my mentors, the late Corey Rudl, used to say that the most difficult step his students had was just getting started. Many do all the right things to prepare to start something really great. They do all the research, acquire all the tools, buy the top courses from the “experts” in key disciplines and maybe even read them start to finish. Still they fail to take the most important step of just getting started.

Starting something new, as exciting as it can be, is equally as frightening. It is so much easier to keep doing the same things you are doing now and dream of better results. I think it was Einstein who defined this as insanity right?. If you truly expect different results in your life you have to include something different in the mix because all the best intentions and dreams of doing great things require action to take shape.

So, in the words of Corey Rudl… do something, anything, but something, and do it today… right now. Then, do something else tomorrow. If it turns out to be the wron thing, that’s okay because you know not to do it again. But if you just do something statistically you will have already far surpassed most of the people who will read this article and will be well on your way to becoming an interpreneur.