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 Web Marketing Strategies For Home Business Promotion
Thu 13th July '00
WIN $10,000! http://www.nowsell.com/I-can-win.html
In this issue (Part 2):
1. VOTING BOOTH
==>This week's quick poll and last week's results.
2. TOOLS AT NOW SELL!
==>Useful tools to make your life easier from Now Sell!
3. FEATURE ARTICLE
==>Creating Keyword Rich Pages For The Search Engines
By Sumantra Roy.
Subscription details can be found at the end.
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X VOTING BOOTH X
X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X
This is the place where we take a quick poll for a snapshot of
subscriber opinion on a given topic.
··········
This week:
··········
Are you reasonably satisfied with the results of your online
marketing?
YES! >>>> mailto:yes-nowsell.com
I am reasonably satisfied with the results of my marketing!
NO! >>>> mailto:no-nowsell.com
I am not satisfied with the results of my online marketing!
ERR? >>>> mailto:err-nowsell.com
I'm not sure... depends...?
*** Add any additional comments in the body of your vote mail ***
··········
Last week:
··········
Have you ever advertised in an ezine (paid ads or swaps, but not
free ads)?
YES! >>>> 64%
I have advertised in an ezine!
NO! >>>> 36%
I have never advertised in an ezine!
ERR? >>>> 0%
I'm not sure... depends...?
Note: Last week I received an all-time low of 11 votes (a 0.01%
response rate)! Whilst that is no doubt partly due to the
problems with my ISP I mentioned in the Introduction, the number
of respondents has been falling steadily over recent weeks.
In our subscriber poll a few months back, this section was voted
the 2nd most popular part of Biz Bits. If you wish to see it
continue, spend a moment to send in your vote. Otherwise I shall
be forced to scrap it. In addition, if there are any topics you'd
like to see covered, you're welcome to send me your suggestions.
*** Have you voted on this week's question? Don't forget! ****
···············
Voter Feedback:
···············
YES!
None this week?
NO!
None this week?
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X TOOLS AT NOW SELL! X
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*** Promotion Tools ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Keyword Research Tool
* Meta Tag Maker
* Free Automatic Search Engine Submit
* Rapid Manual Search Engine Submit Tool
* Position Analyzer to check site rank in the SEs
* Link Generators
* Multi Search Tool
Visit Promotion
*** HTML Tools ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Multiple Pop-up window code generator
* Multiple MouseOver image generator
* Frames code generator
* Simple CSS template
* 216 Web color palette and codes
* HTML Special character codes
* Useful cut & paste Javascript, and more
Visit HTML
*** Others ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Free Business Consulting
* Listings of the best paid to surf, read email, etc. programs
X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X
X FEATURE ARTICLE X
X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X=X
--------------------------------------------------
Creating Keyword Rich Pages For The Search Engines
--------------------------------------------------
By Sumantra Roy
Once you have established the keywords for which you should
optimize your site for the search engines, it is time to figure
out how you can get a high ranking in the search engines for
those keywords. Should you create those everybody-hates-it-but-
everybody-does-it doorway pages?
Well, yes and no. Doorway pages are great in theory but can be an
administrative nightmare. Since each search engine uses a
different algorithm to rank pages, you will need to create
doorway pages for each keyword and for each search engine. Since
the search engines frequently change their rankings, you'll need
to constantly change those doorway pages in order to ensure that
they continue to obtain top rankings. Furthermore, if you are
targeting a reasonably high number of keywords, you can easily
bank on creating hundreds of such doorway pages. Can you imagine
the sheer administrative difficulty in keeping track of all these
pages? You'll soon be spending more time on search engine
optimization than on carrying on your normal business activities!
The method that I recommend is two-fold. Initially, don't worry
about the differences in the algorithms between the search
engines. Just assume that all the search engines use the same
algorithm while determining the ranking of pages. At this stage,
you should create what I prefer to call "Keyword Rich Pages"
(KRPs). Each of these KRPs are optimized for one keyword and are
intended to rank highly in all the search engines. Once you have
created these KRPs, and once the search engines have spidered
these pages, find out which (if any) of the search engines have
not given a high rank to these KRPs. If you have created the KRPs
properly, there shouldn't be too many such search engines. Once
you have determined the search engines which have not ranked the
KRPs properly, create doorway pages which are optimized for these
individual search engines. This method allows you to get top
rankings in all the search engines by minimizing the number of
pages that you have to create.
This article is focused on how you should create these KRPs. I am
assuming you have a working knowledge of the different HTML tags
like the Title tag, the Meta Description tag, the Meta Keywords
tag, the Heading tags, the Alt Tag etc. If you don't, just go to
the following web site for a good introduction to such HTML tags:
http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/
Now, let us assume that your company sells packaged tours to
Australia, and that you are targeting the keyword: "travel to
australia". Here's how you create the KRPs:
The Title Tag:
The first and most important tag to consider is the Title tag.
You should always begin the Title tag with the keyword that you
are targeting and should weave in the keyword one more time in
the middle or the end of the Title tag. However, don't repeat the
keyword more than two times in the Title tag and don't repeat the
keywords together either - the search engines can penalize you
for spamming if you do so. Also remember that the search engines
are going to display the Title tag while they are displaying the
results of a search. Hence, you need to make the Title tag
attractive to humans as well.
Here is one Title tag that I may have used: "Travel to Australia
- Discover how you can travel to Australia for only $x per day"
where "x" is of course the money that a traveler would need to
spend per day if they used your services. Have a look at the
Title tag - it uses the keyword right at the beginning and also
repeats it in the middle. Furthermore, it uses the word
"Discover" - a word, which, according to most copy-writing
experts, is enough to attract people to your site. Also, note how
I mentioned the price that the person needs to pay. Assuming that
you are selling a very reasonably priced item, it will create
even more interest in your site. (Of course, if you are selling a
premium product or service, then mentioning the price isn't too
bright an idea).
Another point to note is how I used different cases for the word
"travel". The first instance uses "T" in upper case while the
second instance uses "t" in lower case. Now, when an user
searches using all letters in lower case, the search engines
generally become case-insensitive. However, if the user
capitalizes even one letter, most search engines will become case
sensitive. Hence, in the way I formed the Title tag, it takes
care of three of the most likely ways in which someone can search
- "travel to australia", "Travel to Australia" and "travel to
Australia".
Of course, all Titles need not be like the one I used. The Title
that you use depends on the subject matter of your site. For
instance, you may not always want to mention the price if you
feel that it will drive visitors off your site. Instead of
mentioning the price, you can mention a key benefit that your
product or service has. However, you should follow all the
general rules that I have outlined here.
Meta Description Tag:
The Meta Description tag is used by many search engines to
provide a short description of the page that is listed in the
search results. Hence, like the Title tag, it is important that
the Meta Description tag be keyword rich as well as attractive to
humans.
The rules for the Meta Description is more or less the same as
those for the Title tag. However, the contents of this tag will
generally be longer than that of the Title. Here's what I may
have had in the Meta Description tag:
"Travel to Australia - We take care of all the details of your
trip so that you can travel to Australia with complete peace of
mind."
Note how this description repeats the keywords and also the
benefit that it stresses - it says that the customer will be able
to travel without having to worry about the intricate details of
the trip.
Meta Keywords Tag:
The Meta Keywords tag has become less and less important as far
as search engine optimization is concerned. In fact, you can get
top rankings without having anything in the Meta Keywords tag at
all. However, just to be on the safe side, you would want to
include some keywords in the Meta Keywords tag. You should also
include some of the common upper/lower case variations of the
keyword. The rules for the Meta Keywords tag are pretty simple -
don't repeat any keyword in the Meta Keywords tag more than three
times and don't repeat any keyword one after the other. Here's
what I may have had in the Meta Keywords tag:
"Travel to Australia, tourism, travel to Australia, Down Under,
TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA"
Note how I have introduced "tourism" and "Down Under" just to
separate the different instances of the keyword.
Body of the page:
Now we come to the actual body of the page. Begin by getting hold
of a nice (but not too large) picture which is applicable for the
page that you are creating. In the present case, I might include
a picture of the lotus shaped Sydney Opera House. Place this
picture at the top of the page. In the Alt tag for the picture,
just mention your target keyword once, i.e. the Alt tag would be
"Travel to Australia". You can include other words in the Alt
tag, but it should start with the keyword you are targeting.
Once you've put up the picture, it is time to create a Heading
for your page. Use the H1 tag to do so. Again, in the H1 tag,
mention your target keyword once, i.e. like the Alt tag for the
picture, the H1 tag could be "Travel to Australia". Again, like
the Alt tag, you can include other words in the heading, but the
heading should start with the keyword you are targeting.
Now it's time to create the actual text of the page. The way you
create the text of your page would depend largely on what you
want the visitor to do after reading this page. In some cases,
you may simply want the visitor to go to a home page or another
specific page in your site after reading this page. In this case,
you should write the text in such a way that the visitor is
attracted to the page that you are targeting. You would also want
to provide links to the home page or the specific page that you
are targeting at strategic places in the KRP. Or, you may want
the visitor to click on the link to an affiliate program that you
are a member of. In this case, you would stress the benefits that
the visitor gets by purchasing the product or service that the
affiliate program is selling. You would also want to provide
links to the affiliate program at strategic places in the page
and/or at the end of the page. Whatever it is that you want your
page to do, there are some general rules to follow:
1) The first thing to remember is that some search engines don't
recognize the Meta Description tag. These search engines will
often simply take the first few lines of text in the body of your
page and display that as the description. Hence, you must ensure
that the first few lines of text in your page are attractive to
human beings.
2) Ensure that each sentence or every other sentence that you use
contains your target keyword once. The keyword shouldn't just be
placed on an ad hoc basis - the way the keyword is placed in
every sentence should actually make grammatical sense. This is
not only important from the point of view of ensuring that your
readers don't get a bad impression of your site, but also from
the point of view of search engine optimization - the search
engines may penalize your page for spamming if they find that you
have randomly repeated the keyword throughout the page.
3) Make sure that your paragraphs are not too long - each
paragraph should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences long. This is
because people on the web simply don't have the time or the
inclination to read long paragraphs.
4) Try to ensure that the page contains links to other pages with
the keyword being present in the text under the link. This can
often lead to a higher ranking for your page.
5) If possible, link to other pages which have the keyword in the
file names. This can again lead to a higher ranking for your
page.
6) There is no hard and fast rule regarding the total number of
words that should be present in the KRPs. As a rule of thumb, try
to ensure that there are between 500-600 words. However, if the
number of words falls short of or exceeds this limit, don't worry
too much - it's not that important.
Once you have created the page, ensure that the name of the file
in which it is saved contains the keyword and that the individual
words of the keyword are separated by hyphens. In this case, the
name of the file would be travel-to- australia.html. This will
get you a higher ranking in the few search engines (like Northern
Light) which give a lot of emphasis on the keyword being present
in the URL.
Now that you have created the KRPs, how do you ensure that they
are spidered by the search engines? Do you simply upload the KRPs
to your server and then submit each of the individual KRPs to the
search engines? You can do that, but you may get a higher ranking
if you allow the search engines to spider your pages by following
links to them, rather than by submitting them manually.
Furthermore, the search engines also take a rather dim view of
pages which only contain outgoing links to other pages but do not
contain any incoming links from other pages. The search engines
will often recognize these pages as doorway pages and may
penalize such pages.
What you should do is to provide a link to these KRPs from the
home page of your site. Now, you don't want people who are seeing
the home page to actually follow these links to the KRPs - you
only want the search engines to follow these links. However, you
can't create links with hidden text (i.e. text with the same
color as the background color) in your page since the search
engines will almost certainly penalize or even ban you for doing
this.
What you should do is to create a small image which has the same
background color as the home page. Then, name this image with the
same file name as the name of the KRP you have created. Hence, in
this case, you should name the image travel-to- australia.gif.
Then, add this image to the end of the home page and have it link
to the KRP. Also, in the Alt tag of this image, add the keyword
that you are targeting once. Furthermore, you should explicitly
set the border of the image to 0 (add border = "0" to the img tag
of the image). Otherwise, when you get the image to link to the
KRP, a border may be visible. In case you don't want to create
your own image, I have created a sample image for you with a
white background - you can get it from
http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/download.htm
That's it! When you want to target another keyword, create
another KRP for it, make a copy of the image that you created for
the first keyword, rename it to the file name of the new KRP, add
the image to the home page and then link it to the new KRP.
Repeat this process for every keyword that you are targeting.
Once you have created all the KRPs and once you have got the home
page to link to each of them, submit your site to the search
engines. Don't submit any of the individual pages in your site -
submit only the URL for the home page of your site. While the
search engines may take a long time to spider all the internal
pages if you don't submit them individually, I would still
recommend not submitting them individually as this may get your
KRPs a higher ranking in the search engines.
Follow all the rules that I have outlined in this article and you
can soon see your search engine blues disappear for ever!
Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is a search engine positioning
specialist. For free articles on search engine placement,
subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a blank
email to mailto:1stSearchRanking-subscribe-listbot.com or by
going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com.
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OK, that's it for part two! Below you'll find the info section.
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Last Modified: 12:43, Monday November 29, 2004. Copyright © 1999-2008 NowSell.com. All rights reserved.
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