Coaching For Success
Business Tips
Getting Your Site Ranked For Questions And Answers
Oct 27th
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an ongoing process that, when done correctly, can reap incredible benefits for your internet business web site. But, if you’re attempting to compete for highly competitive keywords, you may be finding it a very hard struggle, and one that may not warrant the amount of time and effort it takes to finally realise you may never get to rank highly for your chosen keywords.
But, did you ever give any thought to just how users enter their search queries? We’re not referring here to the use of particular words or phrases, but to the actual format of the query itself. Many of the queries entered in the search engines are entered in the form of questions, and this presents a great opportunity to optimise your site for this type of query.
Ask And Ye Shall Find!
Ask.com has stated that their more than 50 million visitors per month are 3 times more likely to enter their query in the form of a question on their site than on other search engines. Can you see the seed of a potentially very lucrative SEO project revolving around answering search query questions?
Here are some of the more common openings to queries in the form of questions:
- What is…?
- How do I get…?
- What are…?
- How much should….?
- When will…?
- Who is….?
Most of the questions asked by users when trying to get answers are the “Who?”, “What?”, “When?” and “How?” type.
Ask The Questions, Supply The Answers
So, since we’re asking questions, you’ve probably got one yourself about now, which may go something like, “How do I optimise my site using questions?”. Let’s go over that now.
Since you know your products and/or services, you should put yourself in your potential customer’s shoes, and, considering your products, ask yourself what type of questions you yourself would ask when trying to track down the products you’re offering.
For example, if you have a site selling bicycles and bicycle accessories, a question someone might pose could be, “What type of wireless speedometres are available?”. Take that question and optimise the page related to speedometres, and wireless speedometres in particular, for it and then answer the question. As a result, you’re not only asking the question, but then, in addition, supplying the user with the information they’re looking for, thus satisfying both parts of the equation.
If your internet business is selling products in a competitive niche, getting your site ranked for the more competitive keywords and phrases may prove a frustrating, if not futile, effort. But, turning your focus to questions your potential customers may ask and optimising your site for those questions, while supplying the answers, should prove to be a more productive way of investing your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts.
If you’re unsure of the best way to implement this strategy, contact a UK internet business coach, who will supply the expertise you’re looking for to get your site ranked for questions relevant to your internet business product offerings.
6 Great Ways Get More Traffic To Your Internet Business Website
Aug 28th
Use These 6 Methods To Get Targeted Traffic
Getting traffic is always a difficult process for an Internet business especially if your new online or been around for a while but struggling. The constant reminder by many internet gurus and Internet marketing service companies that you must have a mailing list compounds this. So what do you do if you are newbies, have no mailing list or are not so new and simply struggling? This post gives you six great ways to get targeted traffic to website.
1. Submit your sites to directories and create links from high PR sites back to yours!
Submitting your site to directories is not as difficult as it may seem. The best way to go about it is to search for your keyword followed by directories, once you have a list of possible sites to help you get targeted traffic, get yourself listed on resource pages for your niche. Try to be creative about each entry, before submitting write out at least five different ways to describe your business inclusive of your main keywords in less than 160 characters.
Use a variety of links to point to your site do not just use the main page, link to your services and products as well, this helps promote all pages, it does take longer to get higher PR ranks but it will be worth it in the long run. Look at creative ways to get traffic by maybe posting links to services or selling your services through websites like eBay or Craigslist or giving valuable information to help get an entry in Wikipedia.
2. Social and Business Networking
Get your Internet business set up correctly on popular social and business networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Myspace etc. Set up your profile so it is appealing to potential customers and for viral word of mouth; use images of products or services where you can in your profile. Try to be proactive on your networks post blog entries or tweet at the very least 3 – 4 times a week.
Look for people within your niche area to network with and with whom you can discuss current topics in your field and listen to feedback, which is useful to improve your offering. It is not difficult to grow your network, and people who are interested in your products and services will find you a lot easier.
3. Search Engine Marketing
Do some reading on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) use it to optimise your Internet business website to the fullest you can. If you really feel that SEO is all way above your head, you have not got the time or you are just not inclined to do it then go hire a good Internet marketing service or Internet consultant to help you get targeted traffic.
4. Article Marketing
Article marketing can really make a difference to how well your site does and how much targeted traffic you can generate. Good copy in itself is a great attracter of visitors. Sit down and write 3 – 4 good articles relating to your niche and also to the purpose of your website, write from your own experience do not try to be all fancy and over authoritative, natural articles with personality always win the day.
At the bottom of each article add a brief bio about yourself and add a link to your website at the end of the article. Once you have done that submit each of the 3 -4 articles to various article directories like ezine or articlebase and also as a guest poster to webmasters of other sites within your niche that rank well for your keywords.
5. Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo answers is a great way to get on the map, simply go to http://answers.yahoo.com and find questions related to your niche, then try to post sensible and legitimate answer to questions posted, you can include your internet business web link as the resource or reference your URL in your answer. This is a great way to show you are an expert in your niche and by contributing to the Yahoo Answers community you can interest potential customers about your products and services.
6. Forum Marketing
Last but not least do some forum marketing. Go to any search engine and type in your keyword+forum. If you have a property related site, for example, do a for the words property forum. Choose the top 3 forums in your niche and join them. Set up a profile and ensure you do a signature file, if these are allowed making sure you add your Internet business site URL or the URL to a product or service that that particular forum discusses.
Start by post an introduction and then constructively become active by posting sensible replies to at least one thread on each of the 3 forums, if you can give it the time try to do this once a day or at least 3 times a week. This will help you gain exposure, get targeted traffic and this will peak people’s interest in your website.
These 6 ways should help you to gain more targeted traffic and should be used in a cycle do not just use them once and then forget, these are rinse and repeat actions that if used properly can continue to drive traffic to your internet business website on a consistent bases allowing you to gain maximum exposure to any potential customers.
4 Tips To Help You Outsource Successfully
Aug 21st
As your business grows, the complexity of the tasks involved increases quickly. There are some core business activities, which require greater focus compared to some other non-core business activities that although important are better dealt with by a professional in that area so you can free up time to concentrate on customers.
Reasons to Outsource, Image Courtesy Of EJM.com
As a business, if you are running your own website, there are a few of these activities which can be outsourced. Outsourcing gives you to the freedom to concentrate on being in business not working on all aspects of your business however there are issues that you need to consider before outsourcing your work. This post looks at some of the key points you need to ensure you take care of if your outsourcing exercise is to be successful.
Specify your keywords before outsourcing content
The content of your internet business website must be aligned with your business ethos and at the same time should incorporate Search Engine Optimisation. If you are outsourcing your content development, then you should be very explicit in explaining your business objective and be very exact in specifying the keywords related to your business.
You can make use of various online tools like ‘Google keyword tools’ to find the popular keywords related to your business category. A third party may not be as knowledgeable about your business as you are, so it is better that you give them the keywords which needs to be use in the content. It might take you some time to research this thoroughly but the end results achieved are very effective if the content then becomes more honed to your business.
Get involved in your business website design
The creative part of the website is its overall design. Although a third party web designer may be an expert in this work, he does not know your business so you must specify your requirements fully and in detail on paper for them to follow, this gets ride of the ‘he said, she said’ syndrome.
You should always decide on how you website looks and if it is in keeping with your customers’ viewpoint, if the web designer whats to give you something that your clients will not like i..e a design or flashy swirly etc. Regardless of what the web designer thinks go with your gut you know your customers he does not if they will not like it do not let them put it in.
Any images, videos or links you put on the website must be put in such a way that they represent your true business value. If you have sales and marketing people get them involved in this task as well.
Communication is the key
All the points above are important but will not work unless you ensure you use ‘effective communication’ between the outsourcer and yourself. There must be two-way communication on a regular basis so that both parties understand fully each other’s requirements and expectations.
Communication is also necessary for continuous improvement as per the changing market scenario. All reports must be sought from the outsourcer and should be comprehensive so that you have a paper trail (e-mail trail) to establish quantity and quality of work and also if you decide to go to another outsourcer you can ensure they are not repeating previously covered work.
Any improvements sought for on the outsourced job must be communicated to themin writing as well as verbally for clarity purposes and again for accountability. This should be given in a timely manner so the outsourcer can have plenty of time to incorporate them.
Gauge the Return On Investment beforehand
The objective of outsourcing is to save your time and keep cost whilst doing so to a minimum while extracting the maximum benefit for your company. If you recruit full time staff for tasks then it would not be an economical option for a small business. So, it is imperative for you to decide how much cost you are saving by outsourcing and what are your returns.
You should bear in mind that the profits expected from outsourcing must be higher than the expenses associated with it. At the same time, the quality of your content must not be sacrificed on cost. The return on investment should be measured in terms of the number of visitors to your site, sales and lead generation which should be monitored closely. If you are not able to do this then a good internet business coach or internet consultant will be able to help you to judge the performance of your outsourced work.
Outsourcing SEO tasks helps you to achieve economic efficiency, brings in expertise of the experienced third party players and above all saves your precious time. All you need to do is a bit of homework and some amount of timely monitoring.
Reciprocal Link Tips
Aug 16th
You need to ensure you understand fully the type of site you request a reciprocal link from, this requires research.
It has taken time to develop your site and you are now finally ready to launch, this should be the end of the hard work but the true is it is only the beginning as visiblity is everything. Once you launch your new internet business website, it is not always easy to get yourself noticed, it takes time to get your site indexed and infront of prospective customers.
You should not expect traffic to your site will flow straight from the beginning and this might not be because of how your site looks or how it operates although they do play a part. Sometimes you need to use strategies to obtain visitors to your site, one such strategy is reciprocal links.
Reciprocal links are a method many newbie internet business owners and old hats alike use to try to boost the page rank of their site. Search engines do often rank your site higher if you manage to obtain links from other sites that have authority. Requesting links to such site is a common practice but you have to be aware that the rate of rejection is quite high.
A site that has already been established as an authority site, has little or nothing to gain by accepting reciprocal link requests, while a lesser ranking site has everything to gain. You should not try to obtain reciprocal links from sites that are not relevant to the contents of your site as this can lower the chances for your request to be accepted, linking to irrelevant sites is not beneficial for you and your visitors either.
Google states that - “Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity.
However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results”
Before focusing on getting reciprocal links, start by making sure your internet business website is so useful that you will not need to ask for links if your site is good people will ask you for links to your site. Make sure you have a site that is attractive, has relevant content and is easy to use.
Try to highlight the particular services or products that make your site useful and unique. This will be of enormous help when you will go looking for partners. Instead of trying to get plenty of reciprocal links, just focus on several quality links to sites that are authoritative in a niche that is relevant for your site as well.
When you make a link request be specific about what you find interesting on their site and why you have linked to it for your vistors, explain how what you do maybe of interest to their visitors. If you are both in the same field and both deal with specific parts of it this maybe a good match but do not presume because you are that they will accept your request.
99% of the time if you are refused it boils down to things like, not be relevent, non useful or original content and the biggest reason is a templated request letter where you fill in the blanks. Come on if you are serious about your internet business flourishing do you really think this approach will work, if someone sent you a template email request to do something would you bother?
The fact is if you are going to request a link to a few good quality sites in your niche do it properly craft an individual letter to the person involved. Do a bit of research find out who to write it to – do not just address it to webmaster, whom it may concern or worst just put in hi.
It takes a little research and lots of common sense but if you do the research and understand the other internet business owners site it will show in the letter you craft and guess what – they will be more inclined to read it. None of this gaurentees a link but goes a lot further in getting your email read, than a templated, non-descript email.
Facebook For Your Internet Business
Aug 12th
Today is a small help guide for those who want to use Facebook but have not yet started. Facebook is the fastest growing social networking site on internet. It has over 500 million active users. These users are from multiple geographies; have different backgrounds; and have different needs. This provides business operating worldwide, a chance to reach out to them.
Many businesses large and small are actively reaching and engaging customers through Facebook and the Facebook Platform. It is indeed useful for Internet Business Marketing. This post looks at the features within facebook which can add value to your internet business promotion.
Facebook Page For Your Internet Business
Facebook Information Tab
To start with you will need a facebook page to give your internet business an identity among millions of online business pages. A typical facebook page has features that allow you to showcase your business to the online communities. You should add all your content to your profile in the form of ‘status updates’, ‘video links’, ‘images’, ‘events’ and many more. This facebook page is the hub of all the activities you do to promote your business.
You can add fans on this page that will be able to see your updates as and when you post them. Whenever a visitor ‘comments’ on or ‘likes’ your activity, it becomes visible to the fans of that visitor. And hence a viral effect is created and the visibility of your page and your business increases exponentially. The increas in visibility helps to increase Search Engine rankings which is great for your Search Engine Optimisation effort.
Apart from that, you can post ‘polls’; add ‘contests’; create ‘quizzes’ and many other custom built applications to promote your business in more effective manner. Following image shows a business page on facebook.
Facebook Advertising Platform
Facebook Advertising
Facebook also provides you the platform to advertise your products. However, these ads are not free and facebook charges usually on the basis of ‘cost per action. This platform helps you to decide the target audience and the budget requirements. You can connect with more than 500 million potential customers. These advertisements range from simple text-based ads to high resolution images. Moreover, you can change your budget on daily basis. Hence this platform is easy and cost effective. The image below shows the interface of facebook advertising platform.
Sponsor Facebook Applications With Ads
Facebook has number of applications for ‘games’, ‘music’ and other ‘leisure’ activities which are accessed by different audiences. As a business, you can choose the applications which are mostly accessed by your target audience and place your advertisements on them as a sponsor. The sponsored application with ads is shown below.
Facebook Sponsor Ads
Integrating Facebook With Your Website
If your website is an important channel to you, Facebook Connect can help you amplify engagement. You can do this by adding Facebook ‘Share’ links to your website. This tool is known as ‘Facebook Connect’. This way you can get your webpage URL visible across the facebook users. The sharing enables you to share website content with friends, and publishing feed stories to generate traffic. Following image shows how Facebook connect works.
Interacting With Your Customers
Most important part of internet business marketing is the two way interaction with your customers. Facebook provides you the facility of opening up the discussion threads. You can initiate any topic related to your business. You can also ask for the feedback from your customers. Continuous engagement with your customers goes a long way in building long term relationship with your customers.
Integrating Facebook With Your Internet Business Website
As we have seen, facebook is an excellent platform to spread the buzz about your internet business products and service in the market. If it is integrated with other promotional tools then it is bound to produce excellent results in terms of helping to provide new customer leads for your internet business.
