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Hello Everyone!

Lately I've been considering adding a new service for Eckweb clients. Tell me what you think!

For the last year I've been aggressively marketing my own website, experimenting with the various marketing tools such as PPC (pay per click), press releases, blogs, link exchanges and affiliate programs. Of all of these methods the ONE method that worked consistently the BEST were the ones that involved CONTENT.

That means that I wrote an article based on a good keyword phrase and then I added that article to my website (I made a page just for that article). I also added that article to a press release and sent it to out to news aggregators on the Internet and I also added that article to my blog (although I admit I didn't always get to the blog but most of the time I did!).

I wrote as often as I could. Sometimes the articles were 1000 words, other times they were just 200 words. The main idea (in my mind) was to get something out there about the keyword phrase that I wanted to market.

Did it work with just one article? I don't think so. I think the impact came from adding new original content to the website often and providing a large mix of keyword phrases, all with the same theme of course,

Google, especially LOVES to see new and original content additions on websites. That's partly why I've been providing new keyword phrases each month to my clients, that's why I send out crazy holiday cards to my clients! (Today by the way is Peace Corps Day!)

All of this are part of efforts to get YOU to think about new information to add to your website.

According to the latest numbers in a variety of SEO forums and research, 84% of Internet users find websites via search engines. The majority of that 84% begins the search by looking for information. If all these people are looking for information, why not put that information on YOUR website? That's how the process of gaining trust over the Internet begins. By giving information. Don't be shy, there are no secrets on the Internet. Anybody can find anything about any subject, there are no secrets! If you have information that others are looking for, give it to them!! They'll trust you and may even buy from you.

So, what are the end results of my new articles and website content? What did all of that get me? An incredible amount of targeted, relevant traffic. From all over the country! Where I originally had 90% of my clients from south Florida, I know have a 40/60 ratio. 40% from outside of Florida and 60% from Florida. I hope to increase the national even more! (While writing this article Thursday morning March 2nd I received two more requests for SEO quotes, one from TN and another from UT).

I can't possibly express how IMPORTANT writing and adding content to your website is. And I can't even imagine a more low cost method of marketing! Especially if you write the articles yourself!! But, although I have been touting this concept for years now and have successfully experimented with other marketing avenues only to find out that this simple basic concept works the best, I have yet to been able to convince my clients to do it!!

I have advertised and referred and recommended copywriters to my clients for years but have yet to sell those services. I'm not sure if it's the fee that is a deterant or the sales pitch (maybe I'm not doing a good job at it), or what.

I do understand that not everyone has the time and I certainly understand that not everyone is able to sit and write articles. So, I've been thinking about adding this service as part of Eckweb's monthly marketing. I would have to charge extra for the service, it does involve my time and since I'm not as familiar with every industry my clients are in as I would like to be I would have to do some research for some articles. At the same time I would like to keep the rates fair and low enough so that my clients continue to get a good Return On Investment (ROI).

So, I'm asking you to please fill out the form below so that I can get an idea of how many people would be interested in this additional service. (The service of writing articles FOR the client's and adding it to their websites). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!

Sincerely,
Esther C. Kane
Eckweb Designs, Inc.
Improved Search Engine Rankings

Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScript, that you forget your site's content.

I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web.

Of course, that shouldn't be a surprise, considering how often officials at Google proclaim the importance of good content. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good
writing.

Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really ignore traditional standards of quality in the publishing world? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so
caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point?

Apparently not.

Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Features

Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of identifying websites with good content and rewarding them with high rankings.

I looked at Google's top five pages for the five most searched-on keywords, as identified by WordTracker on June 27, 2005. Typically, the top five pages receive an overwhelming
majority of the traffic delivered by Google.

The web pages that contained written content (a small but significant portion were image galleries) all shared the following features:

* Updating: frequent updating of content, at least once every few weeks, and more often, once a week or more.

* Spelling and grammar: few or no errors. No page had more than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Note: spelling and grammar errors were identified by using Microsoft
Word's check feature, and then ruling out words marked as misspellings that are either proper names or new words that are simply not in the dictionary. Does Google use SpellCheck? I can
already hear the scoffing on the other side of this computer screen. Before you dismiss the idea completely, keep in mind that no one really does know what the 100 factors in Google's
algorithm are. But whether the mechanism is SpellCheck or a better shot at link popularity thanks to great credibility, or something else entirely, the results remain the same.

* Paragraphs: primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.

* Lists: both bulleted and numbered, form a large part of the text.

* Sentence length: mostly brief (10 words or fewer). Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than clumped together.

* Contextual relevance: text contains numerous terms related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword.

SEO Bugbears and Sacred Cows

A hard look at the results shows that, practically speaking, a number of SEO bugbears and sacred cows may matter less to ranking than good content.

* PageRank. The median PageRank was 4. One page had a PageRank of 0. Of course, this might simply be yet another demonstration that the little PageRank number you get in your browser window is not what Google's algo is using. But if you're one of those people who attaches an overriding value to that little number, this is food for thought.

* Frames. The top two web pages listed for the most searched-on keyword employ frames. Frames may still be a bad web design idea from a usability standpoint, and they may ruin your search engine rankings if your site's linking system depends on them. But there are worse ways you could shoot yourself in the foot.

* JavaScript-formatted internal links. Most of the websites use JavaScript for their internal page links. Again, that's not the best web design practice, but there are worse things you could
do.

* Links: Most of the web pages contained ten or more links; many contained over 30, in defiance of the SEO bugbears about "link popularity bleeding." Moreover, nearly all the pages
contained a significant number of non-relevant links. On many pages, non-relevant links outnumbered relevant ones. Of course, it's not clear what benefit the website owners hope to get from placing irrelevant links on pages. It has been a proven way of lowering conversion rates and losing visitors. But Google doesn't seem to care if your website makes money.

* Originality: a significant number of pages contained content copied from other websites. In all cases, the content was professionally written content apparently distributed on a free-reprint basis. Note: the reprint content did not consist of content feeds. However, no website consisted solely of free-reprint content. There was always at least a significant portion of original content, usually the majority of the page.

Recommendations

* Make sure a professional writer, or at least someone who can tell good writing from bad, is creating your site's content, particularly in the case of a search-engine optimization campaign. If you are an SEO, make sure you get a pro to do the content. A shocking number of SEOs write incredibly badly. I've even had clients whose websites got fewer conversions or page views after their SEOs got through with them, even when they got a sharp uptick in unique visitors. Most visitors simply hit the "back" button when confronted with the unpalatable text, so the increased traffic is just wasted bandwidth.

* If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands of a skilled copyeditor or writer before going online.

* Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.

* Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a "duplicate content penalty" for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.

In short, if you have a mature website that is already indexed and getting traffic, you should consider making sure the bulk of your investment in your website is devoted to its content,
rather than graphic design, old-school search-engine optimization, or linking campaigns.

Not Your Usual Marketing Tips
Vol. 4, No. 3
March 7, 2006

Welcome to another edition of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips from JDK Marketing Communications Management.

The Charlotte Observer ran a fascinating article last month on (consumer) magazines that use numbers in their headlines to help sell that particular issue.

Harper’s Bazaar talks up “783 New Ideas to Flatter You,” Glamour magazine has “500 Spring Looks For All Shapes & Sizes,” Field & Stream magazine offers “19 Ways to Get Out Alive (Survival Skills).”

As one industry insider says, “It’s all voodoo.”

But as Cole Porter lyricized long before, “Do do that voodoo that you do so well.”

In other words, numbers – in all their mathematical mystery – have a hold on us because it somehow speaks to our sense of logic and specificity and preciseness and definitiveness.

“Bigger is better,” quotes the Observer. And “odd numbers seem more believable than even numbers…The odd number speaks to authenticity. If it’s odd, it can’t be made up or shouldn’t have been made up.”

“You’re alerting readers that you have the expertise, you’ve honed down the massive amount of information out there, especially with the Internet, and you won’t waste their time,” another expert observes.

So if it works for magazines, how about your own promoting efforts – say, through your brochures, your press releases, your website, your direct mail, your 30-second “elevator” speech? I don’t know about you, but I’ve represented 42 different industries through 23 various capabilities as I recently reached my 10th year as principal of JDK Marketing Communications Management.

Try incorporating significant statistics, facts, figures, records into your story…perhaps as they relate to case studies where you can show the measure – literally – of your capabilities in helping a client. They lend credence to your message, and cachet to your business.

Numbers…it all adds up.

Hope to see you 28 days from today for the next opus of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips.

Joel Kweskin
JDK Marketing Communications Management
704.846.4835, office
704.575.8850, cell
704.841.2746, fax
www.jdkmarketing.biz

Tools and Tips That Will Cut Waste and Fatten Your Profit Margins on Google AdWords
By Perry S. Marshall and Associates' Website

Perry S. Marshall and Associates specializes in Internet Marketing strategies. Following is an excerpt from one of their wonderful articles. Here is the entire original article.

Let's cut to the chase and talk about two of the most important factors in winning the Google AdWords game against other bidders.

These recommendations alone will easily double your profitability.

I am NOT exaggerating.

Two of the biggest mistakes people make:

1) Most people, including your competitors, are bidding on too few keywords, and missing the right ones

2) Most people never know which ads and keywords convert to visitors to sales and which ones don't.

If you start with enough keywords then get rid of the ones that don't generate sales, you will minimize waste, cut your bid prices, and earn the most money with Pay Per Click marketing.

Secret #1: The whole entire thing revolves around bidding on the right keywords!

Most new people will brainstorm a list of 10 or 20 or 30 keywords and bid on them. That's not nearly enough! If that's all you do, you'll only bid on the most expensive, obvious ones. And most of the time they'll be the WRONG keywords.

So for example if you sell hiking boots, you *might* want to bid on "hiking boots" but... maybe not. A better strategy is to focus more narrowly and / or bid on all kinds of other variations people are searching on:

discount hiking boots
hiking boot review
men's hiking boots
merrell hiking boots
salomon hiking boots
vasque hiking boots
woman's hiking boot
womens hiking boots

You'll get more targeted visitors and cheaper clicks. There are hundreds of possible phrases. If you want 5 and 10 cent clicks, Google's own suggestion tool won't cut the mustard.

One of my favorite keyword tools is WordTracker. For most any term, they'll give you 200-300 related words and phrases that real people have recently typed into search engines. WordTracker will give you stuff you'd have never thought of. Take their service for a test drive for a day or a week and I think you'll find it very useful.

Secret #2: Track Your Sales Conversion

The other key to your success is tracking visitors from the click to the opt-in to the sale. When you do this you'll find that most of the words you're bidding on do NOT convert to sales. This is what separates the men from the boys in Google AdWords!

Figure out what doesn't convert, delete it, and you'll instantly cut your ad spend by 50% or more, but your sales will stay the same. Your competition will be buying tire kickers, while you focus on the buyers. This is crucial!

How do you track? It’s not too difficult, and there are a number of good services out there you can use. Here’s a short list.

First of all, Google has a built-in "conversion tracking" tool that's linked to AdWords. You put their code in the "success" page on your site (i.e. the thank you page that comes after an order or other form is submitted) and along with your CTR statistics, Google will report the % of visitors who opt in or buy.

These tools are accessible within your account manager, and they're pretty easy to use.

To summarize:

1) most of your competitors are bidding on too few keywords, and missing the right ones;
2) they don't know which ones convert to sales and which ones don't.

If you start with enough keywords (by using a good keyword research tool) and eliminate the wrong ones (by tracking), you'll be miles ahead of everyone else!

Original article located at Perry S. Marshall and Associates' Website

Don't Fight It - Use It
by Esther C. Kane

When a client contacts me for SEO services I often have the unpleasant task of contacting the web designer to discuss the changes that need to take place on the website pages.

Believe me, it's the worst part of the job. Most web designers, in my experience, become extremely defensive. After all, I'm asking them to basically tear apart their websites and rebuild them. Often, rebuilding them in a fashion they don't consider aesthetically pleasing.

I know it's not easy to do, but I deal with it by sticking with the facts. If the site is not bringing in business to the website owner, then the site is not working for the business. And really, what's the point of having a business website if it doesn't bring in business?

I try to give the web designers I speak with as many tools as possible to help them re-design the site. There's no arguing with the fact that keywords bring in business, that fact has been well established for years now throughout the Internet. So, I urge all web designers to USE the power of the keywords. Bring your talents as a web designer to the table and incorporate these wonderful Internet marketing gems, Keywords, into the designs of the site.

Personally, I think it makes the entire web design process easier. Think about it...

If you know the keyword phrases that people are already typing in to find your client's products or services, then you already have a list of pages that you are going to create for that site.

For example: Let's say you're working on a site for a Yoga Studio in south Florida.
You have your list of keywords that have been researched and found to be the best keyword phrases (currently the best, it changes slightly every 30 days!)

Your list of phrases includes...

Florida Yoga Retreats
Florida Bikram Yoga
Florida Yoga Studio
South Florida Yoga
Hatha Yoga Position
Yoga Exercises
Yoga For Kids
Benefits of Yoga

Now, instead of creating a website with a "home page", an "about us page", a "services" page, etc. You've got more specific, targeted pages that you can create in order to bring in relevant traffic to the website.

You can create one page about "Florida Yoga Retreats".

You can create another page about "Florida Bikram Yoga".

Another about "Yoga for Kids", etc.

Stick to One Keyword phrase per website page and you'll be well on your way to creating a well designed and profitable website for your client.

These keyword phrases give you and your client a plan! A plan for each page of the website to be about a specific area of Yoga. Your graphics, your content will all be more focused on each of these keyword phrases. It's really such an easy way to create websites.

So, don't fight it, use it!! Keywords are a power tool for you and your clients. And the beauty of it is that keyword lists change every 30 days. So, you can keep the client current and ahead of his competitors by giving him new website pages every month based on new keyword phrases! It's a Win-Win situation! So Grab It!!!

Author: Esther C. Kane, Eckweb Designs, Inc. Specialzing in SEO services for small and home based business websites. Eckweb Designs has been giving their clients improved search engine rankings for almost 7 years! If you have any questions about SEO, contact Esther C. Kane today at eckweb@eckweb.com.