Do you have a Question about Internet marketing
or search engine optimization, or your website?
We'll answer your question privately
or in our next newsletter!
This Month's Question
Q: I want
a full flash website. I want my website to POP when people come to see it so why do I have to
change that flash website for Internet marketing?
A: Flash websites are beautiful, I
love how they look and move. But, search engines don't "see" flash. Maybe someday
they will. But at this time, they don't. Flash designs are basically "movies". The
Flash designer creates moving graphics that are so smooth, it's like watching a movie. That
"movie" is a string of graphics and search engines do not see graphics. Even the words
in a flash movie are graphics.
The workaround that many companies use is to create several websites. Or at the very least,
2 websites. I say several because the majority of flash websites are created for larger types
of companies so they have the resources to create several websites. Anyway, back to my point.
Creating one website for the flash and another for the "non-flash" is how many companies
have their cake and get to eat it too.
The flash website domain is usually the domain that they use on their print material like business
cards, stationary, email, etc. The non-flash website is the website that is used for marketing
on the Internet. Both websites can bring in traffic. One via traditional marketing and one via
the Internet.
It's the best of both worlds, at least until search engines can begin reading flash!
Following are some resources that I can
personally recommend!
Esther C. Kane
Eckweb Designs, Inc.
Call To Action - one factor of Internet
Marketing is getting people TO a website. But the second factor is getting people who come to
the website to DO what you want them to do! This book at times gets into the real "techy"
part of website design but it's filled with lots of very useful information on how to create that
Call To Action you want from your website visitors!
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Web Copy That Sells - writing great
copy or text is not easy. Copywriters earn every penny they make! But if you're so inclined to
write your own website copy, then take the time to learn how to do it! This book covers all styles
of writing from website copy to email copy.
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Never Check E-Mail In The Morning -
this book was recommended to me by Mike Silverman at Silver
Web Solutions in Georgia. I love the tips in this book, heck the title is a great tip! It's
an extremely well organized easy to read book! If you're a small business owner, or a solopreneur,
you'll love it too!
Click the book above
to buy your copy now!
Marketing Your Retail Store - is a
great book for anyone who owns a storefront and wants to either get their products onto the Internet
or they want to beef up their Internet store. This book is filled with great "tactics"
on ways to gain and keep more customers. It's a great read.
Celebrate the beginning of Spring
with National Craft Month!
Crafts are all about interacting.
How does your website get it's
visitors to interact? If it doesn't, you may be losing sales!
Marketing Tips
EXPOSE YOUR WEBSITE
by Esther Kane - Eckweb Designs
Following are tips that I've given for years now on how YOU can further exposre your website and
gain more traffic.
Put your URL (www.yourdomain.com) EVERYWHERE. That includes phone answering machine, stationary,
email signature, bumper sticker on your car, etc.
Write a newsletter or some form of information for your mailing list. Do SOMETHING to keep in touch
with your customers and potential customers.
Internet marketing is all about "niches". Make a list of the "niches" that you
service to and make sure that you have AT LEAST one website page devoted to that niche. For example,
instead of selling your fishing book to all fisherman, target it toward fly fisherman.
Use endorsements, testimonials, a strong guarantee or warranty, etc.
Increase your traffic by creating other web sites that relate to the latest new fad. You just advertise
your main web site on your fad web sites.
Tell people the purpose of your web site. When they visit a web site and have to figure out what
it's about, they may get frustrated and leave soon.
Persuade visitors to buy your product by telling them the future. Tell them what'll happen with
their life in the future if they buy or don't buy.
Tell your visitors what they can avoid by buying your product or service will motivate them
to buy. They may want to avoid pain, fear, danger, etc.
Offer daily or weekly visitor bonuses. This will increase your repeat traffic and sales because your
visitors will visit regularly to get the visitor bonuses.
Do you have an Internet Marketing Tip you would
like to share?
Do you have an article
that you would like
to share with us?
One of the BEST ways to market your web site is to show the Internet audience that you
KNOW your stuff!
If you would like to write an article about any of the following topics and submit it to our Newsletter,
we would love to review it for inclusion in future issues.
Our topics of interest are...
Marketing (General)
Internet Marketing
Small Business Issues
Web Design
Web Hosting
Web site Programming
This month I thought I'd hand out some tips and techniques I've learned in the business of SEO.
Some are business related and others are website related. I hope you find them useful.
1) I've noticed lately quite a few web designers create websites with
2 home pages. These two pages are identical except for the fact that their file name is different.
So, for example, one may be called index.html and the second may be called home.html. AVOID THIS
PRACTICE. Search engines can (and have the right) to ban an entire website if there are duplicate
pages. In addition, the actual home page of the website (index.html) looks (to a search engine)
as if it's not connected to the rest of the website because there are no back links to it from within
the website.
2) When it comes to the SEO business, the customer is NOT ALWAYS RIGHT.
If you have proven to yourself and others that you can get your websites into the search engines
and ranked highly in the search engines for fairly competitive keyword phrases, then do yourself
a favor and STAND YOUR GROUND. There is no certification or college degree for SEO. Everything is
learned through books, magazines, and mostly the Internet. So, anyone can learn it, if they really
want to. It's the people who have learned just a little (or too much of the wrong information) that
will argue with your technique. Just let them know they may not be a good fit (as a client) for
your company and they need to look elsewhere. PERIOD.
3) Page names that have underscores "_" and are capitalized
"Index.html" go against SEO efforts. Here's why. If you're going to go through the bother
of naming a page with a name that is more than 1 word, you're probably trying to use a keyword phrase
or descriptor for that page name. So, why insert an underscore there to separate the two words?
Underscores are not seen as a separator to search engines. Dashes are. So, for example, let's say
you want to name a website page "privacy policies.html". Don't use "privacy_policies.html",
to a search engine that page name looks like this, "privacypolicies.html", which defeats
the whole purpose of having 2 words. Instead, use a dash, "privacy-policies.html". This
way, the search engines can read it as 2 words and if you're using a keyword phrase in that page
name, you'll gain some points in the search engine rankings.
As for capitalizations of page names. Using the above example:, let's say you name your website
page "Privacy-Policies.html". Don't do that. Why? Because search engines will then record
2 pages for this one. One page will be "Privacy-Policies.html" and the other will be "privacy-policies.html".
Why? Because some website servers (namely Unix and Macintosh) are capital letter sensitive. Those
systems assume that these two URLs are completely different files. So even if the website you create
is currently on a server that is NOT capital letter sensitive, you're doing your client an injustice
by capitalizing those page names. Who knows how long the client will remain at that server. If the
client moves to another server, he/she will have to pay someone to rename all those files.
4) Organizing 100+ clients, daily workloads, phone calls and incoming
emails is not an easy task. I've tried several project management programs and several "systems"
but none seem to have worked until I started using Gmail and the Google Calendar. These free and
simple tools have really helped me to stay on target. If you haven't tried them, check them out!
If you need an invitation to gmail, let me know!
5) Loose and old pages, graphics, etc. on servers. 98% of the time,
as an seo webmaster, I begin seo work on websites that are already built and running. So, you can
imagine, I get to see server files from a large variety of web designers. And I have to say, there
are not many who keep a tidy house. (I'm guilty of that as well!). But there is a problem (as far
as internet marketing goes) when old files are left on the website server. You see, search engines
may have already indexed those files. And if they did, they will still "see" the file
when they come back to visit the website page. Even if the link was removed from the existing website.
So, these old files are still "out there" on the Internet and it could cause alot of problems,
duplicate content, wrong information given to someone who finds it, broken links from the old pages,
etc. So, this is what I do. I create a folder called "unused". I move all old files, graphics,
etc. into that folder. And I add the "unused folder" into the robots.txt file so that
it's not indexed by the search engines.
Just kidding. It's next to impossible to keep up with every new "event" on the internet
these days!
Anyway, let me tell you about this new website and how it can help you with your business and your
website.
StumbleUpon.com is a social bookmarking website. That means that it's a website where many people
go to and basically "bookmark" websites that they find. Their "bookmark" is
then shared with everyone who joins StumbleUpon.com.
It's sort of like going to the video store (do people still do that?) and going to the aisle where
they have "employees' favorites". That aisle filled with videos that the employees have
chosen several videos as a "must watch movie" is the store's "social bookmarking".
Social bookmarking websites (and there are MANY) can help your business in several ways...
1) It's a place you can advertise for FREE. You not only get to place your favorite websites but
you also get to post your profile. Who you are, what you do, etc.
2) It's a great way to get links back to your website. Although, it's not specifically targeted
to an audience.
3) If you do find a social bookmarking website that is specific to your target audience or your
industry then the leads from that site are absolutely the best to get!
4) In addition, industry specific or target audience specific social bookmarking websites will also
give you links to many other websites that you may have not stumbled upon in your regular searches
on the Internet.
5) Did I mention that bookmarking websites are FREE?
So, give it a try. Here are just a few social bookmarking websites...
This refrigerator magnet arrived at my house recently, a reminder that my wife and I are invited
to the wedding of the son of one of our oldest friends this coming November.
(Let’s see now: wedding of a friend’s child; the recent news that your own cholesterol
and blood pressure have been on the rise; you take glucosimine and chondroitin daily to maintain
healthy joint lubrication; you just had a birthday that has put you well past the age of AARP enrollment…if
these aren’t signs that Sun City beckons, I don’t know what is…)
The magnet, Joel, the magnet..! Oh yes…Anyway, I thought that was a pretty neat idea –
to send out an item as a personal “vehicle” otherwise associated with marketing. The
magnet then got me thinking about things like…magnets. And coffee mugs. And pens. What we
up North used to call “chochkes.”
Welcome to this month’s edition of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips from JDK Marketing Communications
Management.
We all know what they are and we all know what their role is in the marketing mix. But sometimes
these chochkes – ad specialty, or promotional items – are taken for granted. And by
that I mean too often they’re selected by the marketer without significant thought given to
the relationship to either the marketer or the intended recipients.
Friend, colleague, neighbor and ad specialties guru Matt Coben, president of Thunder Road Brandworks,
Inc. -- http://thunderroadbrandworks.com/ (704-335-9956)
-- takes these trinket doo-dads seriously. As well he should; according to Wikipedia, it’s
an industry with sales in excess of $17 billion. In just a couple of examples noted in the online
Business Odyssey Chronicle, 39 percent of people receiving a promotional product could recall the
name of the advertiser as long as six months after they received it according to a study. And promotional
products used in direct mail solicitations were found to boost response rates by up to 75 percent,
in another study.
“Trinkets & Trash, Swag, Chochkes, call them what you will,” says Matt. “Most
people think of tee shirts, golf balls, pens and coffee cups. At the end of the day, it is still
the representation of your company’s brand. It comes down to this: more time should be spent
on how to display your brand than goes into choosing the brand of toilet tissue for the corporate
wash room.
“How many times have you expectantly waited while you watched your client/prospect take your
gift pen and scratch on that piece of paper until the ink started flowing. Kind of makes the sweat
start on your forehead just thinking about it, doesn’t it?
“Why not work with an expert who has taken the time to research who not only makes the pen,
but the cartridge as well. If it’s only about price, you may end up being penny wise and pound
foolish. After all, everything you put out into the world with your name or logo on it speaks to
the quality and integrity of your business.
“But once you’re committed to producing a promotional item, are you prepared for some
rep to come to your office, drop a pile of catalogs on your desk and say ‘tell me what you
want’..?
“Or, would you rather consult with an industry professional who will present ideas that match
your marketing goals? Do yourself a favor and stay away from the ‘trunk slammers,’ and
talk to a pro that will take the time to get to know you, your product/service and the marketplace
in which you conduct business. A pro who goes to trade shows and stays on top of the latest products,
gadgets and trends.”
Words to the wise. Worthy of inscription on a coffee mug.
A very large coffee mug, of course…
Yours truly, for instance, has been sending out annually for the past five years a nifty, compact
adhesive calendar, ostensibly for the computer keyboard or atop the monitor, which places my name
and company name in front of the recipient on a daily basis. Every time that person sits down at
the computer (that’s pretty much every day, and throughout the day, isn’t it?), he or
she sees my mini “advertisement.” Along, of course, with every day of every month for
ease of scheduling.
So that’s it for now, but mark on your calendar the first Tuesday of next month for another
freebie offering of Not Your Usual Marketing Tips.
And look for this e-zine at two other sites worth spending time with – Esther Kane’s
“improved and affordable search engine and web designs” place: www.eckweb.com
and Charlotte’s news compendium for diversity-related business and fun activities, www.lifeincharlotte.com
Joel Kweskin
PS: It’s April – bring on Baseball…and Happy Passover
and Happy Easter, respectively, to those of you celebrating this week
Little Brain Teaser
- Or Is It?
Sent in by Paula Moore
CAN YOU READ IT?
Fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 % of plepoe can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of
the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr
the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the
rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae
the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh
and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.
Paula Moore specializes in web design, graphic design and flash design.
She's my CSS guru! For amazing logos and web designs, contact Paula Moore at PickMeAndMoore.com
For Web Designers
Planning To Succeed
By Esther C. Kane
Eckweb Designs, Inc.
There is a SIMPLE technique that all web designers should use when they begin planning a website
design. Some papers call it "theme design" others call it "silo design", but
whatever you call it, use it! It'll not only make YOUR life easier but it'll help your client's
website gain top rankings in the search engines.
1) Find out what the MAIN THEME of the website will be.
In our example site, the main theme is "children's entertainment".
2) Make a list of sub-themes for the website.
In our example site, our sub-themes are, "children's birthday parties", "school assembly
programs", "summer camp programs", "fundraising programs", "magic
entertainment for children", "musical entertainment for children"
3) Now, under each sub-theme you'll want to make a list of the subjects
that need to be addressed for each area.
In our example site, this list would look like...
Sub-Theme 1 - Children's Birthday Parties
a) Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Cost
d) Details of the entertainment provided
e) Online reservation form
f) Testimonials
g) Child Safety certification (if any)
h) Products sold through the website
i) Order products online
Sub-Theme 2 - School Assembly Programs
a)Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Cost
d) Details of the assembly program provided
e) Online reservation form
f) Testimonials
g) Products sold through the website
h) Order products online
(This may be further broken down to a sub-theme for elementary schools, another for junior high
schools and another for pre-schools - in essense there would end up being 3 sub-themes under the
main sub-theme of school assembly programs)
Sub-Theme 3 - Summer Camp Programs
a) Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Cost
d) Details of the summer camp program provided
e) Online reservation form
f) Testimonials
g) Products sold through the website
h) Order products online
Sub-Theme 4 - Fundraising Programs
a) Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Cost
d) Details of the fundraising program provided
e) Online reservation form
f) Testimonials
Sub-Theme 5 - Magic Entertainment For Children
a) Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Details of the magic entertainment programs provided
d) Testimonials
e) Products sold through the website
f) Order products online
Sub-Theme 5 - Musical Entertainment For Children
a) Geographies served
b) Ages served
c) Details of the magic entertainment programs provided
d) Testimonials
e) Products sold through the website
f) Order products online
So, what does this plan tell you?
1) It tells you the navigation menu will have at least 8 buttons. The main page, each sub-theme
and a contact page.
2) It tells you how many different sections (different pages) each sub-theme will have.
3) It gives the search engines a clear definition of the "themes" or "groups"
of information on this website.
I'm sure you can re-create this Plan for your own websites!
Feel free to pass this this newsletter on to others who
are interested in SEO! If you are not on our subscription list, complete our form and subscribe today! Eckweb
Designs, Inc. is committed to protecting your privacy, we do not share or sell our email lists with anyone.
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