SEO is no place for amateurs

How Come everybody is nowadays an SEO Expert?

Let’s face it; not a day goes by where we don’t see someone offering their services as a Search Engine Optimization specialist. The strange thing is however, many of the people offering such services on the various forums tend to have no runs on the board themselves. Of course, I’m not saying there aren’t a great deal of reputable internet marketing services out there, but they are becoming increasingly outnumbered by those with little or no experience at all, and it is these people and their companies which are highly unlikely to ever produce satisfactory results for their clients.

Perhaps one should bear in mind that there is no difference between investing your money in internet marketing, and investing your money in a regular market. In both cases you need to measure your results just as you need to target the correct audience. For example, you wouldn’t even consider wasting your money by advertising your product or your service in a newspaper that is completely irrelevant to your target market. Advertising is done for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to bring in a return on your investment, irrespective of whether the advertising is done online or offline.

Why you Should Avoid the Amateurs

Essentially, you need to bear in mind that while any Tom, Dick, and Harry can learn about search engine optimization, it takes several years of dedication, practice, and careful analysis, in order to fully understand the different techniques, and how to apply different techniques to different types of business.

The bottom line is; a SEO campaign is in fact a highly intensive process that starts out with intense keyword research in order to establish which keywords are the most likely to produce maximum results for a website. Once the ideal keywords have been established, it can be incredibly tempting to simply spread them around on your website and hope for the best. However, in most cases you’ll find that the most popular keywords also have the most competition. As such, why bother targeting particular key words, irrespective of how popular they are, if there’s virtually no chance they are going to help in terms of ranking? In fact, you could end up waiting for several months before the major search engines start recognizing your website.

On the other hand, a specialist who is highly skilled in internet marketing will be aware of which relevant keywords and keyword phrases will help to improve a website’s ranking. Likewise, a true professional will also know where the keywords and keyword phrases should be placed on a website in order for them to have the maximum amount of impact, without being penalized for keyword stuffing.

Onsite optimization of keywords is notoriously time consuming if it’s being done properly. But if your goal is to give a website a boost in search engine ranking, then this optimization process needs to be continued off-site as well. Here again, a competent SEO professional will know exactly how to go about implementing a successful link building campaign, including article marketing, submitting articles to directories, taking advantage of several social networking sites, and also social book marking.

Furthermore, because a professional SEO specialist appreciates the importance of being able to get a good return on investment, they will also make use of Analytics tools in order to track conversions and monitor the success of an internet marketing campaign. Bear in mind, that these tools are essential in order to fine tune any good SEO campaign.

Steer Clear of Internet Marketing Fraudsters

Unfortunately, but also as is to be expected, the internet is full of undesirable people who focus entirely on targeting honorable businesses by means of providing them with false promises regarding guaranteed results. These people will more often than not guarantee that they will get your website to the top of the search rankings by using specific keywords. However, in most cases, they simply use keywords which are so rarely used, they show at the top of search rankings simply because they have no competition – nobody uses them. Obviously, if nobody is ever typing that keyword into the search box, then why waste money on it? One of the easiest ways to determine whether or not an internet marketing expert is in fact legitimate, is that the legitimate ones never offer any guarantees with regards to getting you in the top spot on search results. This is because they know that nobody can guarantee such results due to a number of reasons, such as algorithms which change continuously.

How to Avoid the Wrong Internet Marketing Service

First and foremost, you need to ask the right questions:

1. You need to determine how long the company has been involved with Internet marketing.
2. You should ask to see testimonials from past clients.
3. You should search online for their services. In fact, you should attempt to find their website by using keywords and keyword phrases which are relevant to the services they offer. Obviously, if you fail to find them on the first page of Google search results, then your alarm bells should start ringing. For example, if you were considering using the services of Sunshine Coast Internet Marketing Company, you could do a search for Sunshine Coast Internet marketing, internet marketing Sunshine Coast, and etc.

The most important thing of all is that you acknowledge the fact that going with the wrong internet marketing company can end up costing you a considerable amount of money for nothing. On the other hand, if you choose to use the services of a reputable company, you can almost be certain that your website will end up ranking much higher than it did before.

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The Importance Of Creating Resistance In Your Copy

“Creating Resistance in Your Copy” is an idea that is alien to most online marketers. After all, online marketers want to believe that everyone should buy their products and services, because the more people buying what is being sold, the more money the marketer will inevitably earn.

Alien Marketing Concept

This concept is so alien that most Internet marketers who see this article will react as if they are “deer in the headlights”. If you are looking at this article with a blank stare – completely bewildered about my suggestion – then you are likely one of many, who are reacting the same way.

Just the other day, I had this conversation with a small businessperson. The person with whom I was speaking was clearly bewildered at the suggestion, and she asked me, “What exactly do you mean by ‘create resistance’?”

I told her that “creating resistance” is the concept of eliminating some of your prospects, before they reach the sales page.

Taking a step back, she said, “What? Why would you want to do that?”

I explained to her what I am ready to explain to you now.

In her case, by the time I finished explaining the idea to her, she realized that she was already doing that – albeit, unconsciously.

Why Would Anyone Want To Create Resistance In Sales Copy?

When you are writing sales copy for a product, there is seldom a need to create resistance in your sales copy. In fact, when selling a product, the need is more often to wipe out, eliminate, diminish or neutralize consumer resistance in your sales copy.

Unless you are creating a product that sells for high dollar and you intend to offer it exclusively to a select number of people, the necessity of creating resistance in product sales copy is almost non-existent.

However, if you are selling a service, the reasons for creating resistance in your sales copy are endless.

For example:

One company we work with is an Internet marketing consulting company. The company provides its services to other businesses based on the billable hour or specific service.

In the case of this company, it does not make sense to talk to customers who cannot spend a minimum of $300 per month with them. As a result, they have created resistance in their sales copy to eliminate the broke, do-it-yourself, home business owner from their list of prospects. As a small consulting firm, it is essential for them to separate the wheat from the chaff quickly.

By requiring an appointment for a free consultation, they direct prospects to a form to be filled out. In that form, they require phone numbers and email addresses, and they request the prospect to be as detailed as possible so that the free consultation will be meaningful.

Another company we work with is a Virtual Assistant Agency. Once again, it is a matter of finding the customers who can actually afford the service. By telling prospects in advance that the minimum billing per month is $1000, the company is able to ensure that the only companies contacting them are those who seriously need virtual assistant(s) to help complete work.

By signing the contract, the customer acknowledges in advance that they should send enough work to the virtual assistant to ensure that the $1000 per month minimum will not go to waste.

Consumers Have A Natural Resistance To Sales Copy

All of the great sales copywriting teachers speak to the notion of “sales resistance” – the natural roadblocks in the mind of the consumer that holds the consumer back from making a purchase.

I actually found it quite interesting in that while researching this article, I could NOT find anyone talking about “creating resistance” in sales copy. The guru’s are only talking about how to “eliminate” or “melt away sales resistance”.

Now, one might argue that the reason no one is discussing the creation of resistance in sales copy is because one should not do it. But I have had this discussion with a lot of people. Although no one is talking about doing it, service providers who have been in business for a number of years tend to deliberately build “sales resistance” into their sales presentations!

Identifying And Eliminating Time Wasters

Once a service business has been in operation a number of years, the owners / managers of those businesses tend to start seeing patterns that frequently cause financial losses to the company.

When as a business owner / manager, you discover that certain customers cost more money than they generate for your business, you will seek ways to remedy that problem. Often times, it makes far more sense not to sell to certain people – the people who have exhibited certain traits that will lead to nothing but lost productivity for the service provider.

If you operate a service business, you will likely have seen similar patterns yourself. In my case, there are certain behaviors that some prospects exhibit that set off red flags for me. I used to ignore those “red flag” moments, but I always regretted doing so later.

The number one red flag for me in my business is the “carrot on the stick” approach offered by some prospects. It goes something like this: “I am going to try this once, and if it works out, I will send you tons of business.”

When I was in college, I used to wait tables in a restaurant. I saw the same behavior even then. People would come in and make grandiose promises at the beginning of the meal, “If you give us great service, we tip really well.”

Don’t believe it for a moment! It is a lie, usually designed to get something for nothing or to encourage you to discount your services, “just for them”.

When I was waiting tables, it did not matter how good of service you gave those guys. You could ignore every other table in the restaurant to give them better service and the tip never exceeded two pennies!

In my business, if you bite the bait, they will take their discount this “one time”, and then they are gone… forever… I know their disappearance is not because my service is less than worthy… I have too many customers who have been with me for years; to believe that my service was the reason those people never came back.

I have learned that the “carrot on the stick” approach is designed to take advantage of people – to take advantage of me.

Once a prospect raises this red flag for me, I kill the free advice and the extra attention that I give to their job. I do the job and let the chips fall where they may – my basic service will stand on its own, without any effort to help the customer get more out of it. I will not let this person waste any more of my time, period. Unless this person comes back for additional service, I no longer spend extra time with them.

Eliminating Time Wasters Is Easy If You Create Resistance In Your Copy

As a service provider, you DO want to eliminate “sales resistance” in your basic sales copy. Once you have tweaked your copy to help the majority of your prospects to overcome their natural resistance to your sales message, then it is time to add some resistance back into your copy.

You want as many people to buy your service as possible, but you also want to discourage those that you know will be a waste of your time and resources.

My friend who has the consulting business allows people an initial consultation to help him and the customer to determine if they will be able to work together and if his consulting company will be able to add value to the prospects business. In his sales copy, he points out that after the initial consultation, all hours will be billable hours. Because he makes his prospects jump through hoops to get the free consultation, he is assured that he is only going to have real prospects at the other end of the phone line during a free consultation. And because his prospects understand that all work beyond the initial free consultation is billable work, they don’t waste his limited time.

The Virtual Assistant does not need to layer on the resistance at the same level. By clearly explaining what one should expect in terms of the service within the first thirty days of the agreement, it becomes self-evident to the prospect that the service is not for the faint at heart. Investing in a virtual assistant can be a bit expensive, but the payoff can also be quite large. By laying out a map of what one can expect from the service, it clearly defines to the prospect what the cost of such a service could be. And as such, it quickly filters out those people who are not a good fit for the Virtual Assistant’s company.

In my case, I don’t provide much sales resistance in my sales copy to my prospective customers. In fact, the only sales resistance in my copy is my prices.

The companies that call me a competitor have lower prices than I do – much lower prices. Although they refer to me as one of THEIR competitors, I really don’t consider them to be mine. My service is so much different from theirs that I find it very difficult to think of them as “MY competition”.

For people who take the time to get educated about my service or to take it for a real spin around the block with a full ten article distributions, my higher prices are often considered a great investment of resources. With the built-in sales resistance in the form of a higher price, my customers ensure that I always serve higher-quality authors – authors who understand that the power of article marketing is in the strength of the content.

I Might Be Going Out On A Limb With This Article…

The fact that I could not find anyone else discussing the value of “adding sales resistance to sales copy” may suggest that I am just a total goof. But I do know for a fact that small business owners in the service industry do deliberately create sales resistance in their copy.

In the conversation that I mentioned in the beginning of this article – the one where I was discussing this idea with a small businessperson, who had her “deer in the headlights” moment – the lady I was speaking with said to me after I explained the concept to her, “Oh, you mean like when I tell my customers that we provide ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’?”

Indeed! Telling your prospects that you provide ‘quality’ over ‘quantity’ automatically tells your prospects that your services may be a bit more expensive, but the quality of the work will more than make up for the difference in pricing.

I know that many small business owners do deliberately build sales resistance into their sales copy, and I cannot blame them for doing so.

I also know that my pricing is a disincentive to some people to use my services. But that is okay too. The publishers who receive articles from me know that I distribute a higher quality article. They may not realize that it is because of the pricing resistance on my site, but they do know that we typically distribute some of the best-written articles available online, from some of the biggest names in their industries.

At the end of a ten-article cycle, most of my customers find that their articles have found publication on websites that have a much higher perceived value in the Internet marketplace. In fact, it is not at all uncommon for me to hear from clients who are happy to share that they have generated several thousand dollars in new sales as a result of an article I distributed for them. Now that is music to my ears…

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

How To Monitor Search Engine Positions

Since search engines are the first stop for people on the Internet looking for goods or services, the position your website appears in search results is an important factor. If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally. Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is essential that you make sure you maintain the high ranking you have worked so hard to achieve.

This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your search engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is the way you must consider your search engines positions.

Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search engine campaign and done all the right things to increase your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens, your search engine position campaign moves into stage two, the monitoring and protecting stage.

In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio. Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole process. It’s the long-term changes that you must watch for and prepare to act on immediately.

Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions is imperative. The way in which search engines rank websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware of these changes—many of which are subtle yet can be deadly to your ranking—your position may drop to the bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your top pages, and make sure to watch “the market” closely.

Each search engine uses a formula to compute website rankings. When a search engine changes this formula in any way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search engines use a number of different formulas, rotating them so that a formula doesn’t become overused or outdated. Depending on which formula is being applied, your search engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes formulas and what effect it has on your positions.

You must also deal with your competition—a crucial factor you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor’s position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the continual changes that are occurring in your competitor’s position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these fluctuations will also give you vital information about how to improve your website to increase your position in search results.

Of course, you must discern what the most popular search engines are in order for your monitoring efforts to be effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines that direct most of Internet traffic to your sites. The challenge you face is that these top ten may change from month to month.

This means that your must not only monitor your search engine positions, but you must also keep track of the ranking popularity of the search engines you are monitoring. Find out which search engines people use most frequently every month and be sure to live in the present! People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and it takes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The search engines they loved when you first launched your campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the Internet users. Check out http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html for a current list of website favorites.

Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of your positions in all search engines. This is not the same as monthly fluctuations—this is a neon red warning sign! It could mean a number of different things.

It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may indicate that search engines spiders—those sneaky programs that seek out your site and rank their positions—have found some type of problem with your website. If you have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider may become utterly confused and consequently drop your positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or a search engine may drastically change its formula, and suddenly all of your websites come up as irrelevant. If that search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino effect, causing all of your position to drop in all search engines.

Some search engines rely on the results from other search engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in the geography of the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape of the Internet as a whole.

Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts. If you have found that a number of your positions have plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders. Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase has recently rocketed into outer space. In either case, you must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.

Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this investment as diligently as you would your financial portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards by keeping your eye on the big picture—your long-term marketing campaign.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Which Website Visitors Are Potential Clients?

With today’s website tracking software and services you can find out a lot about the people who visit your website. You can learn where they’re from, what kind of browser they’re using, how long they stayed on your site, and a whole lot more. But what all this high tech intelligence won’t tell you is what kind of people they are, and how likely they are to be transformed by your Web presentation from viewers to customers.

Your ability to convert website visitors into clients depends on your ability to find the soft underbelly of their subconscious desire. After all, if someone is happy with what they’ve already got, they don’t need you, but if they were truly one hundred percent happy, they wouldn’t bother coming to your website. Therefore every visitor that comes to your site is a potential client whether they know it or not.

The Setup’s The Thing

Your website presentation has to find that annoying little subconscious scab just under the surface and pick at it until it becomes a full blown irritation that fosters discontent and a desire for change. That discontent is your opening to make your value statement.

We refer to this process as The Setup. Like any good presentation you cannot, or rather should not, just blurt out how great you are, but rather you have to set the scene. Like any good story, the punch line, moral, or payoff only works if it is properly setup. Far too many website presentations suffer from premature pitch climax.

The ability to transform viewers into customers requires patience. Entrepreneurial companies tend to view the setup as a waste of time, and they fear losing viewers before they ever get to the so-called “good-stuff.” But without a proper setup, an audience is just not primed to accept what you have to say.

You can’t sell anybody anything unless they understand they’ve not been getting everything they need and deserve. That understanding creates dissatisfaction with your competition and opens the audience’s minds to what you have to offer. In short, the setup needs to touch a psychological nerve.


The Customer Is Always Right – Not Quite

We’ve all heard the expression, “the customer is always right.” The fact is the customer is not always right, and in many cases they don’t really know what they want or what they should have; and sometimes even when they do, they resist it because of a variety of misinformation, misunderstanding, self-doubt, and preconceived notions of conventional wisdom. It’s your website presentation’s job to set visitors on the right path.


Being The Expert Inspires Confidence

You’re supposed to be the expert in what you do, and if you are, you need to have the ability to dig deeper into what people really want, need, and desire. I am always reminded of friends of mine who hired an interior decorator to furnish their new home. The decorator asked them what kind of furniture they liked. They answered that they were looking for Colonial, to which the decorator answered, “No you aren’t. What you want is Country French.” And after he showed my friends what he was talking about they quickly agreed. The decorator knew his business and understood the clients. Yes the clients liked the idea of the homey Colonial look they’d seen, but not being furniture experts they didn’t understand what the options were, and what kind of furniture best suited their lifestyle and budget, while still providing the homey rustic but comfortable aesthetic they wanted. Customer satisfaction is about providing what the client really wants and not necessarily what they say they want.

Learn How To Communicate So Audiences Get It

Let’s face it; we all like to read about how the digital revolution has opened up the business world to more audience influence, but the fact is people are influenced and manipulated and desires created through marketing and advertising as much as ever. How many website owners actually benefit in any meaningful way from social networking and search optimization, or do they do it because it’s expected and promoted by proponents as the tactic du jour.

If you think a particular song you like is played on a thousand radio stations because it’s good, or even because it has a following then you are living in a fantasy world. If you thing the vast majority of viral videos produced by corporations go viral all by themselves then think again.

Audiences are being manipulated and transformed into customers all the time, not because companies responded to what the public says, but rather to how the public reacts to various communication and marketing stimuli. What’s truly amazing is how bad companies are at doing it. With all of the television industries’ research into viewers, they still fail to deliver consistent quality programming that people want to watch. Every Fall new shows are yanked faster than a Nolan Ryan fastball, but the same crappy commercials live-on for what seems an eternity. Television viewers are a captive audience and if they want to watch their favorite show they have to tolerate the commercials (PVRs aside), but the Web is different. If your website presentation stinks, nobody is going to stick around to absorb the smell.

Web Television Convergence Has Arrived

If you think of your website presentation as nothing more than a digital brochure, you’re already behind the curve. Welcome to the Web on TV.

All you need is a laptop computer or one of the new gaming consoles attached to your big screen TV to access the Web on television. And as network programmers scramble to get their acts together more and more people are opting to spend their television time on the Web. Kind of makes you rethink what kind of website presentation you should be offering. It’s time to start thinking of your website as your own business channel and the content on it as programming. It’s the future and it’s here, now.

Who Visits Your Website?

Before website visitors can be transformed into clients, we have to understand who they are in terms of their mental outlook or frame of mind when they first arrive at your home page.

1. Accidental Tourists

Accidental Tourists are website visitors who find their way to your website by serendipity. Your company’s link may have come up in a search for something mentioned on your website, but not something that’s a core element of your business. But just because these people didn’t really intend to visit a site like yours doesn’t mean they’re a waste of time. Perhaps they never thought of using your product or service, or perhaps they never realized how much they really wanted what you have to offer. If your website presentation is exciting, meaningful, and entertaining you at least have the opportunity to plant the seed of desire for your product or service.

2. Brain Pickers

Brain Pickers show up at your site with little intention to buy anything, in fact they’re there to pick your brain and find out how to do what you do for themselves. But if you’re truly an expert at what you do, you at least have the opportunity to show these people that what you offer is special, and doing it right requires a company with your skills and resources.

3. Penny Pinchers

These guys are looking for a bargain. You are on a list and they are checking out who is offering the cheapest solution to their problem. But not all Penny Pinchers are penny-wise and pound-foolish, some, just need to understand why you’re the best at what you do, and why what you are charging is the real bargain.

4. Tire Kickers

The Tire Kickers love to look but rarely buy. They want what you’ve got but they just can’t make the commitment to buy it. They visit your website a hundred times, each time pressing their noses against the virtual storefront window trying to make a decision that rarely comes.

It’s up to your website presentation to push them over the edge. If they want what you’ve got, you can sell it to them. All you need to do is find that soft under belly of desire that gets them eager to spend their money.

5. Missourians

These guys want what you offer but need the reassurance of some practical input to get them to buy. The desire is there, but it’s frustrated by their mental need to justify the purchase with practical excuses. “But Honey, I know little Johnny is only three, but think of the eye-hand co-ordination he’ll learn playing these video games.” People ultimately buy what they want, and rationalize the purchase with logic and reasoning, but without desire, no amount of statistical evidence will work.

6. The Enemy

If you’re any good, you’ll have plenty of competitors hanging around your website looking for ideas they can use. It’s all part of the game. Better to be out there showing people what you’ve got than hiding, afraid someone might take advantage. Besides if you’re really good, you’ll always be at least one step ahead of the competition anyway. That makes you the leader and them the follower. And everybody wants to do business with the leader.

7. The Needy

The Needy crave what you’ve got but need a lot of reassurance, handholding, and customer support. These guys have the potential to be good customers but your presentation has to make it clear that you’ll be there to answer questions and concerns and not just leave them in the lurch like so many other Web-based businesses do after they’ve got the sale.

In The End

If you’re fed-up with social networking self-gratification, frustrated by ever changing site optimization requirements, and ineffective advertising then it’s time to re-evaluate what your website presentation says and how it says it.

In the final analysis it’s all about communicating your emotional value proposition using your most important venue, your website; delivered in the most engaging, informative, and memorable manner that compels your audience to pay attention to your marketing message, and act upon it.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

User Experience – How Your Visitors Perceive Your Website

The concept of user experience, and the consideration of ideas that lend toward the optimization of that concept, have created a field of interest and study that is growing as a concrete and primary business model regarding the online world. The focus on user experience is defined through standards that involve multiple dynamics. A paramount is placed upon not only the user’s perception of a web site, but also the sites ability to efficiently serve the user’s needs while simultaneously reflecting the business operatives sought after by the owner of the site.

There are many standard sets, such as The Stanford Guidelines, which relate to the functional aspects of a web site, referring to credibility, updates, and other performance based ideals. However, evaluating and applying user experience principles involves a more complex and multifaceted mindset. When dealing with UX, (user experience) a web designer or programmer must incorporate concepts that exist independently, but also blend smoothly and work efficiently.

User Experience is about more than just building a website

Many believe it is the responsibility of the web design company to implement UX effectively in ones websites, yet in reality this is a common misconception by many business and associates. In reality, all areas of development of a website are critical, especially the content as it contains the philosophy of your business and is the key in sharing this philosophy with your users. Along with effective content organization, marketing techniques and add to the overall effectiveness of a web-site, by understanding what your visitors are looking for when they visit your site.

There are many aspects of User Experience that are very complicated and in many ways this discipline is still being developed and mastered. Many debate whether the topic is even a distinct area of study. Louis Rosenfeld, an author and publisher who focuses on web information architecture claims of UX that, “At best, it’s a common awareness, a thread that ties together people from different disciplines who care about good design.” While this may be true in many aspects, the discipline albeit still forming, is commanding extensive attention via statistical research methods throughout the online arena.

The Specific Set Of Concepts To Follow

The UX Honeycomb Model, designed by information architect Peter Morville, lays out a specific set of Concepts to be systematically applied when designing a site. Usability with a strong focus on emotional design principles use functional aspects to provide comfort and attraction to a given website.

This supports the fact that all facets of custom web design and consultation come into play when analysing how a user will feel and react when they visit your site.

One of the important areas to think about when implementing UX principles is to consider other proven sites without copying the exact UX. User Experience is really very complicated and can’t simply be applied through blanket methodology. The unique user experience if defined via the identity and purpose of each individual site. Therefore, attempting to apply standard methods in order to copy a set formula of another site with a different set of values can be not only detrimental, but also wasteful.

Every site must have its own unique angle when it comes to User Experience

Every project engaging UX principles call for a custom outline predicated on the business or non-profit’s available resources, abilities, timeline, finances, and a plethora of realistic factors.

Additionally, because the concept of UX is based on users or people, a detailed paradigm of interpersonal qualities in many ways define the effectiveness of user experience initiatives.

Therefore, attempting to broadly and forcefully incorporate a devotion to UX, rather delicately fuse it with existing business principles, would be an ineffective strategy. Steve Baty, principal and user experience strategist at Meld Consulting, concludes that, “People cling to things like personas, user research, drawing comics, etc…In reality the best designers have a toolbox of options, picking and choosing methods for each project what makes sense for that particular project.”

In the world of online efficiency, user experience models and principles are in many ways the logistic DNA of a site as it relates to its audience. In effect, the result of that blueprint proves to be the signature or fingerprint that separates a simply conducive web site from an engaging, capturing, and truly optimal site that rewards the user, developer, and company in a similarly gratifying manner.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

Size Really Does Matter – At Least When it Comes to Twitter

Back in the days when newsletters first hit the Internet, they were usually published in text format because many email clients did not support HTML email just yet. One of the problems many publishers faced was long URL’s being split in half and not being clickable to the reader. To solve this problem, shortening services started to spring up that would take a long URL and cut it down to a reasonable size.

With the popularity of Twitter and the confines of 140 characters, URL (link) shortening services are in high demand once again. When you have such a small amount of space to work with, no one wants a long URL cutting into that precious real estate.

There are a variety of shortening services to choose from, each having their own specific features and benefits. Most of them do work hand in hand with Twitter, allowing you to Tweet the link once it’s been shortened. If you’re an avid Twitter user this is a useful feature to have.

Some only offer a basic shortening service, but many allow you to view stats and metrics on your newly shortened links if you register. If you’re doing any form of social media marketing, it’s nice to be able to see if anyone’s actually clicking on all the links you’re sending out to the “Twitosphere”, or posting on Facebook and other sites. Tracking will give you an indication that you’re being heard and that people are actually paying attention to what you have to say.

Another important thing to look for is whether or not the shortening service uses 301 redirects. This is the most search engine friendly, and forces the search engine to look at the destination URL, not the domain of the shortening service itself. A 301 stands for a permanent move, not temporary. What this means is, you want the links you’re sending out to be given credit by the search engines, not the shortening service itself. Make sense?

Many allow custom URL’s, which allows you to use your name or company name in the links you create. This is great for branding purposes. Think of it as a vanity license plate. Instead of being just a regular URL it’s your own special creation.

Let’s review a few options:

1. http://TweetBurner.com- A bare bones tracking service which allows you to shorten any link and then share it instantly with your Twitter followers or Friendfeed. Basic stat tracking is available so you can see how many people clicked on your link.


2. http://Cli.gs – A shortening service which includes full analytics. You can create links that include your brand in them. Free to use. It’s easy to send your links to Twitter with one click.


3. http://Bit.ly – This is Twitter’s default shortening service and used by Tweedeck.com. It allows you to track performance of your links in real time. Easy to share generated links on Twitter, Facebook, even Gmail. It also offers many extra tools and plug-ins such as a browser bookmarklet and browser sidebar.


4. http://MyTwitterToolbar.com – Free to download and comes complete with a massive list of URL shorteners as well as over 50 Twitter tools. Also includes 100 Twitter tips.


5. http://www.TwitClicks.com – A fairly simple service that allows you to shorten a URL immediately and tweet it. Can also see complete stats. Detailed stats show percentage of browsers used and locations of those who clicked. Check out a short video on how to use it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1ScPeCd6X4


6. http://www.ExpandMyUrl.com – This service takes a shortened link and gives you the true URL that it points to. Perfect for the paranoid individual who wants to know where the shortened link will send them.


7. http://www.TwitPwr.com – A short URL service which also includes analytics and stats. Their home page shows the top 25 users with the most TwitPwr and also a “hot URL” list of those URL’s that get the most clicks. Free to use.


8. http://1link.in – A multiple link shortening service. Simply type in a list of links and get one link back for all. If you click on the newly shortened link it goes to a page showing details of what sites that link points to, and asks if you want to open them all. If you answer yes, multiple windows will open for each site.


9. http://Go2.me – A different type of link shortening and discussion service which creates shorter links which also contain a chat window to exchange comments with your readers. It’s also easy to share on Twitter, Facebook or email with one click.


10. http://Tw.itter.me – You can customize the shortened link with your name or company name. From what I saw no stats are available.


11. http://budurl.com/ – Another popular service which shows you a real time view of your inbound clicks. This free service allows you to track up to 250 Budurl’s. They offer 3 pay levels of service from $4.00 a month to $49.00 a month. There is a 21 day free trial on any paid service. You can start out free and upgrade your account at any time.


12. http://Tr.Im – Trim those long URL’s and instantly share them on Twitter. If you want stats, you’ll need to register. Offers many different tools and extensions to make for easier sharing, such as a Firefox extension that allows you to view your tr.im stats and tweet your new links quickly.


13. http://short.ie – Keeps all your shortened links in one place. Tracks clicks and allows you to instantly share your list with friends. It can also be connected to your Twitter account for more features. Customization of URL’s also available.


14. http://hootsuite.com: Not really a URL shortening service, but has the ability built in. Hootsuite is a “Twitter Toolbox” loaded with features which are all free. They use ow.ly as their built in link shortener.

If you’ve never tried a url shortening service, you’ll want to find one that fits your needs and start to really utilize it in your online marketing activities. Finding out who’s clicking on your links, time of day, where they’re from and other information will be very valuable in your ongoing efforts as an Internet Marketer.

Remember, when it comes to social media marketing T.M.I (too much information) is a good thing, unlike when your Aunt Ethel wants you to sit with her and go over every detail of her latest vacation . One is helpful, the other just downright painful.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

How to Develop a Natural Link Building Strategy

In SEO, link building is the practice of accumulating relevant links in order to build up site authority, and rank for certain keyword phrases on search engines. However, link building is often associated with questionable practices like link buying and link spamming. Too many businesses focus on buying sitewide static links, and building a specific number of links. Once they achieve that goal, they tend to forget about their link building efforts. What they have failed to discover is that a successful link building strategy is one that is natural, builds your web presence, and strengthens your brand.

In this day and age in the online world, there are a variety of effective ways to build your brand and links such as using video sharing websites, blogging, and participating in social media. The types of online brands with the most successful online strategies utilize all of these methods of brand building and link building. Sitewide links, or links that are placed on all pages of a website, have lost a lot of their value for the simple fact that they are unnatural. Sitewide links are the links in a template or sidebar under a section such as “friends,” “links,” or “resources.” Many websites get the majority of their inbound links from sitewide linking, but they must build a strong web presence first in order for those sitewide links to be credible and effective.

Tips for Building Your Web Presence

Foundational link building consists of building your web presence in order to really “earn” those sitewide links. You can build your web presence by writing and distributing online press releases, writing guest posts for well-known blogs in your niche, and participating actively in social media and networking sites to build your brand.

Many link building strategists get inpatient and try to build thousands of links in a period of just a month or so. Your ranking may temporarily improve but search engines will spot the unnaturalness in your site’s accumulation of inbound links and come to devalue it. Focus on building your online brand first prior to accumulating so many links. This can take anywhere from six months to a year. Of course there are exceptions to this rule, but to ensure that your long term link building strategy is effective, it is a good idea to keep this timeline in mind.

Build a Diverse Link Portfolio

You can get real power from your links by diversifying your link portfolio. Sitewide links should make up only about 10% of your link building portfolio. Other methods of link building include the following:

Video – Videos can be uploaded to websites like YouTube. Not only will they include a link back to your site, they will show up in search engine results for searches of your company name, product, etc.

Press Building Tactics – In order to generate press and tons of links and traffic to your site, hold big contests and giveaways, and donate money to charity. Anytime you do these things, contact the press and let them know what you are up to in order to get some media attention.

Documents – Upload documents like ebooks, brochures, white papers, and marketing materials to document sharing sites like Scribd. If you upload a document to your own website, you can build links to it by writing blog posts and press releases about it.

In sum, focus on building your web presence and online brand so your links come naturally. No matter what kind of changes happen at Google and other search engines, as long as you focus on maintaining a natural link building strategy, you will not notice any effect on your ranking. A natural web presence will always persevere.

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This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com