SEO Denver

Two Key Inclusions for a Start Up Business Web Page

Managing sales, finance and production are all challenges to a start up enterprise.  New company operators rarely bring a complete package of experience to their new management role – especially in the area of managing the sales effort.  Accordingly, many good, small business enterprises struggle to develop good prospecting and sales systems.

A major ally in prospecting for new clients has emerged though, as the internet allows even small companies to reach large numbers of prospective clients.  In fact, many successful small businesses have enjoyed an increased revenue stream resulting from use of the internet in their overall market strategy.

Referring to internet sales as “on-line selling” may be a bit misleading though, as actually selling a product or service usually involves first establishing trust between prospective purchaser and seller.  Building trust is an interpersonal task and building trust via the internet is a challenge.  “People buy from People” as purchasers want to buy from an individual that will stand by the product or service should unexpected events occur.

Global companies pour huge sums into website development and internet research.  The value to these companies is clear – a highly focused web page can yield increased revenue.  Social networking, ordering on line and other (Software as a Service or SaaS) business models all provide testimony as to the ability of small enterprises to use the internet to support their sales efforts and build a customer base.

New start-up businesses must attract attention to generate revenue.  The internet is an important part of this strategy just as it is for major companies.  A web page that accurately delivers useful information can act as a company sales representative on a 24 hour basis.

Many methodologies are available to help the small business reach potential customers that need the product or service.  Localization is one such method that allows businesses providing service to particular geographic areas.  Organizations such as ones providing Water Utility Consulting or a Denver Graphic Designer, can utilize the search engines and internet to compete for business nationally or just in the central Colorado community.

Of course many small enterprises cannot invest huge amounts of money into an internet sales or marketing program.  These programs cost real money.  However, a new business should take advantage of this medium to reach out to potential customers by distributing useful data and information via the company website. 

Using a web page to attract readers is a challenge that many new business operators have little experience meeting.  There are a couple simple rules for developing web page content that can help the start up enterprise use the internet to compete for traffic and to begin building a customer base. In short, the website must contain two particular elements – a:

• Specific call to action
• Clear “Value Proposition”

Call To Action:

Sales managers worldwide continually exhort their troops to “ask for the sale!” Asking for the sale is the call to action that organizations request of those they are dealing with.  With a web page however, actually asking for the sale may be inappropriate if the reader has just clicked onto the site.  Asking the reader for a more risk-free response – such as providing her/his contact information is usually more effective. 

New clients may not buy on line initially, but may be quite interested in learning how the small businesses products/services can benefit them.  The web page ‘call to action’ then can be something as simple as asking the reader to fill out a simple response form so that the company can begin building an email network of prospects.

Value Proposition

The web page needs to communicate a reasonable expectation of the value the product or service delivers.  Without setting these expectations, the potential customer has nothing upon which to base his decision to purchase and no way to calculate a return on his investment should he become a paying client.   Bold result statements such as “cut production costs by 15% by…” get the reader’s attention, inspire her/him to keep reading and provides a way for the prospect to calculate a Return on Investment (ROI).

Accomplishing these two message objectives can greatly improve the amount of revenue the small business can generate.  The website is an effective communication tool that can reach out to potential clients as well as compete with large companies to deliver valuable goods and services.

SEO Consultants Denver publishes articles useful to those wishing to learn more about on-line business or Search Engine Optimization.  Contact SEO Consultants in Denver today to learn how to increase sales and improve revenue using the latest in internet search engine methodology!

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Our generation that has seen the Internet make its way into practically every single home has been granted numerous opportunities to better our lives. Obviously, such opportunities did not exist previously.

There are so many ways that you can use the Internet to make money. How much money you earn depends completely on the business model you’ve chosen, and the way you apply your knowledge. Not only do you have the opportunity to earn a decent living, you may be able to make more money than at a “real” or regular job.

The key is to home business success is to understand the way the Internet works in the wave changes very quickly. For instance, you can make money blogging. A few years ago, blogging never existed. But it was created and many people took advantage of it and its many benefits.

Regular people found it to be incredibly lucrative as they express themselves and made money doing it. On the other hand, companies used it and continue to use it, and increase their earnings as they go along. For individuals, learning everything you can about it can help you to make the most money you ever have. You can quickly get subscribers and members you have a blog about an interesting subject.

In finding a home income opportunity, you will undoubtedly stumble across many types of business models. Whichever one you choose, you must know everything about it. And you must be prepared to change things in your plan in order to reach your goals. This has to do with the fact that the Internet business changes very quickly. So be prepared to research continuously.

You may find that fine costume jewelry wholesale is the business opportunity for you. Of course, that’s one of thousands of ideas. But, you must have a plan. For starters, will you sell your own inventory, or try to earn commissions through referring buyers to others websites?

You’ll find each type of business has several opportunities within it. Find the one that you like best and the one that you feel most comfortable with. Before you make any move, plan ahead as to whether you will make an investment or not. The fact is, online businesses can be successful even without an investment.

And, as you may already know there aren’t many businesses that can offer such opportunities. So we should consider ourselves quite lucky to have them nowadays. They have come in especially handy in an economy that was hurting all around the world. Those who may have lost their jobs or businesses, may have found some income earning streams through this unbelievable tool we have our hands.

SEO Consultants in Denver – The Basics of Blogging for Dollars

The idea of blogging for dollars has become increasingly popular. What used to be an innocent hobby has become a profitable activity -  so much so that some bloggers have began working full-time on their blogs.
Earning income from blogging is relatively easy, at least conceptually.  Blogging requires no special skills or talent aside from a passion and commitment to a certain topic or subject. You don’t need a college degree to start blogging for dollars. Anyone with an expertise on a specific subject can create their own blog and start making money blogging.

Know What to Blog About

Before you start blogging, it’s essential to be familiar and indeed passionate about your topic. It would be an exercise in futility to blog about something that you have no interest or knowledge in just because it is very popular. If you don’t know how to cook a complete meal, it makes no sense to start a blog about Italian cuisine.

Find an interest, hobby or activity that you love to do, then blog about it. It doesn’t matter how popular or how obscure the topic is, as long as you have the passion and interest to write about the subject.

Build a Blog and They Will Come

It’s very uncomplicated to set up a weblog these days, thanks to blog publishing platforms like Blogger. There are basically two main types of blogs – the remotely hosted blogs such as those published using Blogger and LiveJournal, and the self-installed blogs using software like Wordpress and MovableType.

Which type of weblog should you choose? Each type of blog has its own advantages and disadvantages, so choosing your blog depends on your own preferences. If you want a personal blog and you want blogging to be as easy as possible, then have your blog hosted remotely. But if you want a more professional-looking blog with a lot of features, create your blog using a software like Wordpress, hosted on your own web server. It is quite interesting to learn how to set up a blog.

Monetizing Your Blog

When you see that your blog already has a loyal readership, you can start placing ads, affiliate links and other income streams on your blog. The most popular sources of income for bloggers are:

Marketing programs (Google Adsense, Chitika, Adbrite, etc.)
•           Pay-per-post programs (PayPerPost, ReviewMe, Blogitive, etc.)
•           Affiliate programs (Amazon, CommissionJunction, Linkshare, etc.)
•           Donations and tip jars
•           Selling ad space and sponsorships

There are so many ways you can make money from blogging, and so many websites and companies offering cash to bloggers, that it would be wise to select only a few that provides maximum income generation. Build a blog, add good content, and you will soon be blogging for dollars.

While we all like to think we are not affected by marketing, imagery and pretty pictures; the opposite is true in almost all instances. No more is this demonstrated than with the varied and crazy world of Twitter backgrounds.

While the quality of your tweets will be all important, the image you present of yourself through your background will help keep visitors hooked. It is not all about glossy finishes though; indeed, more important is regards the info you give of yourself.

Twitter themselves has of course done most of the groundwork for you and, the background selection they invite you to look through is, whilst not extensive, well presented and laid out.

Once we know what we are doing with our Twitter blogging though, then it really is necessary to put a little more effort in; particularly if we want to make it work for us.

The settings page is easily navigable, and selecting to change your background with one of your chosen images from your PC or laptop is self explanatory.

You can select to have your image used in a single shot, which will be modified to take up the entire page. Alternatively, you can tile the image. Which option you choose will be based on your own judgment of course, though it should also be driven by picture quality.

It is also worth paying attention to such areas on screen as your sidebar; ensure all info is presented clearly and concisely – you can’t embed links. Logos can be incorporated too, if you are using Twitter as one of your online marketing avenues.

People who have a website (or a weblog) can have “Twitter follow me buttons” on their site that will send them directly to your twitter page so that they can decide to follow you.  After all, if they are reading your site, they must have an interest in what you have to say.

As with the account itself, backgrounds for Twitter are an opportunity to tell the world who you are; take your time and get it right.

Denver SEO Consultants provide Search Engine Optimization services designed to drive new streams of revenue to your business.  Contact us today by clicking the “Contact Us” tab above to find out how an investment in Search Engine Optimization can yield significant ROI for your organization!

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Free Websites and Blogs – Bad for Business

by AJ Farro

Free websites and blogs can only take a serious entrepreneur so far.  They’re a great sandbox for getting your feet wet and figuring things out, but they’re full of advertisements, gaudy templates and themes that reek of “free”.  It’s like doing business out of the back seat of your car – with a Hannah Montana sticker on the bumper.  Few people, if anyone, will take you seriously.

If you build your business on free sites, you risk losing everything because you do not own the site and it can be taken away from you for any reason.

In May 2009, Facebook disabled accounts with, what it “assumed”, were fictitious names.  People with legitimate accounts that have spent years building personal or business relationships had everything disappear in the blink of an eye.

When I first started using free blogs, Blogger shut down one of my blogs and to this day I don’t know the exact reason why.  It could have been because I was using it to pre-sell affiliate products.  It could also be because I hyperlinked every occurrence of my main keyword to my main website and they considered that spammy.  What did I know, I was a noob.  I couldn’t get back into the blog to fix it.  No amount of contacting them ever got an answer and I was forced to abandon it.  Can you imagine if I had built an entire business around that blog? 

I also know that using free WordPress.com blogs for business purposes is a violation of their terms and they will shut you down, too.

Many people starting out don’t know that because they never read the terms of service.  Stay away from free blogs.  You need to own your own blog or website.  Always remain in control of your business.

Before you can run your own website or blog you need your own domain name and web hosting.  The good news is, it’s cheap to get started and I’m going to give you my personal tips for doing it.

Warning:  Do not take advantage of “free domain names for life” when you buy web hosting.  They are only free if you keep your hosting account with them.  Plus, you will not own the name, the web hosting company will.  Always remain in control of your business.

Domain Registration

I’m not going to get real deep into selecting a domain name because that’s beyond the scope of this material.  However, I will leave you with a few guidelines. 

If you want to be found in the search engines, it only makes sense to include a keyword or two that people are using to find what it is you’re selling.  So if you’re an affiliate selling outdoor furniture, incorporating “outdoor furniture” into your domain name is nothing but beneficial.  BestOutdoorFurniture.com beats TomsDeals.com.  No one is going to be searching for outdoor furniture using the words “toms deals”, but they will be searching with “outdoor furniture”, even “best outdoor furniture”.

Only use a .com name.  Stay away from .net, .biz, .info and all the other dots if you can help it.  People don’t remember extensions so when they type in your domain name they will be typing your domain name and automatically adding .com to it.  So get found.  Don’t be invisible. 

Make a list of several domain names because the chances of finding something that isn’t already taken is going to be slim.  Oh, and to stay out of legal hot water, do not use trademarked names in your domain name. 

A great example of that is new businesses that come on board at Commission Junction or other affiliate networks frequently have no restrictions on their name.  Then affiliates will go hog wild snapping up domain names with the vendor’s name in them and spend weeks or months promoting and establishing an online presence.  Then sooner or later the vendor modifies its terms and suddenly bans the use of trademarked names.  It’s happened to me more than once.  It’s a knife to the core of your business.   

Hot Buying Tip

• Get your domain name at NameCheap.com. 
• $9.69 for a .com name, but use the coupon code and get it for $8.81.
• They don’t sneak stuff into the shopping cart during checkout like other registrars.
• They have a very easy to use Domain Manager interface.
• NameCheap is a great domain registrar, but don’t buy web hosting there because you pay too much.  Just get a domain name.
• Be sure to enable the free privacy manager on the domain.  It will hide your personal details from spammers.  goDaddy charges $8.99/year for privacy protection.  At NameCheap, it’s free for the first year and renews at only $2.88/year after that. 

Web Hosting

In order for your new domain name to be seen online, you need to have it hosted by a web hosting company.  It pains me to see web hosting companies take advantage of their customers, so I will only recommend companies with outstanding customer service and reliability.  I also wouldn’t recommend something I don’t use myself.

Hot Buying Tip

I have accounts at both of these places and both are very reliable. 

iPage Hosting- Unlimited green hosting with an easy-to-use control panel.  Their “anytime guarantee” is the best in the business.  Customer service is outstanding.  Server response time is super.  Free Carbonite PC backups.  Easy blog installation.

SuperGreen Hosting- Unlimited green hosting with cPanel.  Very reliable.  My WordPress blogs run at lightning speed and customer service is quick and courteous.  Easy blog setup.

I hope you found these tips helpful for getting your business off on the right foot.

Editor’s Note:  Denver SEO Consultants provides copywriting and article marketing services for business entities in the Colorado Front Range area.  For more information and assistance, please click the “Contact Us” tab above, provide the requested information and we will be with you soon!

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Creative Writing and How to Make Money

A great way to start profiting from your creative writing is to sign up for a blogging program, create a blog, and post content daily, and on a regular basis.  A regular basis means updating you blog in a consistent manner of at least twice a week. Remember, you must update your article regularly, or it will not get the visits or readers needed to profit.

After you have Constructed your Blog

Once you have posted an adequate amount of articles on your blog (more than 10 entries), you can focus on connecting to businesses, both online and off, that specialize in connecting professional bloggers to businesses that wish to pay for reviews of their products or services. These businesses might also want you to have their links embedded on your website or on certain blog posts.

My 4 Creative Writing Tips

In this article, I will list 4 tips to implement when starting a money-making blog by crafting a deftly profitable online creative writing business: 

1. What are you Interested in Most?

Blogging doesn’t have to be a full-time gig, but once businesses begin to invest in your blog, you must deliver. Constant readership means you need to be constantly uploading content. You must have an idea of what you are most passionate about. What magazines do you faithfully read? What excites you most about your current career or job? Once you realize your passion, your drive, and excitement for a particular subject, you can rest your mind assured that constant content and joyous research will follow.

2. Find Keywords that Pay Consistently

Immediately, after choosing what your desired topic(s) will be, it’s a good idea to search for high paying keywords related to the topic. There are tools such as Overtures Keyword Selector Tool, and many more. Simply perform a Google Search, and then type in profitable online keyword generator, or anything similar to that phrasing. This will produce a list of websites offering the information you want. What is the information you want? The most popular keyword searches from last month.

3. On you mark… Get set… Write!

Once you have your niche idea, and you have identified keywords, you are set to begin the wonderful creative blog writing process. One thought to make the blogging experience easier for you to adjust to is, image that it’s like your personal journal. Remain true to who you are, and try to add as much passion into your posts as you have for the subject itself. Incorporate your keywords throughout the content without overdoing it; conversely, try not to only add your keyword just once or twice. Also, online pinging services can assist in alerting the search engines that you have uploaded new content. Services such as Pingomatic and Pingoat are but two of many other services that helps you alert existing readers, as well as many other search engines, that you have something fresh to offer.

4. Place Ads on your Blog

After you have established some readership, and some could be a mere 5 unique visitors a day, you might consider placing some advertisements on your blog. Adsense is, by far, one of the most popular online paying publishers. It’s best to place these ads in areas of your blog or blog posts that will receive clicks from visitors. Choose an ad format that fits the look and feel of your blog in a dynamic way, for example, the 336X280 is a great option to utilize, because it looks like regular links, and not like ads. So remember, the more content you create, the more people will visiting your blog, and the more people that visit your blog the more likely they are to click on ads. The more ads your visitors click on, the more money you make, and just think, you can do it simply with creative writing.

I frequent many SEO and Web Marketing forums on a daily basis and every so often there is a debate about the SEO industry and ethics. After being involved in a number of these debates, it has become really obvious that the main problems are the facts that no two SEO companies are alike and there is no unified methodology. It’s very hard to make statements about the industry as a whole because it’s debatable what exactly ‘SEO’ is. Mix in the fact that most SEO companies keep their methodology and campaign strategies secret and we have a situation where every company is totally different with very different results.

Fact 1 : There is no unified SEO methodology. SEO is actually defined by wikipedia as a process of improving traffic from SERPs to a site. Of course, HOW they do that is the real question and causes the debates.

Fact 2 : The effectiveness of an SEO campaign depends on the site structure, site content, keywords, methodology used, and how popular the site is. A site cannot just rank for any random keyword. SEO is also not voodoo. It is logic, problem solving, and Web marketing mixed together. If your site provides no value to users, it probably won’t rank.

Fact 3 : Some ‘SEOs’ do search engine optimization and some do search engine manipulation. Of course, it is all marketed as SEO. Unethical optimization provides results at any cost and is always short term (usually ends in a banned domain name). Ethical optimization opens up the site to the search engines and provides long term benefits.

Fact 4 : Most SEO companies get paid whether or not your site gets any rankings. Unfortunately, this is the case with the industry. Most SEO companies implement A, B, and C and move on to the next client. Hopefully, the site ranks. If it doesn’t, they always have more clients.

Fact 5 : Most SEO companies use both ethical and unethical inbound linking strategies.To maximize profits, it is very common for SEO companies to buy bulk links from India, links on spam/scraper web sites, or sell large directory submission packages. It is also common for SEO companies to place huge amounts of the contract into inbound linking to make up for the poor quality of the site optimization.

I don’t think it is fair to characterize the industry as a whole without figuring out what is wrong with it and how SEO companies can overcome it. So how exactly do we determine what is good and bad about the industry? I have now been involved with the Web for over 10 years and, specifically, with the SEO industry for almost 4 years and I’ve seen the inner workings of major SEO companies and worked with clients who had been burned by their previous SEO campaigns. Combined with numerous Web postings and forum debates talking about the same basic problems, I’ve compiled a list of the most common issues.

Problem 1: Responsibility for Results

It’s no secret that the vast majority of SEO companies take no responsibility for results. It is a fact that no SEO company can guarantee results (and if they do, they are lying to you). It is also a fact that the client is taking a risk by spending money with an SEO company that basically says ‘We’ll do what we can’. SEO companies simply guarantee they’ll do the work to ‘optimize’ the site, but without full disclosure of their methodology, what exactly is the client paying for? No other industry sells a product with no guarantees and no specific list of work that will be completed. Of course, SEO work is basically the sales of information and keeping the specifics of a methodology is important, but the combination of secrecy and no responsibility for results really makes SEO campaigns risky. So, how can an SEO company reduce the risk for the client and provide the best grade of service?

Answer 1: Incentive Based Pricing

The only real way to reduce the financial risk of the client is to share the risk. Through incentive-based pricing, the SEO company can charge a certain percentage of the total contract (say 70%) to cover their intellectual property and time while placing the rest of the contract price (remaining 30%) in incentives for success. Of course, incentives and their percentage of the contract would be totally relative depending on the campaign. This first step into sharing in the risk provides both reassurance to the client that the company believes in its methodology and places some of the financial burden of the campaign on the SEO company. At the moment, however, very few SEO companies are willing to share in the risk and charge the same price whether the client gets top rankings or no rankings at all (or possibly even lower rankings).

Problem 2: Unethical Optimization

Unfortunately, unethical (or blackhat) optimization is still very prominent on the Web. It’s also unfortunate that ‘SEO’ has been mistakenly confused with ‘Blackhat SEO’. This is still the biggest problem for SEO companies. Saying that all SEO companies deal in blackhat optimization is like saying everyone who emails is a spammer. Blackhat optimization is not optimization at all…it is search engine manipulation. Because there is so much money tied to top rankings, there will always be a market for unethical SEO and search engine spam. Until companies realize what is ethical and unethical and stop supporting those blackhat SEO companies, they will continue to thrive. This makes the industry as a whole look bad and does not reflect the ethics of good SEO companies. Blackhat provides fast, short term results, but is never a good option in the long run.

Answer 2: Ethical Optimization

There is no quick and easy solution to blackhat optimization’s stain on the SEO industry. I would suggest that all marketing departments research optimization techniques and educate themselves on what techniques are unethical. No SEO company is going to say they do unethical optimization. It’s also not a good idea to immediately trust a company or product based simply on their rankings. Unethical optimization DOES provide rankings…just not for the long run.

It would also be helpful if the major search engines would be more open and accessible to SEO companies. Currently, the major search engines and SEO companies do not deal with each other and have formed a sort of love-hate relationship. Because of this, many ethical SEOs have slowly moved into dark territory. Ethical optimization seeks to make sites more easily accessible to the engines and help to improve the engine’s search results. The problem is that the search engines mainly clump all SEO companies together the same way as uninformed users do: search engine manipulation. This is just not the case. Search engines do not want to reveal what they consider unethical because it would basically be providing a list of holes in their algorithms that blackhat SEOs would be able to manipulate further, but a defined list of ‘what not to do’ would provide a definitive list for businesses looking for an SEO company.

Basic Rules of Ethical Optimization

Any campaign that does not abide by the following rules is dealing in unethical optimization techniques and should be avoided.

1.) What the user sees and what the search engine sees should be exactly the same. Do not hide anything.

2.) Your keywords (and the resulting optimization) should exactly reflect the content of the page.Keywords should always reflect what your site is about.

3.) Do not build out pages exclusively for search engines. The site should always cater to both audiences (users and search engines). Catering to only users is why optimization is necessary. Catering only to search engines is optimization gone too far into blackhat.

4.) Do not participate in manipulative inbound linking schemes like link farms, bulk links, triangle linking, or any other unethical manipulation of your Google PageRank or link authority. Inbound links should be relevant to the content of your site and you should always know who is linking to you and where your links come from.

Problem 3: Assembly Line / Software SEO

With the growth of the SEO industry has also come the automation of SEO. The absolute first thing any prospective SEO client should know is that all effective SEO campaigns are custom. There is no checklist of items that will work exactly the same on every site. If the SEO company claims there is, then they are not doing full optimization and the campaign is minimal. A good optimization campaign optimizes the site architecture, text content, and code of the site. Assembly line SEO does not take into consideration the unique needs/design of the site and may even deal in blackhat optimization. SEO software especially should be looked at closely. There are really only two things SEO software could do that would work for any site: doorway pages (showing engines one thing and users a different thing; which is unethical) or a system of pages built exclusively for search engines (often called info or information pages and linked in an out of the way part of the page). Doorway pages are 100% unethical and info pages are deep in the gray area. Neither of those two methods address the architecture of the site, proper keyword analysis, or effective text content. The following links are examples of automated SEO software freely available on the Web. All links contain ‘nofollow’ to prevent the sites from getting inbound link credit from our site. These sites are NOT recommended by TreeHouse SEM.

http://doorwaypagemaker.com/ – Doorway page system; UNETHICAL

http://www.doorway-wizard.com/ – Doorway page system; UNETHICAL

Answer 3: Custom Campaign and Assessment

‘SEO Software’ may be cheap and affordable, but you get what you pay for. Any campaign that is going to slap on additional pages are simply sell you links is NOT an effective SEO campaign. Any SEO effort that simply has you add a few ‘optimized’ pages to your site is not going to be optimal. If you wanted to convert a street car into a race car, you don’t simply add racing strips to it. Don’t think that dumping a few pages on your site targeted to some random keywords is the same as a real SEO campaign.

If your SEO company will not sit down and talk about the layout, architecture, and aim of your site, then it is not providing a top-end service. Remember that the vast majority of ‘SEO software’ either is for building doorway/landing pages or simply providing you with data about your site (data that is already free to everyone on the Web). Good SEO campaigns take into account both the user and the search engines…not one or the other. An SEO company should have a commanding understanding of user experience and search engine optimization and use these in combination to create a campaign that will provide the best ROI. The end goal should always be leads/sales. Bringing in piles of non-targeted traffic often leads to extremely high turn over rates and very low lead conversion.

Conclusion

Do your research. Find out what you want from an optimization campaign and then ask the right questions. Make sure that the sales representative you talk to knows what they are selling. If they do not, they are definitely not the person to get information from. A lot of SEO companies use hard sale tactics and the reps are less than knowledgeable about what they are selling. Ask the following questions and see what they have to say.

1.) How do you assess keywords? If an SEO company simply optimizes for whatever keywords are sent to them by the client, the SEO campaign starts off on very shaky ground. Keyword analysis should be performed that takes into account the number of searches in all the major search engines and the relative competition for those terms. The site should also be compared to the keywords to see if they support each other.

2.) Do you plan on building out pages specifically to house keywords? Landing pages and doorway pages are not effective long term SEO options. SEO companies like them because they do not have to touch the rest of the site and it’s very easy to simply add band aids instead of performing surgery.

3.) Will my SEO campaign also help improve the user experience of the site? Proper architecture and usability goes hand in hand with SEO and helps increase ROI. You should want to bring in new traffic and convert it.

4.) Does my revenue model affect my keyword selection and the optimization as a whole? Any SEO company that does not optimize based on the target audience is NOT providing the most effective campaign. An ecommerce site marketing to comparative shoppers will want to optimize heavily for product names and model numbers. An online magazine wanting to bring in recurring traffic will want to optimize for article topics and specific themes. Local companies will want to optimize for geo-targeted keywords.

5.) I want to optimize my site, but do not want to change any of the existing content or layout…how would you go about this? Any SEO company that says they will simply add on landing pages or hide text is selling blackhat. This goes back to the earlier analogy. You are really saying that you have a car that you want to modify to be very fast, but do not want to modify the engine and the mechanic simply adds racking stripes and charges you full price.

Thank you for reading TreeHouse SEM articles. If you would like to know more about any of these topics, feel free to contact us.

About the Author: Steve comes from a rich Web background where he has worked on the design, development, and marketing aspects of hundreds of Web sites. Formerly from Mississippi where he attended Ole Miss, Steve moved to San Diego to pursue further challenges in the Web marketing arena.

To compete in the rapidly growing marketplace of SEM, Treehouse immediately set itself apart by placing Chief Technology Officer DeVries at the helm, who is one of the most coveted experts in the industry today. DeVries was previously a lead technical consultant at a competing local firm, achieving top rankings for major clients such as Entrepreneur, Vegas.com, Viacom, Workopolis, and Ziff Davis Media. DeVries’ experience has brought him much industry attention and placed him in high demand as a speaker at industry events by those looking to pick his brain.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Devries

Make Money Blogging

Enjoy blogging?  It doesn’t have to be a mere diversion.  Your blog can serve as a cash cow as well.  Here are 5 methods by which you can earn money with your blog.

1. Google AdSense or PPC is readily available to al blog owners.  PPC allows you to showcase significant ads on internet sites.  Each time a visitor to your site clicks on an ad, you’ll get paid.  It isn’t more complicated than that.  Thus, the more guests you’ll have, the more clicks you can potentially produce, and the more earning you can probably get.  Google AdSense is the most prominent PPC program as well as the one that pays the most.  Keep in mind though that not every subject is allowed by Google AdSense.  Google AdSense prohibits subjects like adult or betting topics.   Still, you can try other, equally thriving PPC programs such as AdBrite.

2. Sell ad spaces.  If your blog achieves a lofty page status and if it is consistently attracting visitors, you can reserve advertisement areas – or virtual investments as John Reese would put it – on your web pages and sell these to advertisers who want extensive notice for their merchandises or services.  Believe it or not, marketers are forever on the lookout for justly valued ad spaces in blogs with PR ranks for 3 and above.

3. Advertise link publications.  You can propose publishing somebody else’s link on your blog accounts, for a fee.  This will assist your participant in building his link recognition, particularly if your blog earns a top page rank and has numerous visitors. 

4. Register in link programs.  This usually requires a little research to more fully understand.  Suffice it to say that each time you recruit a profitable sale for your client, you will receive payment.  For more backtround on this method, you can visit www.clickbank.com, www.cj.com and/or www.linkshare.com.

5. Sell your blog.  From time to time, you’ll earn more by selling your blog outright.  If you earn  consistent and repetetitve traffic and have won a sizable following (along with a significantly high page rank), you can sell it using services like www.digitalpoint.com and www.sitepoint.com.  Blog selling can be highly lucrative!

Here are some more helpful links: If you are interested in a real step-by-step proven system to make serious money on the internet or if you are interested in more information on this topic visit: www.MaverickMoneyUSA.com.

Blogs could have emerged as a means of on-line journal writing and community building.  Of course the utilization of a blog for journaling wouldn’t bring much for the net entrepreneur.  Unless your cats are far cuter than each other bloggers’ or unless you’re an amazingly attention-grabbing person with some tremendous writing talents, your personal blog will stray in the chorus of voices that crowd the world of blogs.  In order to making blogging profitable, one must select a sensible topic upon which to focus. (For a review of a complete system for using paid traffic to help bring customers and readers to your campaigns read this PPC Loophole Review.)

Topic choice is the cornerstone of blogging success.  Choose a subject matter area in which you’ll be both knowledgable as well as competitive.  Optimally, you’ll be able to notice a blogging niche that’s underserved nonetheless encompasses a high level of interest.  This can permit you to draw in a nice volume of guest visitors more easily which, of course, converts into more sales and higher profit levels.

Additional factors to consider when choosing the subject area for a “money blog” include these areas. 

First, one might want to aim to seek out a topic area in which they have a strong personal interest and familiarity, especially if they plan to produce their own content.  Blogs need regular updates so it would be difficult to frequently produce quality material and content if one has no real interest in a topic area. 

Second, one ought to identify an area in which general public interest is at least relatively high.  You can lead the search engines on the topic of “17th century wood paperweights,” but you unfortunately may not attract the kind of traffic stream you’ll need to earn a profit.  It could be additionally difficult to enter a more competitive marketplace, but at least there are probable rewards in that space.  The key to attracting traffic then is not just writing a blog on a hot topic, but to identify a field from which a healthy number of visitors will be drawn. ( If you would like a complete blueprint for blogging check out my PPC Loophole Bonus package. )

Third, one must identify a market or topic area that is currently underserved.  Essentially, you’re trying to find is a robust disparity between the quantity of interested parties and the amount of readily available or ‘acquirable’ information.  If you notice a subject in which many readers appear to be interested but where there are few places to go to learn more, you’ll may have discovered a blogging gold mine.  Finding an underserved niche and filling in the hole with useful information can be the key to your blogging efforts.

Selecting a topic for your blog can be a difficult process.  This first step is the most important: the choice of a subject generally determines potential for success.

If you would like more information on blog marketing and affiliate marketing techniques please visit us!

What is the difference between business blog software and a free blogging solution – besides price?

There are a variety of factors that you will want to consider if you are considering a purchase of business blogging software or thinking of using one of the many free blogging platforms such as Wordpress, Blogger or others.  Here are five reasons to consider:

#1. Professionalism is most important factor. It is considered less professional to host your business blog in one of the free blog platforms. However, free blogs should not be ignored as a secondary blog to support your main business blog software solution.  Many blog strategies overlook this one!

#2. Hosting Your Business Blog – If you are using a professional, business blog software solution company, your blog should be hosted in a server cloud environment that guarantees uptime, performance and scaling. It also helps control your content creation efforts.

#3. Business Blog Objectives – Your Business Blogging Software should not be in a normal blog format. The software should automatically optimize content for search engine ranking as well as assist in the generation of leads or sales. Occasionally, this means supplementing your business blog software with tools like Salesforce.com or aweber.com to capture leads and follow up with them automatically. If your blog software doesn”t allow this, consider another.

#4. Multiple Blog Contributors – Some of the free blog platforms do not allow multiple blogs.  Writers allow for many different employees and marketing professionals to contribute articles to the business blog.

#5. Blog Software Support – When you need a change made to your business blog software, who do you call? Having a reliable expert that can help you make modifications to your business blog, including plugins, software and templates, is a big plus over needing to figure it out yourself or hire a techie you are not familiar with.

Ultimately, it is less about the blog software and more about the business goals. What outcome do you want from your business blogging effort? It it connecting with your audience? Maybe twitter is better. Is it improving your website performance with additional articles and blog posts? Is it sales lead generation or autoresponder signup? These are great goals for your business blog, but you cannot do them all well with one blog. The best business blog is going to have a crystal clear business goal that can be measured – and improved through controlled experimentation.