7 Tips for Making Twitter Work for You and Your Business!

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

Your ultimate goal when using Twitter should be to network, it’s like an online social hour (or social 140 characters). And like in every networking organization it’s all about who you know, and in Twitter’s case, who you ”follow” and who “follows” you. The key to making Twitter work for you and your business is to weave the social aspects of your life in with your business.

So how do you do that?

Below, you will find 7 steps that will help you develop not only a loyal Twitter fan base but also reveal some dos and don’ts to making Twitter work for you.

First, you’ve got to find people! So, how do you do that?

1. Search for people you may know who are already using twitter via the “find people” link up at the top of Twitter. Once you click that link you can type in their name and see if they’re currently on Twitter so you can connect with them.

2. Using the same “find people” link up at the top and then clicking on “find on other networks” you can match up your current contacts from your Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and MSN accounts with your contact’s twitter accounts and then follow them from there.

3. Use the twitter search! You can either search right from your Twitter homepage or go to http://search.twitter.com/. Search using the keywords for your industry and find people tweeting about specific topics in your industry and within your niche. From there you can follow them, and also follow their followers!
Now that you’re on your way to having followers, here are a couple of tips to maximize your “Tweets.”

4. Mix in your “social tweets” with your “business tweets.” Remember, people buy people, and that goes for Twitter too! Build a loyal fan base by allowing them to get to know you, like you, trust you and respect you and weave in the “I’ve written blog about social media, check it out at www.celebritysites.com” (of course, you would actually link to the blog post, but since I haven’t written that yet… which now I will… I just put our homepage in there for demonstration).

5. You can also use http://search.twitter.com/ to find other current tweets about your industry that you can comment on. If you find a tweet that interests you, you can respond directly to that person by using “@TheirName” in your tweet so they get your reply, ultimately contributing to the Twitter community, gaining more content for your own twitter account and participating socially with other users.

And finally, here are some of my favorite Twitter tools to make your life easier!

6. TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/) allows you to manage your Twitter account in a much simpler way by separating your replies, direct messages as well as specified groups of people. TweetDeck also allows you to update your Facebook status automatically with your Tweets.

7. Tweet Later (http://www.tweetlater.com/) allows you to setup tweets to be sent out at a scheduled time, automatically follow anyone who follows you and send out auto-responders to anyone who follows you.

Remember, Twitter can be used for many different purposes including social networking, marketing a business, prospecting, research and new ideas, reconnecting with old friends, etc. Millions are tweeting every day including just about every TV show, radio personality, movie star, pop singer, rap artist, sportscaster and professional athlete. Although this concept may seem a little foreign to you, remember that email was once that way and now it’s second nature! Ultimately, what makes Twitter so popular is the ability to connect with not only friends, but likeminded people. Remember, people buy people!

How to Write Content that is Optimized for Search Engines

Friday, March 13th, 2009

To me, I always feel like Search Engine Optimization (or SEO as it is known in the industry) is the big elephant standing in the middle of the room that nobody wants to talk about. It’s a whole lot of work. Right? Or so you’ve been told…

It’s true, Search Engines, mainly Google, like to make up complicated algorithms and schemes to try and make this very simple concept into the giant elephant that it is. When it boils down to it… write your copy so that it contains the keywords your potential clients are searching for. Having keywords throughout your copy increases the relevancy of your page for those keywords. Thus, when someone is searching for a particular product or service- you come up!
Here are 3 quick tips for placing keywords in your online copy:

1. Title Tags:

This is the most important place to include keywords. The title tag is the title of your web page- it runs along the very top of your browser and usually contains the name of your company and a brief description. That brief description is where you should include the keywords you are trying to maximize for each page of your web site. Be aware that computers (Search Engine spiders), like humans, read from left to right. They also give the most weight to the words on the far left versus those to the right. Also keep in mind that Google only displays 66 characters in the title tag, everything else will be cut off. So make sure to keep them short, simple and to the point… oh yeah and include those keywords!

2. Headings and Subheadings:

Another important place to put keywords is in heading (H1 tags) or subheadings (H2 tags). Search Engines give these tags more weight than they do keywords in the body of your site. So, it is a good idea if you can find a way to incorporate keywords in both the headings and subheadings of your pages- just don’t forget to make sure that they make sense to readers!

3. Synonyms

Here’s the thing… although you may think that you’ve got your keywords nailed down to a science… it’s a good idea to incorporate synonyms of these words into your copy. Using synonyms not only breaks up the monotony of just using a single word or phrase, but searchers may be using these synonyms or related words to find your products without you even knowing it. Overture is a great free source that will help you find synonyms and related keywords searchers may be using to find your products or services. To view this keyword tool visit http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/.

One last little tip. After you’ve got your keywords down and you know how and where you want to use them, don’t forget to make sure your copy is actually readable and it isn’t just loaded with keywords. Once you’ve got that down, the last thing to remember… make sure your copy is interesting!

Does Your Website Stand up to Design?

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

I received my copy of The Net Effect this month… by the way, if you do not receive this magazine — GET IT. It will change the way you view the web, SEO and online marketing. It is one of the only magazines I actually read cover to cover each month, but I digress! Interestingly, one of the very first articles I ever read in the magazine was entitled “It’s Your Eyes that Buy!” Funny, if you do not believe that to be true, ask your wife! When was the last time she truly needed that third pair of black heels? Retailers have been dominating this theory for years… online is no different.

Research shows that we have only seconds to make a positive impression upon our viewers. If they don’t like what they see — maybe it’s too busy, too complicated or what we commonly refer to as “analysis paralysis” — they will leave your site and, quite frankly, never come back.

The design of your site (or even your blog) can help with lead capture as well as lead conversion. Here are five things to keep in mind when designing your site… and if you’re not looking to design a site, ask yourself if your current website does this. If not, you may be looking to redesign your site shortly!

1. Give information to people in bite-sized pieces. Research shows that if you not only group like items together, but also group them into bite-sized pieces, our brains can process the information more easily.

2. Direct people where you want them to go with buttons, shapes and colors. That is why we use a specific format for all of our CTA (call to action) buttons.

3. Product pictures, CTAs and all other buttons should be consistently sized.

4. Use shading and other textures within the design to guide the visitor’s eyes. Texture can also make harsh colors softer on the eyes.

5. Keep colors and fonts consistent throughout the site.

Those first few seconds when your potential customer visits your site are all you get to make a good impression, so make it count! “Good visual information design makes smart use of Consistency, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity,” according to The Net Effect.

The Social Media Loop- Are You In It?

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Social Media, as defined by Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media), is primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends upon the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities as people share their stories and experiences.

Today, Search Engines are looking more and more to the bookmarking trends of these Social Media sites to determine the quality of websites. According to the Search Engine Journal (http://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-medias-direct-influence-on-search-engine-ranking/5576/), Social Media can help your sites in multiple ways, for example:

• Indexing Sites Faster: Humans bookmark sites launched by their friends or colleagues before a search engine ‘bot’ can find them.

• Deeper Indexing: Many pages bookmarked are deep into sites and sometimes not as easily linked to by others, found via bad or nonexistent site navigation or linked to from external pages.

• Defining Quality: If someone takes the time to bookmark a site, it usually has some quality to it.

• Measuring Quality: Essentially, if more users bookmark a page, the more quality and relevance that site has. A site with multiple bookmarks, across multiple bookmarking services, by multiple users is much more of an authority than a site with only multiple bookmarks by the same user.

• External Meta Data: Users who bookmark sites tag them with keywords and descriptions that add an honest and unbiased definition, which is created by the public and not the owner of the site.

• Co-Citation: Social bookmarking sites tend to categorize sites and pages based upon the tags used by humans to describe the site; therefore search algorithms can classify these sites with their peers.

So, to stay on top in the rankings and to make sure you’re a part of the “it” crowd, you should start implementing some of the different Social Media strategies. Here are some of my favorites that we use for clients… and better yet, they’re all FREE:

• Tubemogul (http://www.tubemogul.com/) allows you to deploy videos (seeded with keywords) to various video outlets like YouTube, Yahoo, MetaCafe, DailyMotion and many more! You will also be able to see how many times your videos have been watched from each of these sites.

• Digg (http://digg.com/) allows you to share content from the Internet that you find interesting. Once a link and story have been submitted, you can cast your vote for the story, also known as a digg. Although your story may get submitted to Digg, digg votes are what will get your story on the front page.

• Reddit (www.reddit.com), like Digg, is a social news website where you can post links to various websites. You then can vote on the sites (up or down), thus giving them more presence on Reddit.

• del.icio.us (http://delicious.com/) is a social bookmarking web service where users can share sites that they like with others.

• Twitter (http://twitter.com/) is a social networking site where you can send text-based updates to other users (otherwise known as “tweets”) to let them know what you are up to.

• Knol (http://knol.google.com/k) is closely compared to Wikipedia and is run by Google. This site is more of an article/blog syndication site where users can post articles/blogs, called knols, versus bookmarking the website page for other visitors to view (like dig, reddit and del.icio.us).

There are many different Social Media sites out there; these are just a couple of my personal favorites. One thing to note, however; don’t overdo it. Not every post should be put through every media outlet out there. Be sure to mix it up a bit with which Social Media site you are using. Whatever method you choose, get out there and start digging, tweeting and bookmarking your way to success

Is Your Website Deadly?

Monday, December 8th, 2008

Websites are designed to sit there and look pretty, right? After all, everyone has a website today and don’t you feel obligated to throw some thing up there so that you too have a web address to put on our business card? Unfortunately, THAT is what is wrong with 99% of today’s websites… they do just that, sit there are don’t do anything for you, or your business. In fact, they are probably actually costing you money.

Why would they be costing you money? Consider this, you give your business card to someone you meet- and he/she, like all of us, goes and “checks you out” on the Internet. When they arrive they are greeted by analysis paralysis with too many choices on the navigation bar, long paragraphs on the homepage, buttons that may or may not work, articles and documents that haven’t been updated since 2006 (at best), music… and wait…. who are they actually dealing with- a large corporation? Who’s the contact person? So, they say to themselves, “this is too confusing” and leave your site. That person could have been one of your biggest clients; no matter how good your sales pitch was, you lost them through the chaos of your website.
Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, we hear this a lot from our clients. And yes, at one point I too fell victim to the “deadly website.”

What do we ALL want when looking to do business with someone? Be it a doctor, lawyer, clothing line, whatever- we look to connect with the person. We wear Nike to be like Tiger, buy dishes to cook more like Rachael Ray, buy Louis Vuitton well, because it’s Louis Vuitton! As a consumer, we want to know them, like them, trust them and ultimately do business with them. Your website should be no different. It should have YOUR personality to it and showcase YOU as the expert in your field. If you can do this, then why would anyone want to do business with someone else if YOU are the expert?

To be the expert you have to declare yourself as the expert. You do this through content. I recently received a call from an ABC producer that wanted to speak with one of our clients about being on Good Morning America (although, as the story would pan out she got bumped by our new President Barack Obama- but, that’s a different story….). How did this producer find her? Through a Google search looking for a foreclosure expert in the Orlando area. After visiting her site, which confirmed her expert status, he called to book her. Your website should be doing that too, so that be it a producer or a potential client it hat is searching on the Internet for the expert they find YOU, and your website confirms it!

3 Simple Tips to Make Your Website User-Friendly

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

The one assumption you need to make to follow along with me in this article is “People Buy People.” It can be a hard concept for many people to understand and agree with. However, millions of spent dollars have proven this premise to me, so I consider it more of a law than a theory. (If you’d like more information on this specific topic, check out Jack and Nick’s book, Celebrity Branding You™. You can find it at any bookstore or online at www.CelebrityBrandingYou.com)

If you understand the rule that people buy people, then your website MUST have a pleasant atmosphere that allows the visitor to connect with you, your company and your products.

By now, you’ve heard me talk about our Celebrity Branding™ philosophies, and the fact that you need your picture on your website goes without saying. But, there are some smaller, often overlooked, areas that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Here are three simple tip to make your website user-friendly:

1. Navigation

The navigation on your site is probably its most important element. If visitors find your site confusing or cannot successfully navigate through it, they will leave. Make your navigation bar as simple as possible. One of the worst mistakes is using an expanding navigation bar that makes the visitor scroll over it in order for the menu to reveal their options. Most often, this type of navigation bar has too many choices; your visitor doesn’t know where to go, so they get flustered and leave.

Navigation on your site is an art, and you should direct your visitors through a logical path to where YOU want them to go (not to where they think they want to go). One way to do this is through call to action buttons or CTAs. We use these buttons on all of our sites; a visitor will go to a main page, and then we can direct them to the parts of that site that we want them to be aware of. We use this method instead of an expanding menu, because we find that it is more logical for visitors. With this method, you can direct visitors to where you want them to go, allowing you to control the buying process.

Quick Tip: most “expanding menus” are created in Macromedia Flash. Search engines cannot read Flash, and therefore they will not pick up these links on your website. If the search engines do not pick up the links on the navigation bar and these links are nowhere else on your site, they cannot accurately crawl or index your site. This is search engine suicide, because without even knowing it, you are stopping search engines from understanding what your site has to offer and from driving traffic to you.

A good rule of thumb is that a visitor should be able to get to every page on your site with two clicks from your home page. Now, this is not realistic for very complex sites. If your website is complex, you can have a sitemap to help visitors navigate. Some sort of search function may also be a good idea for your site.

2. Page Load Speed

It’s hard to believe that some people are still stuck using dial up. Even if you have entered the world of high-speed Internet, no matter what you do, some websites will load slowly. (If you’re frustrated using high-speed Internet, imagine the frustration of those on good ‘ol dial up!)

Page load speed is VERY important. I know that when I am surfing the Internet and I stumble upon a site that loads slowly, I get annoyed, frustrated, and don’t browse the site for very long. If your website is loading slowly, you are probably losing out on valuable customers, no matter what business you are in.

In today’s web world, we are seeing more and more images, audio files and videos. These things are useful, but you have to be careful that they do not affect the inner workings of your site (in this case, the time it takes for a web page to load). You want to be careful about the size of the images on your website. Both large-sized images and using too many images can cause your website to take too long to load, resulting in visitors leaving. Another tip is to convert videos into a jpeg (image) that only loads and plays the video when a visitor clicks on it. Yes, you may be adding more images to your website, but these are usually small image files; in the hierarchy of the web, a video will slow down your website much more than a small image.

Another factor that can influence the load time of your website is the amount of excess code you have on your site (that is a topic for another day - but ask your webmaster, and they will know what I am talking about).

3. Information

The number one thing that visitors look for is information. They are coming to your site to be educated about your products and/or services and, most of all, how THEY can benefit. With this in mind, it is critical for the information on your website to be accurate, complete and up-to-date. Visitors will leave your site in a split second if the information you are providing is old news.

What’s that best way to provide up-to-date information on your website? The best way we suggest is through blogs and articles. (In case you missed my article last month on how to write a blog in any industry, you can read it on the resources page of http://www.celebritysites.com). By having a section on your website for blogs and articles, you can provide new, relevant and educational information to your visitors. Adding them is not only simple, but it is fast too!

So there are my three simple tips for the month on how to make your website user-friendly. Although this covered just the beginning of what your website should contain, don’t worry, I won’t leave you stranded– I’ll reveal even more tips in next month’s article!

How to write a “How To” Article

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008

First to understand why these types of articles are great, you have to understand why people like them so much. So why do people like them? First of all, “how to” articles are easy to follow. Their step-by-step formula makes people think, “I can do that!” And right there, your battle as a writer has been won… you have involved your reader.
So here’s your “how to” for writing a “how to “ article:
Step 1
Figure out how many tips, steps, etc. you have for your information. Make an outline so you know where you are headed. If you are writing a book (or eBooks) each chapter should be a step. By outlining it this way, it makes your book, article, etc. fairly quick and easy to write.

Step 2
Remember it’s all about the benefits. Readers always want to know, “What’s in it for me?” So give it to them! In this case, your “How To” article will hopefully provide useful information that the reader is interested in. It should give them an inside look into the topic and “reveal” some sort of secret.
“How To” articles are great because as a culture we seek the “easy route.” We seek the tips, tricks and secrets to make the task easier. Always remember to focus on the better, faster and easier way. Don’t be afraid to reveal your secrets, trust me- nobody ever actually wants to do the work, they just want to say they know how to… they have enough to do already! (And once you prove you are the expert, they’ll just hire you anyway!)

Step 3
Come up with an undeniable headline. Your headline is about all the time you have to grab your reader’s attention and draw them in.
There are many practices for teaching how to write headlines, and truthfully it is an art that if mastered will bring you great success. Here are a couple of headline ideas.
First, double the benefit. Make the headline so incredible, so irresistibly good by doubling what they are going to get out of reading your article (again, what THEY will get out of it- selfish creatures we are!) For example, which is better: “Learn How to Make Your Clients Happier Than Ever” OR “Learn how to Triple Your Profits and Make Your Clients Happier Than Ever,” I think it’s pretty clear…
Another simple headline formula is to take a routine task and put it with a great reward. This formula is simple:
“How to” Routine Task That Brings Great Benefit.
For example:
“How to Buy a House That Saves You Money”

If you take one thing away from this article, remember to always keep your focus on your reader and what THEY will benefit from. If you can keep them in mind, and give them what they want, you will be very profitable.

Top Three Critical Components for a Search Engine-Optimized Website

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

Everyone wants to know: How can I get my site on the top of the search engines? Although Google doesn’t publish their magical algorithm that will get you there, there are some well-known facts and strategies to keep in mind when designing or updating your website.

1. Accessibility

There are several different components that determine whether or not your site is accessible - and it’s not just about how easily your website can be found. Here are some things to look at:

• Broken Links- Check all links on your website regularly. Broken links can hurt you in two different ways. First, if a link leading viewers and search engine crawlers to another part of your website is broken, they cannot access the content. For viewers, this means receiving a very annoying error message. For search engines, this means the page may not get indexed. Second, some Search Engine Optimization (SEO) gurus out there have said that having broken links on your site can actually reflect negatively on your site rankings in search engines. So check those links!

• File Size- Typically, websites larger than 150K are not fully cached or indexed by search engines. If you want to make sure your entire website can be indexed, keep it under 150K.
File size also reflects how fast your website runs, which leads me to…

• Website Speed (Downtime)- Make sure you are aware how fast your site runs. Not only can a slowly running site be annoying to visitors, but it also bothers search engines. Therefore, your site’s performance can have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.

2. Search-Friendly Text

There are several styles of text that cannot be indexed. Making the visible text on a page search-friendly isn’t complicated, but it is an issue that many sites struggle with. Text styles that cannot be indexed by search engines include: text in an image format such as jpg, png, pdf, gif, etc., text embedded in a macromedia flash file, text embedded in a java application, and text only accessible from a form submission (no true link).

Don’t worry; even if you do not understand all of these styles, your Webmaster will!

3. Title Tags & Meta Tags

Title tags are located at the very top of the browser and tell a visitor what website they are on. More importantly, they tell the visitor how that particular website is going to suit their needs. Meta tags are not as visible, but are also very important. All of these tags help search engines read your site. It is very important for all of these tags to be relevant and contain your top keywords.

One last piece of advice: Make sure you have a working and up-to-date sitemap on your website. Sitemaps help search engines understand the flow of a website and how the internal pages link together. This sitemap will help search engines crawl your website and index internal pages.

Do Link Building Strategies Work?

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

People always ask me how the syndication of press releases and book-marking your blog in many of the social book-marking sites can possibly generate traffic for your site.

The other day I submitted a press release to thousands of online sources for a client. As part of my regular routine, I then put the release up on their web site. Not 20 minutes later they had a new comment on that press release:

“I found your site on Technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. I’m looking forward to reading more from you.”
So do these strategies work? You bet they do!

Below are a few link-building strategies for you to use in your own business to help generate traffic for your site.

1. Social Book-Marking Sites

Social Media book-marking is the strategy used in the story above. It’s also usually the quickest way to get your content read. Use social book-marking sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit and Technorati to bookmark your own
blogs. Make sure to write an attention grabbing headline and use appropriate keywords so that people searching for your particular topic and/ or product will be able to find you.

As the story above shows, this is a simple way to create a loyal fan base.

2. Comment on Other Blogs in Your Industry

Find relevant successful blogs in your particular niche that you can comment on. If you find a blog that already has a loyal fan base, become a part of their community and you can tap into that fan base. Start leaving comments on the blogs with a link back to your web site (or blog). Engaging with these relevant blogs is a great way to get noticed. It can also lead to valuable links back to your site.
Just like with any other conversation, join in and share your opinion; however, make sure you present both you and your company in the best light possible by leaving relevant comments that will actually help others in your niche.

3. Article Syndication Sites

Start writing relevant articles about your niche and syndicate them. There a ton of these article syndication sites out there, some that we use and suggest are http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.articlemarketer.com, http://submityourarticle.com, http://www.articlebase.com. Each of these sites allow you to have a byline at the bottom of your article so if someone reads your article and likes what they see they can visit your site for more information.

Submitting your article to these types of sites does several things. One benefit is that it allows you to get your information out there (through RSS feeds) on thousands of web sites and can lead to your content being referenced in other posts and articles. Also, make sure to always include your web address in your author byline because each time your article is picked up on a site, it provides a link back to your site, thus generating highly targeted traffic to your web site and also raising your search engine rankings through your increased number of link-backs.

Another simple hint: In your byline give the reader a reason to visit your web site. For example, “Want to find more insider secrets to successfully grow your business and increase profits? Check out www.yourwebsitehere.com for a free copy of Top 10 secrets to gaining ridiculous income in 6 months.” (Not to mention if they go and sign-up, then they’re on your mailing list!)

Conclusion:

Remember, if you don’t take the time to tell people about you and your business then no one will ever know what they’re missing!

13 Tips to Keep in Mind When Writing Your PPC Ads

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

1. Heading. This is the most important part of your Ad. The heading is what potential visitors see first when looking at various search results. The better the visitor can identify with your heading the more likely they are to click on your ad and visit your web site. Keep in mind that you headline MUST give them what they want. It must give them the answer they are searching for, if it doesn’t they won’t click. On the opposite side of that. The headline is a good place to qualify your prospects. You don’t just want "lookie loos" on your web site wasting your money by clicking on your ad and not signing up for your product.

2. Use keywords in your title. Use keywords that people are searching for in your ads. By using the keyword in the heading it captures the searcher and subconsciously they think that your as answers their search because you have the keyword in the title.

3. Benefit. The first line of the ad should describe the benefit of what you’re offering. Buyers want to know "what’s in it for them" so TELL THEM!

For Example: "’new affordable pool equipment".

In this example, the benefit is that your equipment is new and affordable.

4. Feature. The second line of your ad should depict a major feature for your particular product or feature.

For Example: "deal with experienced experts"

In this example, the feature is that your company is experienced and knowledgeable; "Been is business for over 20 years" is another good feature because people assume that if you’ve been in the business for a long time than you know what you’re doing (which may or may not be a good assumption on their part!)

5. Display URL vs Destination URL. Google give you two places to note your URL, one is seen on the ad (the display URL) and one is the actual web site a visitor is taken to when they click on your ad (the destination URL), both are very important.

Since the space you are given to get your message across is so small, the display URL is another place that viewers can subconsciously see your information. So, make it simple on them to read and consider using the keyword (of it fits) as a subdirectory of your URL.

For example: www.YourWebSiteHere.com/PoolEquipment

For the destination URL, make sure that the landing page (the page your visitor is taken to) gives them the answer to their search. If they were looking for pool equipment, DO NOT take them to the home page. Instead, direct them to a page that lists all the different pool equipment you have available. Simply by doing this one trick you will decrease your bounce rate (or the number of people that leave your site without visiting any other page on your site, more importantly the confirmation page that tracks your conversions!)

6. Capitalize EVERY word! Although these ads may say the same thing, but which stands out more to you?

For Example:
Pool equipment
New affordable pool equipment
deal with experienced experts
www.yourwebsitehere.com

For Example: Pool Equipment
New Affordable Pool Equipment
Deal With Experienced Experts.
www.YourWebSiteHere.com

So, which do you think is going to attract the eye of the potential buyer?

7. Keyword Methods. There are several methods for choosing keywords

1.[Exact Match]- The search has to match exactly to your keyword with no additional keyword.

For example: if [pool equipment] was searched, your ad would only be displayed someone searched for pool equipment and not new pool equipment.

2. "Phrase Match"- Your ad appears when that exact phrase is searched. Your ad will come up even if additional words are used, but you search has to be shown in the exact order.

For Example: if "pool equipment" was searched, your ad would come up new pool equipment, pool equipment store, but not for equipment for your pool.

3. Broad Match- If you do not put your keyword(s) in brackets or quotes, then Google will come up with results for all possible matches of your keyword(s).

For example: if some searched for pool equipment, your ad would show up for new pool equipment, pool equipment for your home, pool equipment store, etc.

Unfortunately, there is no one "best way" to match your keywords. You must take a look at your business and decide what works for your product or service. One more tip- if you decide to use broad match make sure you use negative keywords, such as free. This was your ad would not come up when someone search free pool equipment (unless you really had free equipment to give out- and if that’s the case, let me know and we’ll talk).

It is quite easy to note the negative keywords. For example, if you didn’t want free you would write ‘ free in your list of keywords. So you may have a list that looks like this:

[pool equipment]
pool equipment
- free

And yes, you can most certainly list exact, phrase and broad match keywords.

8. Don’t forget the "www." Make sure that your use the "www" is your display URL. No, it is not necessary and the visitor will still reach your site without it; however, today, our brains are so systematic that by including the "www" it not only draws attention to the web site (and the ad) but it allows our brain to process that we are looking at a URL and thus we should remember what we are looking at.

9. Short and to the Point. You are VERY limited in the amount of characters you get for your ads. Therefore, keep your ads as concise as possible: GET TO THE POINT!

10. Price. We all know price drives a person. Even in real estate if your home isn’t selling than what’s wrong with it? The price. If you have competitively priced your product or service to be the lowest in your market, consider putting the price in your ad title. If a potential buyer sees your low price they’ll probably click on your ad to see what you’re all about.

11. Free. I like free- don’t you? People inherently like ‘free’ things. So, if you are truly giving something away for free (like a free consultation, free bonus, free trial) than consider putting free in your title. Again, it will grab the attention of your potential buyer and encourage them to visit your web site.

12. Two things to look at: CTR (Click Through Rate) and Conversion Rate. Both of these elements are key when you are analyzing the success of your keywords and ads. You must find a "happy medium" between the two elements, because without it, your ads will fail.

For Example: If you adjust your ad focusing solely on your conversion rate, although you may be converting more people and thus probably spending more money

If you had 1,000 impressions and 4 visitors your CTR would be .04%. Of these 4 clicks, you had 1 conversion for a conversion rate of 25%. Not a bad conversion rate and you’re spending less money to get it. Good right? Well, kind of. Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on the way you look at it) Google places rank of CTR and those ads with a higher CTR will be shown more often (keep in mind this is not the only factor but is one of many). So, although you may think you’re doing better because you’re spending less money and getting more leads/conversions you may sacrifice you position with Google.

13. Test, Test and Test AGAIN! Unfortunately, even after spending all the time in the world to make sure you have the best possible ad for your product or service you cannot just “set the ad and go.” You must keep testing the ad to see what works. Yes, at times, this re-testing can be a daunting task, but if you don’t continually test your market, ads and keywords you will loose the game because I guarantee you, your competition is still testing.

7 Fatal Grammar Mistakes to Avoid in Your Writing

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

1. Your or You’re?

First of all, possessive or contraction?

"You’re" is a contraction of "you" and "are" saying that "you are’" something. You’re happy.
You’re going shopping.
You’re a good basketball player.

"Your" is a possessive pronoun, for example "your house," "your dog" or "your car."

2. It’s or Its? Here we go with possessive vs. contraction again -

"It’s" is a contract of "it" and "is" (or "it" and "has"). For example, "it is cold outside" or "it’s cold outside."

"Its" is a possessive pronoun as in "the dog is eating its food."

3. There, Their or They’re? "There" is an adverb describing a location. For example, "Bob set his suitcase there."

"Their" is a possessive pronoun as in ”their dog ran away.”

"They’re"’ is a contraction of "they" and "are." For example, "they are going to the game"

or "they’re going to the game." When it boils down to it’ is it possessive or is it a contraction?

4. Affect vs. Effect I still find myself getting caught up with this one, and I always have to stop and think about it. Affect is generally a verb (using it as a noun is usually avoided), it means to influence.

" The Florida State loss will affect their standings in the polls." Effect as a verb means to cause " His look of disapproval effected my shirt change."

Effect as a verb means the result - The effect the hurricane had on the house was devastating.

5. Where to put that damn punctuation For some reason people always try to make punctuation tougher than it is and for some reason when using quotes really confuses people.

Here is your rule of thumb:

When using quotes ALWAYS put the ending punctuation INSIDE the QUOTES- ALWAYS!

" It’s sunny outside," said Mary.

NOT

" It’s sunny outside"’, said Mary.

6. Me or I? For what ever reason, this one took me a while too, but once I got it- it was so simple!

The easiest way to tell which to use (me or I) is to take the other person out of the sentence and see if it still makes sense.

For example:
"Mom and me went shopping last weekend."
"Mon and I went shopping last weekend."

Which sounds better?

"Me went shopping last weekend", "I went shopping last weekend". When you put it that way, it’s pretty obvious. Isn’t it? 7. Then or Than? Simple put: than is a comparison; then is a description of time.

For example:

"I want to go to the grocery story then go home."
"The male dog was more aggressive than the female dog."