Why Content is King
Finally it seems that even the big boys are starting to understand that when it comes to making money on the the Internet, content is king. Just a few days ago I wrote an article about why people go online and it came as no surprise to me that "to learn" was the number one reason to surf the web. Well now that large businesses like Time Warner, Yahoo, and AOL are finally catching on.
Of course ad spending is supposed to go down 7.6% this year and since we are still in the midst of a recession, that number isn't likely to make a large jump any time soon. The reason for optimism you ask? Ad spending on newspapers, magazines, radio, and television is going down, but online advertising revenues are projected to grow by nearly double digit figures!
Most companies are considering content to be valuable because they want consumers to pay for high-quality products, but instead they should realize that higher quality content builds links, which increases your search engine presense, which builds traffic, of which more are going to keep coming back if you give them something that they are interested in. That's a nice little cycle to have, a constant flow of new traffic coupled with readers who keep coming back for more.
So, even if you run a blog or small-business, produce quality stuff that people want to keep coming back for and you'll grow your business. You don't have to charge people to read your content to make money, you can benefit from the increase in ad spending and still cash in while keeping your information FREE!
Improving Quality Score
Google doesn't exactly tell you what formula they use to determine quality score, but there has been plenty of testing done by experienced marketers to give us a few guidelines. If you have a quality score of 0-3 that is considered "poor" while 4-7 is just "OK." The scores of between 8-10 are "great" and it means you are definitely on the right track. If you are in the 0-3 category then you might need a major revamping of your whole website, but a few simple tweaks can turn those OK ads into great ones.
1. Improve Your Click Through Rate - How do you do this? By split testing your ads, waiting until you get at least 30 clicks and then throwing out the loser. Then test the winner against a new ad you create. Rinse and repeat until you have the ad with the highest possible CTR.
2. Put Your Keyword In Your Ad - Are you using one ad for several different, related, but not totally similar keywords? Then get more specific with your ads, putting the keyword somewhere in the ad. This will also help your CTR as the keyword will be in bold.
3. Check Your Landing Page - You need a lot of keyword-relevant content on your landing page. This again goes with your keywords, if you are sending a lot of related but not similar keywords to the same page you could be hurting your score. Maybe it's time you create a specific landing page for a tunneled down version of your keywords.
4. How Quick Your Visitors Leave - Are you matching your visitors needs with what you are offering? Give them plenty of options with links to other sections of your site. The days of just having an opt-in page are long gone. You need the visitor to stick around and not hit the back button or just leave and go elsewhere.
Follow these four simple steps to improve your quality score and to help keep you from receiving the dreaded "Google Slap".
Google Adwords Tips for Beginners
Getting your site to rank high in the search engines is not a quick and easy process. It takes a lot of work on your part and it takes time for the search engines to find your site and then trust it enough to rank it high in their results. If you want to get a jumpstart on using Google, Yahoo, Bing or other engines then the quickest way to get your site out there is to use pay-per-click advertising. I personally prefer Google Adwords, since they are the biggest and have the most tools available to advertisers. This will help you test out what ads work and which do not before moving your campaigns over to different properties.
1. Educate Yourself - There is a pretty steep learning curver so make sure you read or watch all of the information in Google's learning center guide so you know your way around the Adwords interface. If you want to really become an expert in pay-per-click marketing though, try Perry Marshall's definitive guide to Adwords. This five day program will have you ready to get started in no time, and will have you prepared to dominate your niche.
2. Don't Bite Off More Than You Can Chew - If you are just learning how pay-per-click works, you are going to want to start off small in a non-competitive niche. The goal for your first campaign will be to learn how the system works and which tools are available to you. Don't try bidding on weight loss keywords against a lot of experienced competitors when the cost per click is going to quickly eat up your budget. Make sure you use plenty of negative keywords and exact matches so you really narrow down the viewers to people you know will be interested in your product. Set up a budget so you don't login one day to see Google has spent drastically more than you were planning on them spending to send visitors your way.
3. Study Your Competitors - I like to use Keyword Elite for this from Brad Callen. This way you can find out which keywords your competitors are also bidding on so you won't be left out of the loop on successful campaigns. Also take a look at what seems to be working for them in terms of successful text combinations.
4. Don't Forget : Keep Testing - Rotate different ad groups to track which ones get the most clicks, and how many of those clicks are converting for you. Never stop testing because every little percentage increase in conversions means more money for you and your business!
How to Get Indexed Faster By Google
Everyone wants to rank well in Google. A high listing in the search engine results pages (SERPs) can bring you a ton of traffic which hopefully will translate into you making a lot of money. If you have a new URL though, how can you make sure your site gets indexed faster by the major search engines? Take a look at these easy to follow guidelines and you'll be listed in the SERPs in no time at all.
Submit a Sitemap
You first need to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, this is valuable not only for adding your sitemap but also to get information in general on how Google views your site. Next you need to submit your XML sitemap. If you use WordPress then the Google XML Sitemaps plugin is a must as it will update your sitemap and ping Google whenever you add content. If you use a different content management system then there is probably an automated tool you can use for that as well, which I would highly recommend. If you have to create your sitemap manually then run the program at Audit My PC and upload the generated sitemap to your web server before submitting it to Google.
Get Quality Links
Now I've talked about if you should buy links for SEO and I pretty much think you shouldn't, but if you want to get indexed fast then this is the only time I would consider it, if only for a short duration. I feel like this will help the Googlebot get to your site quickly, especially if you get a link from a high PR site. You can also use some of my suggestions on how to get more one-way links, but to sum that article up you basically need to write great content and then get noticed by other sites in your niche by commenting on their blogs or linking out to sites. Most of the time the site owner will at least check out your site and they think your content is relevant and adds value to their readers they will give you some link love in return.
Social Bookmarking
Another easy way to get links and to get indexed quickly is through social bookmarking. Digg is a very popular site where you can submit your content in the hopes of it catching on and getting to the front page. There is also plenty of other social sites like MySpace, StumpleUpon, and del.icio.us.
How do you get get your sites indexed? Let's hear about them in the comments.
Getting a High Page Rank
Most of you already probably know the benefits of a high page rank on your site. If you are trying to do any kind of link exchange campaign or if you are trying to exchange guest posts on another blog a lot of people are still stuck on how high of a page rank you have. It's the same thing with a lot of advertisers, if you have a high page rank then they are willing to pay a higher fee to be listed on your site. Lower page rank sites simply struggle to get going because fewer people want to link to a site that has a lower authority.
It stands to reason that if given the choice everyone would choose to have a high page rank blog over a low page rank blog, but a lot of web site owners do not have any idea of the best way to go about generating page rank. With this article we will take a look at some of the best ways to get page rank flowing into your site without a whole lot of work.
Commenting on Blogs that Don't use NoFollow Tags
The standard for blogs is to put a rel="nofollow" tag on all of the outgoing links posted in the comment section. By contrast "dofollow blogs" allow search engines to follow links in their comments thus passing pagerank to your site. It is difficult to find these blogs so you will have to do a search and see if you can find any in your niche. You can also take a look at this list of do-follow blogs, find updated directories with lists, or use the do follow driver. Don't make it seem like you are commenting on these blogs just to get a link, but write a real comment that shows you read the entire post and all of the comments before yours. This way your comment won't get deleted as spam which would be a waste of time.
Be a "Top Commentator"
One of the best things that you can do to drive both pagerank and traffic to your site is to actively participate in a popular blog that has the top commentator plugin installed and displayed in their sidebar. You will get a dofollow link on each of their pages, giving you lots of pagerank passed to your site. Also, if the site has a lot of traffic there will be plenty of click throughs to your site as well.
Participate in Forums
You can pull quite a bit of traffic from forums if you know what you are doing. I have use this technique for years not only for traffic, but for passing pagerank as well. It's important to make sure that your links are used in relevant threads and are not looked upon as spam. If you use your signature for links then you will probably be alright too. What's great about traffic from forums is that these people are already used to voicing their opinions, so if they do visit your site then there is a great chance that they will be the type of readers who will leave comments. It is important to find forums inside of your niche. I go for at least two, but a lot of times you can find many more. Next you will want to sign up for the forums and put your URL in the signature (if the forum allows it) along with a catchy phrase. Don't make your signature a long paragraph and don't use strange fonts, colors, sizes, etc... For your avatar I would use the logo and slogan for your site, plus the URL if they allow it. Most forums don't allow the URL but your logo will help to establish your brand. You then want to be an active member of the forum, searching for the top traffic areas and posting helpful information or answering questions. After you post about 100 times, then tread lightly on including links to your blog in the posts.