SiteProNews |
- Making Money Online With Google Adsense
- In Their Own Way: Stories of Online Branding Success
- Learn More About Website Planning
- Use Local SEO for National Reach
- How Much is Too Much to Pay for SEO?
- Reader Rescue: Why Is My Regional Keyword Research So Inconsistent?
| Making Money Online With Google Adsense Posted: 12 Aug 2010 07:14 AM PDT 
While that’s not exactly wrong; your site’s traffic has a great impact on how much you can earn from it; it’s not the whole truth either. Most importantly, you should not give up on AdSense because of this, because, as famous bloggers themselves have proven: when it works, it works like a charm! In order to make money with AdSense, you first need to understand how it works. AdSense is a simple ad-publishing tool that can be incorporated into a variety of online mediums and displays ads based on the keywords within the existing text on the page. Every time a visitor to your site clicks on an ad published in your data, you are paid some money. Hence it is called PPC or Pay-Per-Click Advertising. This is usually a figure in cents or pennies, and the exact figure depends most of all on how competitive and profitable your keywords are. Types of AdSense AdSense is available for web content (on blogs and web sites), for search (as when you add a Google search bar to your blog and visitors click on a sponsored search result), for mobile content (for mobile-version web sites and pages), for feeds (so that you can display ads even within your RSS and Atom feeds), and for video, parked domains and mobile applications. How to Make Money With AdSense 1. Understand how AdSense Works In order to make good profit from AdSense, it’s not enough to just sign up and start publishing ads. First you must know its rules – so that you don’t break them – and its payout method – so that you can develop your strategy accordingly. Take a look at Google’s AdSense center to begin learning. 2. Choose profitable keywords Even if you already have an existing web site, in order to make money with AdSense you need to choose the most profitable keywords within your niche. If you plan on writing your own content (as opposed to hiring freelancers or copywriters), it is also crucial that you know something about the subjects of those keywords and can research and write useful material on them. 3. Create useful, keyword-rich content Once you have chosen your keywords, you can actively start creating content while keeping those keywords in mind. Don’t start keyword-spamming, because users will not find your site useful, and while they might click on an ad just to get away from your page, that’s not a profitable or traffic-building strategy. If your content doesn’t make sense, you also risk getting banned by Google; not just the AdSense program but the search engine too! 4. Place your ads strategically. The placement of your ads within your content really matters. The optimum placement will of course depend on your design and the placement of your text. You also have the choice between image, text and video-based ads, and how well one works for you will depend on your readership, the type of your content and primarily your existing web design. Many Wordpress themes and the like come already enabled for displaying ads, but don’t let that prevent you from trying different options and choosing for yourself which one has the best ROI. 5. Build traffic The more traffic your site has, the more users will click on your ads – it’s that simple. Traffic building is a whole another blog post, but remember that it goes hand in hand with creating useful, keyword-oriented content! Making money with AdSense is easy – once you understand the program and follow some simple strategies for maximizing your profits, it’s truly a program you can “set and forget”! Pilar Torres – Access our Free Jargon Free Web Marketing Strategy videos aimed at beginners at www.pickaweb.co.uk. You can also visit our Professional Website Hosting Services website for more services. We also offer Reseller Hosting and other services such as Online Website Builder, Dedicated Servers, Domain Names, Data Backup, Web Design, Web Design Templates, Email Marketing, 0800 Numbers and VPS Hosting. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| In Their Own Way: Stories of Online Branding Success Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:57 AM PDT 
Humans like to have heroes or idols to look up to, people to examine and hold up as the best examples of success. It is reassuring on a very basic level to be able to point to someone and say; “They did it, so I know it can be done.” With that in mind, consider the following web branding success stories. These are not the names that are usually thrown about, like YouTube or Facebook. Rather, these are people who have developed a niche success in their own field, and have become world-famous brands in their own way, and their own time. Zero Punctuation: The Saga of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw Few stories are as appealing as those of overnight success, and the story of Yahtzee seems to fit the bill. Around late 2007, he posted a pair of video animations to YouTube. In these videos little paper-cutout-style characters enacted humorous scenes against a yellow backdrop while Yahtzee reviewed video games in a slightly frantic tone of voice. Yahtzee tore into the games’ flaws with a vigor and incisive sense of humor that spoke directly to the irony-conscious gamers of today. Shortly thereafter, an online gaming magazine called The Escapist hired Yahtzee to produce the videos on a weekly basis for its site. The result was an explosion of interest. The Escapist’s traffic jumped nearly 400 percent following the addition of Yahtzee’s series, dubbed “Zero Punctuation” because of his increasingly trademark style of rapid-fire speech with few pauses for breath. The white avatars on yellow background have become icons of the gaming world, recognizable at a glance. Major game designers such as Fable’s Peter Myoleneaux have responded directly to Yahtzee’s criticism and sent him their newest game to review as well, even knowing that he is likely to treat this second effort even more brutally than the first. Of course, Yahtzee actually isn’t an example of overnight success at all. He’s been a gamer for more than 20 years, having played others’ games and designed his own as well. He’s developed his signature style with dedicated hard work, and the hard work ultimately was rewarded when the right audience was found. The lesson here is both that brands must be ready to jump on the opportunities of the moment, but also be prepared to put in a great deal of work and effort for their brand to succeed. Yahtzee currently writes for the Escapist, as well as his own website, Fully Ramblomatic, and the Australian magazine Hyper. He resides in Australia, and still produces the weekly ZP show. Nostalgia Critic: Remembering It So You Don’t Have To Continuing the theme of YouTube branding success, another tale is that of Doug Walker, popularly known as That Guy With the Glasses. A few years ago, Doug began uploading a series of short videos to YouTube touching on things he found entertaining. His 5-second-movies feature was a deconstructionist look at popular films by editing them down to brief impressions, while the Nostalgia Critic was a persona he used to examine popular films and series his generation grew up with. From there, everything exploded into a story of epic web success. He left YouTube to found his own site with several friends who had lost their retail day jobs. They expanded on the content of the site, adding new characters, additional writers and performers. A team of fellow critics and reviewers became Team TGWTG, video gamers come to the site under the title of Blistered Thumbs, and the site has gradually prospered (if by gradually of course one means that from 2008 to 2009 the site began making $10,000 per month). Perhaps the biggest element of this brand’s success is Walker’s rivalry with fellow nostalgic reviewer, the Angry Video Game Nerd. AVGN is a series reviewing nostalgic cartridge video games, and the similarities between the two series sparked comments among the series’ fans that one or the other might be stealing the concept. Taking this idea to a perhaps bizarre new level, the Critic and the Nerd launched a series of videos detailing their epic battles and struggles to claim the title of “winner,” and both their viewership’s prospered from it. Walker’s story is an inspiring one because of the sheer scale of his success. In less than a decade he has gone to making sums of money one would normally associate with a major business venture. Yet at the core of it, he and his friends make short videos about old movies from the 1980s, in their homes, with software and equipment you can pick up at any computer store. Yet now there are people going to comic and movie conventions costumed as the Critic or his cronies, and the various pop culture lines he references have become a new canon of online in jokes. Closing Thoughts These two stories are not the rule. There are many reviewers out there who haven’t achieved the level of success these people have. However, the fact that they have achieved it at all shows that it can be done, and both stories share the same important lesson for anyone interested in branding: Do what you love. Neither of these two Internet heroes has branding as his first priority. Instead, the priority is on doing something they love, and always doing it well. Walker’s first Nostalgia Critic video is of noticeably poorer quality than his newest videos, and Zero Punctuation has grown more eclectic and daring in its animations as time has gone on. These two have a passion for what they want to see done, and the brand has grown as a result of the effort and love they have put into it. If you take no other lesson from their story, take this one: do something you love, and do it well. Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to www.BrandSplat.com or visit our blog at www.iBrandCasting.com. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Learn More About Website Planning Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 AM PDT 
Thorough website planning helps streamline the process for the developer while helping the client gain clarity on their vision and an understanding on the processes to come. A number of questions should be addressed and fully thought about before starting. Here is a sampling of things to consider: What needs to be achieved with the website? Who is the target audience? What “feelings” should the website design evoke? How can we express the websites vision? And this is just the beginning. No need to get overwhelmed before we start – this is where the fun begins: Planning a website can be a very enjoyable and eye-opening experience when you get to think of all the ways to bring your brand to your space on the web. Generally, there are 2 perspectives to keep in balance while in the planning stages of the website: 1.) what is your brand and how will it come across on the web to fit with the larger vision of the site? and 2.) how will your users experience the site? It’s best to keep the original goals of the website in mind as you consider the user’s perspective and how they will use the site. All too often, websites are built entirely around the client’s goals and visions with little consideration about the end user (the customer). Often this creates a disconnect in the site’s purpose and intended function if the user isn’t quite sure how to use the website. For example, filling the website with industry specific jargon can help build trust in the website visitor, but over doing it can leave the user confused and could ultimately push them to the competition who may talk a bit more “with” the user versus “at” them. Everyone involved in the planning phase must always keep the end user in mind. When a visitor comes to a site, they come with questions and are seeking answers: Can I trust this company? Do they do good work? Are their products affordable? Can they get my job done? How to reserve, buy or get more info? Through careful website planning and design, you want to have all of these bases covered. The website needs to answer these questions with haste and provide an easy way for them to take action – a purchase, filing out a contact form, signing up for your newsletter, etc. Since the attention span and patience of a typical user is very short, this interaction process needs to be clearly called out so as to not leave them guessing. Some intrigue is OK on a site if that is part of the fun of your brand and the experience of your site, but the user should never stare quizzically at your site for more than a couple minutes asking themselves questions like this: “I just want to do X, but I don’t know how or where to go.” By the time a user has to ask that question, odds are good that they will start looking elsewhere – like a competitor’s site. Just sayin. A well thought out website plan keeps everyone’s expectations inline and ensures that the developer, the client and the end user all walk away with a positive experience. Connective Web Design offers affordable web design and website development services specializing in WordPress, Ecommerce, Social Media and Search Engine Optimization. Visit www.connectivewebdesign.com to learn more! Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Use Local SEO for National Reach Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 AM PDT 
If you have enough of these local listings, you may even be able to start appearing on some regional and national searches too. Here are a few local SEO tactics you can use to help. Google Local This is the must-do for anyone doing local SEO for their business, store, or restaurant. As more people give up Yellow Pages and start searching online, it is a good idea to promote your Google Local listing. For one thing, it is free, not like the Yellow Pages listings. (Plus, there can be two, three, or even four Yellow books in your city, which can be a complete waste of money.) Next, the more information you include, the better. You can link back to your website, list the different credit cards you accept, include a map to your place, and quickly update your information if you move, rather than waiting for a new Yellow Pages. By starting with Google Local, you are letting Google know you are an official business and one that should be included in their search engine rankings. Review Sites User-generated content is the new big thing when it comes to online credibility, which means review sites are great for local SEO. On sites like Yelp and UrbanSpoon, users can leave reviews of their favorite restaurants and bars. Yelp also offers reviews of mechanics, doctors, and dentists. Find your business on these different sites, and customize the listings, as you did for your Google Local listing. Include every piece of information you can, and then monitor them every couple of weeks to see what people are saying about you. If someone leaves you a bad review, do not fight back, get into an argument, or drop the hammer on them. Respond politely, address the problem, tell them you will fix it, and offer something in exchange. Not only will this help your local SEO, it will possibly win back a dissatisfied customer, and help others see that you take care of your customer. Location-based social networks Sites like Foursquare and Gowalla are gaining a lot of users. The smart restaurants and retail stores are jumping on the bandwagon and participating in these networks. It helps local SEO, because they attract local visitors, but also thanks to the backlinks from the sites to the restaurant’s website. Remember, backlinks are key in local SEO and national SEO, so the more you can create, the better. Microsites A microsite is a single page that has been optimized for local SEO, and points back to your regular website. This is an excellent strategy for multi-site businesses, because you can purchase domains geared specifically for the different cities you have sites in. Buy domain names with your city’s name and best keywords — TopekaDogGrooming.com or DallasCoffeeShop — and create a single page for that domain. Use the same keywords in the URL throughout the page, and then link it back to your main site. While this will help local SEO for each microsite, this can have a huge impact on your national SEO as well. Blogging One of the most important local SEO strategies is a blog. Since search engines love websites that are updated with new content on a regular basis (not just changing old content), a blog is a great way to supercharge your local SEO efforts. Plus, if you are blogging about national issues or a national industry, your blog could eventually break into the first page results for your particular niche. What will ultimately help is by pointing backlinks from these other tactics back to your blog. Be sure to incorporate your blog into your main website so you can take full advantage of all the local SEO tools we have described here. With 20 years in marketing, advertising and 10 years in internet marketing, Rostin Ventures has refined the SEM SEO Expert Formula. www.rostinventures.com offers local online marketing and SEO services that are affordable and easy to access and are combined to build the formula that drives search engine ranking through Social Media Optimization, Online Reputation Management, Social Marketing and web 2.0 communities and resources. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| How Much is Too Much to Pay for SEO? Posted: 11 Aug 2010 10:00 PM PDT 
Yes, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be an excellent way of getting leads. Yes, good SEO can level the playing field between you and competitors. Yes, you should do some level of SEO. …but how much is too much? Too much? Good question. You’ll find that everybody that uses the word “Internet” is going to suggest that you engage in SEO and many will make you an offer to do it for you. There’s nothing wrong with that as far it goes. But what you have to decide is how much you should pay for having it done. Some Perspectives On Paying For SEO Here are a few important tips to help you decide the answer to that question: (1) First, make sure you really do need outside assistance. If you’re looking for better SEO placement for relatively unique or so-called “long tail” key words (e.g. “pine street rental condominiums” ) it might be worth trying it yourself before you involve an SEO consultant or SEO firm. (2) SEO is not rocket-science. Mostly it’s monotonous drudgery. So what you pay should not be about hiring “expertise”. The SEO effort is more like 90% drudgery, 8% experience, and 2% expertise and you should compensate accordingly. (3) The value of SEO boils down to “clicks” – preferably clicks that result in a sale conversion. SEO should be measured on the same cost-per-click basis any search-engine-marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) campaign would be – i.e. the basis of ROI. If you don’t know how many clicks or orders you want, do not engage SEO until you do. (4) SEO is not static and optimization is competitive. You may be on the first page today but your competitors aren’t necessarily going to sit still forever. You could be bumped at any time. So if you’re not prepared to maintain an ongoing and strategic SEO effort – no matter what the competition does – then save your money. (5) Search engine “secrets” are just that – secret. The search engines aren’t telling them and anybody that claims to know the secrets is just guessing. It doesn’t mean they can’t help but it’s not as if they have some special advantage. Impossible. (6) Frankly, from the search engine point-of-view, if your site doesn’t have enough useful and relevant content to be on the first page, ethical SEO notwithstanding, eventually it won’t be. This is the objective of the search engines and there’s little likelihood that the SEO “expert” pitching you is going to out-think Google, Yahoo!, Bing and others in the long run. Is Doing SEO Yourself An Option? It’s almost always worth taking a first crack at SEO yourself. Often only a little effort can make a significant difference. If you do want to make the effort, invest a few dollars in a do-it-yourself SEO guide and try to adhere to the following minimum suggestions: (1) Focus on keywords that are realistic. You’re not likely to get a good placement with a keyword like “real estate” but you might get first page with a keyword like “Hill street real estate”; (2) Make sure your keyword is mentioned in the link to your page. Instead of saying “click HERE” make sure the text for the link says something like “for more information about HILL STREET REAL ESTATE”; (3) Make sure your keyword is mentioned in your page title, your keyword list, your page content, bolded page content; (4) For every keyword you’re interested in, make sure you have an appropriate page to focus on it (and that it complies with #1, #2, and #3 above) (5) Register with search engine webmaster accounts so that you can submit your site to them quickly and efficiently (search for “google webmaster”, “bing webmaster”, or “yahoo webmaster” to find the details). Don’t Forget Links Lastly, if you going to make an initial stab yourself, understand that quality links to your site are a vital factor in your ultimate placement. The more the merrier. To get a head-start on building links to your site, do the following: (1) Enroll in all relevant local or regional directories – (search “free directories” to find lists of these); many will be free, some will want nominal fees or backlinks. You decide. (2) Ensure that any press releases and announcements you make refer to your site and specific pages within it. (3) Post pages of your site to delicious.com or to digg.com and to similar bookmarking sites. (4) Ask local friends and business acquaintances if they will exchange links with you. (5) On the other hand, DO NOT sign up for paid links without the guidance of someone experienced in Internet marketing. Do these things sound particularly difficult? No. And well worth taking a stab at by yourself. From there you can decide whether its desirable or worth the cost to pay for SEO services from a 3rd-party. No Matter What You Do… You need to think in terms of what kind of return you are going to get on your investment. The calculation is simple: Divide the total SEO cost (yours or a 3rd-party’s) by the number of orders/sales you’ve received as a result of the effort. Then compare that cost-per-sale against your margin-per-sale. If you have margin left over, you’re in the right territory. If you don’t, you’ve got a problem. The bottom line is that when you talk with any SEO service provider, you must think in terms of ROI. Not in terms of “secrets” or first pages or top spots, but ROI. (Note: it is theoretically possible to be on the 3rd page and still get a positive ROI – not likely, but possible) If the ROI doesn’t work, then search engine optimization may not be for you and other Internet marketing methods might yield better results and a better ROI. Kurt D. Lynn offers business consulting services for growing businesses in the U.S. and Canada. www.klynnbusinessconsulting.com For more information or more articles, check out his blog at www.klynnbusinessconsulting.com/blog. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
| Reader Rescue: Why Is My Regional Keyword Research So Inconsistent? Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:07 PM PDT 
I feel like I am stuck with my keyword research. I am researching SEO keywords for an Australian business that specializes in tree removal and tree felling. The keywords I chose for them were “tree removal” and “tree lopper” however when I enter these into Keyword Discovery for Australia I get nothing (although “tree removal” comes up with quite a bit for global search. These keywords best describe the business and although the tree removal operator prefers not to be called a tree lopper he is happy for me to use this term for search engine purposes. Yet when entering these keywords into Google it seems a lot of competitor sites come up. I am confused! Can you help? Louise ————————————– Hello Louise In my experience, most keyword research tools (such as Keyword Discovery or WordTracker) are highly inconsistent or downright inaccurate when it comes to regional search databases. What I would do is to use the global database when choosing the best keywords to target and then see how they go in terms of bringing you traffic. You can tweak the keywords as you go based on the response and traffic you get. I would start broad e.g. “tree removal”, “tree felling” and then narrow your market based on the responses you receive e.g. “tree removal [city]“ or “tree felling services”. Another way to measure your potential regional market is to set up a basic pay per click campaign using Google AdWords, targeting Australia only and targeting the keywords you wish to test. Then monitor the number of impressions that your keywords get. Note I said impressions and not clicks. Set the budget low or design your ads in a way you don’t necessarily attract clicks (so it’s a cheap and dirty experiment). The number of impressions you get per week will give you a ballpark idea of how many Australian searchers are looking for those particular keywords in Google per week. ————————————– Got a Reader Rescue question of your own? Send it to kjordan [ at ] sitepronews [ dot ] com and you might see it featured here. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
Hi Kalena| You are subscribed to email updates from SiteProNews Recent Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
