Liz Strauss realized something in her recent accidental click on an advertisement: it’s not such a bad thing.
Her first reaction though was somewhat different
The second the ad came up, I automatically looked away. NO! I’m not an ad clicker. No, no no! I needed out of there right away!
I looked around for a witness to my reckless clicking. No one here saw. Still I knew Some place, somewhere, in some stats, someone already had tracked me there.
Then I had an epiphany. Okay, I woke up.
What Was I Thinking?
What was this self-imposed ad rule about? It doesn’t cost me to click an ad, and yet for some reason, I think it’s smarter to check the website and go there direct. Talk about taking the long way home.
She then lists the reasons why she (and pretty much all of us) avoid advertisements like the plague, from thinking all ads are just deception (anyone get a free xbox 360 just by hitting three cows?), to trying to dodge strategically placed ads so that we don’t feel “caughtâ€.
The best part of the article though is where Liz says that we should all be upfront with our visitors in where advertisements fit on our site. I know for a fact that I could not afford to spend the time blogging that I have if advertisements hadn’t taken some of the financial burden off my back, and that is thanks to viewers feeling that the ads shown were worthy to be clicked on.
A very impressive article from Successful Blog, and something to add to your must-read list. http://www.successful-blog.com/
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So google ads are there to defray the cost of running a site or to make a little extra cash
so if you are not already running google ads on your site whynot sign upto day
The Google Ageing Delay
By Barry Fenning © 2006
Setting-up and optimizing your website doesn’t mean that traffic will start pouring in from Google the next day. It is important for all website owners to understand what the Google Sandbox is, and what to do to make the best of their time within it.
What is the Google Sandbox?
The ageing delay commonly known as the Google Sandbox was designed to stop people setting-up multiple websites and pointing them to each other in a way to inflate link popularity. The Sandbox effects new website domain names by holding them in a sort of online purgatory state where any site hoping to rank well for any competitive keyword phrases will not appear in the search engine results for a period varying between 6 – 12 months. Nobody knows for sure how long it takes to get out of the Sandbox but it is vitally important to know it exists.
The Sandbox can have some very detrimental effects for small businesses that don’t have the big marketing budget to get the word out there any other way. However, it does provide the company owner with the incentive to use the time within the Sandbox to carefully optimize their site so once it gets out it can jump straight into the top 10 – 30 results.
The Google Sandbox shouldn’t be a reason for too much woe. New sites aren’t affected in the same way when it comes to getting listed in Yahoo and MSN, so website owners can benefit from traffic from these other websites whilst they continue to optimize for the big day when they are let out of the website into the Google search results.
How do I get out of it?
To put it very simply ¦ you cant.
Getting in to it is the first thing you should be doing. If you don’t have a few links pointing from other websites to your site Google will never know it exists in the first place.
So what can you do?
Create valuable inbound links so that the googlebot spider can find your website in the first place and put it into the Sandbox.
List your site within directories that can provide you with a steady stream of visitors.
Conduct a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign such as Google Adwords or Yahoo Overture to drive visitors to your site.
Think creatively and conduct any off-line marketing campaigns that will send visitors to your site.
Most importantly ¦
Take the time to develop your website and business in such a way so that when a large amount of visitors start to arrive from the Google search results you’ll be ready and able to deal with this increase in traffic.
Analyze your website statistics so you can see where people come from and where they go to. Once a person visits your website they will be very quick to judge what they do and don’t like.
If you can understand at the early stages of your online presence what your visitors don’t like and where and why they leave before buying, inquiring, or whatever it is you want them to do on your site it will help you streamline your website in such a way that when you are released from the Sandbox you will be better able to provide them with an excellent service.
Building a solid SEO foundation
By Barry Fenning © 2006
Why is it so important?
Effective keyword research is the most important element of any search engine optimization campaign.
How do I do it properly?
If you want to target your customers properly it is important to understand exactly how you would describe your company to them. You save them an earful of all the nitty-gritty services that you provide by saying that you sell electronic equipment. That’s fine in the real world where if you had a list of services the length of your arm you wouldn’t want to scare your prospective customers off by rambling on about everything you do for 20 minutes. However, when it comes to effective Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques you must use numerous keyword phrases to attract as many possible customers.
Never be married to just one phrase.
Taking the example above…
“I sell electronic equipment”
Now ask yourself.
What kind of electronic equipment?
What brands do you sell?
Where is your shop?
Do you offer any other services such as repairs, rental, free delivery, and installation?
Do you sell expensive or cheap products?
By writing down the answers to all of these questions (and preferably more) you will start to create a long list of keywords and keyword phrases that will help you choose what you can offer to your target market.
Using a tool such as the Keyword Discovery Tool or Wordtracker (both of these products are the best on the market, but I would recommend Keyword Discovery because it takes into account fluctuations in seasonal searches) you will get a better idea of how many people are using search engines to look for the terms on your list. You will also be given other suggestions that you may have overlooked.
Optimize each of your website pages based on the terms that are most relevant to what your site offers that have the best traffic results. I would advise you to add separate “landing pages†to your site optimized for the keyword phrase(s) that could bring substantial traffic to your business.
By carefully creating and/or developing a website that is optimised for many different keyword phrases you will be able to drive a large amount of targeted traffic to your site from all of the search engines.