Selling Products Online - Shiny New Mouse Killer Hunter Weapons

So, you’ve found out where the mouse killers hang out. And you’ve figured out that you’ll need some shiny new weapons in your arsenal if you’re going to be successful in catching a few.

In Internet Terms the cheese is content and the shiny objects are viral/social marketing, search engine optimization and search engine marketing. These Internet terms are really just ways to make sure you are ‘near’ websites of ‘the same interests.’ On the Internet being near something means being linked to and from it. That link can be anything from a blog comment that contains your URL to a banner ad to even a sponsored link. It means making sure that when the mouse killers are reading about mouse killing at another website, they to see a link to your website.

Let’s look at these new internet marketing tools. First let’s explore content. Content in its simplest form is a bunch of words, or pictures or videos or sounds that appear on a website or a blog. For the mouse trap seller content might be images a mouse riding a frog (seriously, click the link I found a picture of a mouse riding a frog). It might be articles about the joy of mouse killing or 101 things to do with a dead mouse or even an article exploring the confessions of a reformed mouse killer. Maybe it is a video clip showing the new Super-Duper X 1000 mouse trap in action. Whatever the type of content, the important thing is that it is relevant to mouse traps. Videos of exploding whales might indeed be fun to watch but they really won’t help here.

The value of the content is really two-fold. First mouse killers like to view pictures of frog riding mice and read about the exploits of other mouse killers. So they will seek out articles, pictures and videos on the subject. And once they find a good source of content they will likely come back there next time they want to catch up on the latest. And, even better, when other website owners like the mouse killer blog we came across earlier see the articles they will create a link to your article. And viola, you’ve got a next door neighbor. This is the beginnings of a viral/social marketing shiny object that we’ll cover later.

The second reason is less fun, but it is all about search engines like Google and Yahoo!. They eat up content, almost literally. All other revenue sources notwithstanding, search engines stay in business by delivering highly targeted content to searchers. If someone, say a mouse killer searches Google for ‘stories about mouse killing,’ the results page (SERP) better have a bunch of links to websites with stories about mice and killing them. If it were to return links about, say PETA, the mouse killers are likely to go somewhere else, like Yahoo!, to look for stories. Google lost a customer, but more importantly they lost the possibility that you’d click one of the ‘sponsored’ links on the page. Sponsored links is another shiny object that we’ll cover shortly, but suffice it to say that Google makes a lot of money on those clicks.

One last point about content: It needs to be ‘keyword rich’ meaning to attract mouse killers it should include words like ‘mouse’ and umm… ‘trap.’ But be careful, content that is too rich can be overkill and actually make it harder to find. That’s something for another shiny object, search optimization.

So, we’ve got our cheese content. Now we’ll explore the shiny objects like viral/social marketing, search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

To Be Continued...

Search Engines and How They Work

Search Engines and How They Work

If you're doing any type of business on the internet than search engines like Google and Yahoo! could play a large role in the success or failure of your business. Even though most internet user have experience using search engines, many don't know how the engines work.

For website owners it is important to understand how, at least at a high level, search engines work so they can take advantage of the website traffic that only search engines can deliver.

Search Engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various Search Engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks:

- They search the Internet - or select pieces of the Internet - based on important words,

- They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find them, and

- They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index.

Early Search Engines held an index of a few hundred thousand pages and documents, and received maybe one or two thousand inquiries each day. Today, a top Search Engine will index hundreds of millions of pages, and respond to tens of millions of queries per day.

Before a Search Engine can tell you where a file or document is, it must be found. To find information on the hundreds of millions of Web pages that exist, a Search Engine employs special software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found on Web sites.

When a spider is building its lists, the process is called web crawling.

In order to build and maintain a useful list of words, a Search Engine's spiders have to look at a lot of pages. How does any spider start its travels over the Web? The usual starting points are lists of heavily used servers and very popular pages. The spider will begin with a popular site, indexing the words on its pages and following every link found within the site. In this way, the spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out across the most widely used portions of the Web.

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Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on Web pages, the Search Engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. There are two key components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:

- The information stored with the data, and

- The method by which the information is indexed.

In the simplest case, a Search Engine could just store the word and the URL where it was found. In reality, this would make for an engine of limited use, since there would be no way of telling whether the word was used in an important or a trivial way on the page, whether the word was used once or many times or whether the page contained links to other pages containing the word. In other words, there would be no way of building the ranking list that tries to present the most useful pages at the top of the list of search results.

To make for more useful results, most Search Engines store more than just the word and URL. A Search Engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the META tags or in the title of the page. Each commercial Search Engine has a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different Search Engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders.

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An index has a single purpose: it allows information to be found as quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an index to be built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a hash table. In hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical value to each word.

The formula is designed to evenly distribute the entries across a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical distribution is different from the distribution of words across the alphabet, and that is the key to a hash table's effectiveness.

When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the Search Engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first.

Not sure what keywords you should use? Picking the right, or wrong ones, can make or break your chances at online success. Consider getting a customized Key Word Report from Webs 4 Small Business that tells you which keywords you should and should not consider for your site. These keywords are specific to YOUR website not a generic list of keywords.

So, why are search engines important to business website owners? Simple. You need traffic and Search Engines have lots of it. And, their purpose is to drive traffic to sites that they think match their visitors' needs.

The way to get a portion of that traffic, is to optimize your website (you've likely heard of Search Engine Optimzaiton or SEO). That way when a someone searches for a keyword that is relevant to your website, the search engines includes a link to your website in the search results. That puts traffic and potential visitors just a click away from you website.

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What You Should Look For When Selecting An SEO partner

Every company offering SEO related services promises results but few deliver on that promise. To be the exception when it comes to delivering on that promise a SEO partner must take an approach that ensures quality results that meet YOUR business objectives.

There are lots of 'unethical' approaches to SEO that can actually get you banned from search engines. Unfortunately, some SEO companies still use these as a 'quick-fix.' Unfortunately, you get left holding the bag. Make sure the SEO company can explain their approach in terms you can explain and if they can't you should keep searching.

Here's what to look for:

First, they should demonstrate that they understand your business need.

Just giving you a questionnaire is not enough. At the beginning of any engagement, they should take the time to understand your business objectives. Your business is unique and a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach rarely actually fits every business. By taking the time to understand your business they should be able to tailor their services to best meet your business objectives as well as your budget.

Look for a free consulation to get started. Quality SEO Partners like Webs 4 Small Business will take the time to understand what you need before they 'put you on the clock.'

Second, they should use a proven model of optimization that offers 'realistic' expectations.

Ignore marketing hype like "Rank #1 in Google in 24 hours" Search engines do not make public the process or rules they use to crawl, rank pages or index website pages. Further the processes and rules change often as the search engines attempt to increase the value of search results. Of course if your keyword phrase is "one of a kind white unicorns hand made by a grandmother in Peoria" then you actually have a good shot of # 1 ranking if anyone actually ever searched for that. Otherwise, it takes time and lots of work to get high rankings.

To compensate for this lack of public information, an SEO partner should rely on a proven model to ‘uncover’ the rules.

1. Analyze – Determine where your pages rank today. From this you can learn what may be ‘right’ about these higher ranking that can be applied to other pages. Webs 4 Small business provides a FREE SEO ranking report to gets you started or you could select a full customized ranking report that gives you all the details about where you website is strongest and weakest.

2. Target – Every web site is unique. Rather than a set of ‘canned’ optimization recommendations they should determine the right optimization options for your website. To accomplish this they should use a range of methods:

• Expert Review. While many SEO partners have great in-house experience they should also turn to other experts who study search engines to determine the most likely ‘rules’ used to determine how pages are indexed and ranked.
• Best Practices. They should look at the top ranking competitors in your space to determine how they optimized their pages, particularly those aspects that could influence page rankings.
• Learn as they Optimize. They should consider implementing changes to larger sites in stages. Start by optimizing your highest value pages first, then, based on the results modify the optimization approach if needed before continuing.
• It’s More than Google. While organic search results are a key portion of any optimization effort, they should know that it takes much more to get quality traffic to your website. They should be able to help you go beyond the search engines to find your new traffic.

3. Optimize – They should be able to provide the detailed information you need to understand what needs to be done to your website. They should also be willing to let you make the changes rather than forcing you to allow them to make the changes at substantial per hour fees.

4. Analyze - SEO is not a one-time effort. Your business changes, your competitors change, your prospects and customers change and the search engines refine rules. This means you will need to periodically review your ranking and re-optimize your site. You should expect your SEO partner to provide 'follow-ups' to ensure that you got results.

Look for a free follow-up evaluation of your website after undertaking steps for optimization.

Third, their approach should be comprehensive and include all the aspects that bring traffic to your website, not just search engines. Make sure they will provide:

• Detailed Site Analysis - You need to understand from where your site is starting.
• Keyword Analysis - All keywords are not created equal. They should help you understand which ones to use, and as importantly, which ones not to use.
• Page Structure Recommendations - Content, headers, keyword placement, it all matters.
• Engine Submissions - Each engine is unique. 'Submit a link' programs are not effective.
• Paid Search - The internet is like any business, sometimes 'free' isn't worth even that. You may even want to consider a managed Pay-Per-Click service to get you started.
• Reciprocal Links - As with keywords, all links are not created equally.
  

Finally, the right SEO partner should work hand in hand with you to make sure the changes recommended for your website are the best fit for you. They should share their approach to making the changes to your website and should be flexible to make changes in a way that best supports your business needs.

Selecting a SEO partner can be intimidating. With all the marketing hype, it is easy to get fooled. In the end SEO is like any other business service you use. You should be able to understand the benefits, and limitations, it offers and make an informed decision about how to invest your money.

Looking for a hand getting your business website off the ground? Webs 4 Small Business can help you get started with a complete business website for only $249 or you can start optimizing your business website for only $295.

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