Targeted Local Search Engine Optimisation

One of the key elements to Internet and Online marketing is identifying your target market. Who are they, how old are they and most importantly where are they located? With the advent of more advanced geo-location software systems being used by Google we are now able to target very specific markets with our online marketing campaigns. The first step in this process is to write down and identify your market with the 3 questions I have listed above. Once you have done that then you should consider the following and address them in order to hone in on your target search engines and then consequently your target market.

I will use the example of a Web Designer and Developer in Melbourne, Australia.

1. The website should be hosted in the country and if possible the city in which you plan on targeting with your online marketing strategy.

2. The website should have on page search engine optimisation which is tailored towards the region - country - city. So, in other words these three elements, if they are identified as the target market, should be mentioned in titles, keywords, meta tags, content, on page titles, links etc within the website.

3. Any controllable external links to the website should have a sprinkling of the region - country - city within them, without over doing it.

4. The website should have a fully qualified domain name. In this case .com.au

5. The website should be listed in the regional Google search index. You can go to your local search engine and simply register and request for the googlebot to scan your website. If you host within the region and/or you have a fully qualified domain name then you should get listed within the regional index anyway but registering will triply ensure.

6. Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools and then go to Tools->Set Geographic Location. Some sites target users for a particular geographic location. For example, a site may target all users within a specific country, or it may target only those users who reside within a very small geographic area within that country. Using this feature allows you to further refine your target your market.

7. Have a regional specific phone number. For example, for website design in Australia it would be 1300 880 841.

8. Get listed in local online directories.

9. Use a Google map that shows your business location. This will ensure that your regional association is further enhanced within the search engines.

Once you have done all of these things then your website should be fully targeted towards your identified target market. Now you just need to make your site interesting, make it sell and get it developed properly in order to do this.

Reasons To Ignore Toolbar Pagerank Updates

There seems to be this hysteria around Google and its Toolbar updates. Maybe it relates to webmasters and web designers thinking that once Google make this fabled toolbar update that their website will magically jump up in the SERP's. Well I cannot say this clearly enough but if this is what you believe then you will be sadly disappointed. Google just don't work this way.

I see many, many articles, posts and blog comments by interested onlookers and self-declared SEO experts about the upcoming, and according to some people, well overdue, toolbar pagerank update. I have one quote I would like to share with you, from Matt Cutts who is one of the head Google Search Engineers, "Toolbar Pagerank updates are a non-event at Google". The main reason Matt says this is because pagerank is updated constantly and the toolbar pagerank is only a snapshot of the real pagerank. So this being the case once the snapshot of the real page rank is taken and assigned to the toolbar database it will have no affect on how Google actually view or rank the website in the SERP's. Fretting and stressing about where the toolbar pagerank update has gone is pointless because your web page already has a pagerank assigned to it, you just can't see a little green bar. It's just so teasing by Google isn't it!!

So, what should we do now that we have decided that checking your toolbar pagerank and those terribly inaccurate pagerank predictors is a waste of our time?

Well, find some good articles on SEO. Read them. Find more. Read them. Absorb as much information as you can about SEO and online marketing. Read about the website language your website is coded in. A common language nowadays is PHP. Research keywords and how to find good keyword phrases. Take a proactive approach and make some modifications to your site that you now know are correct SEO techniques.

If you have already got web pages in the SERP's then look for where you have 2 pages with 1 indented and maybe make some small modifications to the page that is the indented result and experiment with it a little. Keep a diary of your changes so that if you need to trace back to what changes you made you can. If they get a positive result then you can apply the exact same changes across other pages or if they are negative in the SERP's then you can start again from where you were before.

Give at least a week or two in-between making changes so that you can know exactly what affect your change had in the SERP's. Make only one change per page so that you can monitor that particular change vs. SERP's rankings.

Web Marketing - Fundamental Steps

1) Collection of back links: Do collect back links for your site. More you have back links proves more you are popular in the web world. Back links are counted as vote for the particular site. So do link exchange with those sites, which are relevant to the theme of your business as well as having good page ranking and also placed in the top level of the SERPs.

2) Article submission: Article submission is the best way of getting quality one-way back links. Write articles and then submit it into the article sites and place the site link under the option of author’s details.

3) Directory submission: Directory submission is another way of getting one way back links.

4) E-mail marketing: Using web-mining data and collecting visitor details or collecting old customer details thus web owner can promote their site through e-mail messaging. Also yahoo provides option for placing signature in their yahoo mail ids. This is also a good option for e-mail marketing.

5) Uses of signature link in popular forums: these days web forum is the global platform for any web users. Net savvy people like to spend time in forum, they use web forum for their own queries, for their research work as well as for knowledge. Web forum is also a global platform for online marketing too. Placing own site link as the signature link assures increased number of visitors as well as a certain amount of back links.

6) Blogging for indirect marketing: one must have own blog and use this blog for indirect marketing. Blog can be used as a supporting base for online marketing. Fundamental concept of blogging is to carry fresh content all time. Bloggers always try to provide fresh news, small articles in their own blog as a result blogger always have good amount of visitors. So collecting back links from popular blogs is another way of marketing.

7) Banner exchange: Exchange your banner with other sites and place link in there off.

8) Article exchange: Write good relevant articles on complementary aspects and exchange those articles with other site in lieu of back links for your site.

9) Adsense marketing: Google adsense marketing is one of the world-renowned marketing options. But web owner must be aware of the limitations of the uses of adsense. Otherwise a site giving more attention to google adsens will be considered either as a scraper site or as a site made for adsense reveue only. Visitors and major search engine like big G or yahoo or msn do not like these sites.

10) Offline marketing: Business owner can promote their site locally by using normal offline marketing strategies like news paper adds, TV adds, banner adds etc. It will help them to gain local popularity. Say for example: bharatmatrimony.com or shadi.com can give their off line news paper add in Sunday Anandabazar Patrika in well known “Patra-patri” column to gain the local popularity.


Article source: http://www.articledashboard.com/

A Little Something Extra For Your Clients

As a writer, editor, web designer, forum maven, etc. [boy, I sound multi-talented!] I try to give my clients a/k/a customers a little something extra whenever or wherever possible. No, not so that they take advantage of my kindness, rather to show that I go the extra mile for them. Hey, it is a competitive market out there and I don't want to grow complacent!

So, exactly what am I talking about? Blogs. That's right, I enjoy blogging so much that I have decided to include a "blog option" as part of my web package for clients [new and existing] who want one during 2006. It doesn't cost me any money for the software, but it will cost me approximately one hour's time to set up each blog.

How about you? Are you expanding your offerings or are you standing in place? Is there something extra/special which you can offer to your clients at no cost to them?

If you are thinking of short term gains then you are missing my point. Invest in your clients and they will return the favor to you in the form of loyalty and increased exposure: happy clients tell other clients of their good fortune, which is you and what you offer to them -- top notch service!

For newer sites, Web Marketing depends on "titles" & "links"

We all start out the same. Some have budgets, some don't. The one true factor out there is that we all want to expose our business. For 99% of us, starting out in the world of web marketing means a few things:

* - A huge learning curve
* - Endless nights working
* - Trial & Error
* - Learning the ropes

Compared to older more established sites out there, a brand new site without a network of well established web sites to back it up will need to depend on good quality links pointing to it. This will commence the search engine ranking strategy.

See most "grand father" sites out there have already gone through the trials and tribulations of getting recognized. Since this is true, they don't always have to depend on the "Title" of the link pointing to their site, nor do they have to depend on the "Title" tag within their site.


Now here's the [kicker]. Let's say Joe has been doing this for 2 years now, 9 times out of 10, if Joes web site is still promoting content about "Web Marketing", he probably doesn't have to add "Web Marketing" to his main title anymore. He can now add it further down within another link on his site.

So the moral is???

If your site is new, you'll need to depend on the "Titles" of many things to get your rankings up for something specific. If you're site is more mature and has been established, you can work on other search terms you've been longing to get for your site.

Just keep plugging away and try to keep your "titles" the same for new sites and mix it up for older sites!

I hope you enjoyed the article!

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