|
|
| Webmaster Articles |
|
|
|
|
Growing Your Business In CyberSpaceMark Sincevich A synopsis of Philippa Gamses Presentation to the National Speakers Association, Washington DC chapter on Saturday, January 10, 2004 Someone had asked Philippa why Websites are such a pain in a pre-seminar question. Her opening reply was simple, yet powerful, "when you stop improving your site, you stop growing." She believes that Websites are a work in progress much like a business plan or ones own self-improvement. In fact, the first question you should ask yourself about your own Website is, "What does it really do for people" The second question is "Who is your audience" You see, websites are really a lot like a business plan! If you are trying to attract prospective clients, then each individual page on your site should offer something of value to your audience. The number one way that Philippa adds value to her audience is through her articles. The best way to keep getting top listings with the most popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN, is to constantly change or add content. Her articles add value to her audience and are her number one search engine strategy. Maybe this is why she doesnt cold-call. Her customers tell her that they have seen her name in multiple locations before they call her directly. She said that we should think about the emotional connection that our website makes. How does your website represent you when you are not there Unfortunately most websites are not a true reflection of what we do and who we are. The reality is that our websites need to become an expertise center. We need to show a clear benefit such as how our programs will increase the creativity and balance of a prospective customer. Every page should have a strategy, a way to increase our database and provide a call to action. Philippa also believes that each web site should have a dynamite testimonial across the front of the homepage, because testimonials are the least-viewed section on every website! She recommends that we pull out our testimonials and sprinkle them throughout our site. And when we think of testimonials, we should be thinking about the substantive ways that we have helped our customers. If we attempt to be clear and specific about our program benefits, why not be clear and specific about their outcomes from real customers. She recommends that we have specific testimonials for specific programs. Talk about maximizing our congruency! In order to get started, Philippa wants to know what we have done today to improve our website. Two days after her seminar, I added a question and answer section and submitted my site to a dozen search engines. My next step is to write another article. What are you going to do today to improve your web site, your business and even yourself She encourages you to contact her about the changes you have made. For more information on how to improve your website further, Philippa recommends that you download her tip sheet, "Twenty-Three Proven Tips and Ideas for On-Line Marketing" at http://www.cyberspeaker.com/tipsheet.html. Philippa can be contacted directly at her office in Santa Cruz, California at 831-465-0317 or pgamse@cyberspeaker.com. If she doesnt get back to you immediately, it is due to her ongoing quest to find the best deli sandwich outside of New York City. c 2004, Mark Sincevich. All rights in all media reserved.
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES The Top 15 Essential Ingredients of Every WINDOWS HOSTING Plan Package First things First. Why would you like to have Windows Based Hosting when there are Linux packages for cheaper ratesThe answer is – it depends onwhat application you are looking to use for your hosting. Consider the tools and scripting languages you plan to use – if you use PHP, Perl or MySQL, Linux is the way forward. If apps are Microsoft-specific, then Windows is what you need.Clear… The Meta Tag Myth The more the better right Wrong. At least when it comes to meta tags. The history of the meta tag started off as a nice tool that web sites could use to show the search engines what the site was about without the words showing up on the actual page. It seemed like a great idea until people started to abuse the meta tag. They would add highly searched for keywords that were unrelated to their site in their meta tags in hopes of attracting additional traffic. The search engines caught on and lowered the importance of meta tags - they figured out that if they put more emphasis on the visible content of a site, people would have a much more difficult time “cheating”. Turns out that they were right. How To Get Profits From Your 404 Page Not Found File "Page Not Found on this Server. Check the URL and try again. Or Refresh the page..." How To Write An Effective FAQ Page Websites that have multiple pagesusually have a Frequently Asked Questions FAQpage. There are several good reasonswhy you should have one. Determine Your Popularity On The Web "Mirror mirror on the wall, whos the fairest of them all" Im going to bet that its not you, um I mean, not your website. With all of the new websites popping up all over the place how do you know where you rank How popular is your site compared to the next one Web Hosting: Shared or Dedicated - Which Should You Choose Before you begin your search for a web host you should first determine whether you need shared web hosting or dedicated web hosting. eCommerce, How much does it cost Making profits with your existing website design or creating a new online store can be exciting, affordable and most of all; rewarding. Mmmm . . . thats what the last sales guy told me. Creative Offline Website Marketing Techniques Although the vast majority of website traffic is the direct result of search engines, there are many offline marketing techniques that can be used to draw customers to your website. The examples listed below are but a few ways in which you can market your online presence to an offline audience in an inexpensive manner. Some of the examples listed below even can be implemented at no extra cost! Basic Design Principles Part 2 Tone and Texture Keep Your Website Up-To-Date In almost every business publication there are articles telling us how, as a small business, we need to have a website. This is very true! The Internet is where most people go to find a product or service that they are interested in or may have heard about. And, if your business is capable of serving customers throughout the globe, what better way to keep your information available to that huge target audience than an Internet presence Metrics Matter! Recently, I talked with a speaker about her "extremely successful" Website.She based this opinion on the fact that she was selling several e-books every day and generating "some calls".When I asked if she was reviewing her traffic analysis, she said "No, why should we - its clearly working - we can tell that from the sales".I didnt ask if she knew how her sales and calls compared to the actual visitor numbers for the site - I suspected that shed have been shocked to learn how many more opportunities she was losing. Absolute & Relative Links How Do They Rank The question for this article is whether or not you should use "absolute urls" or "relative urls" Not only that, this article researches whether or not Google ranks these methods differently. Link Popularity for a Successful Website: How Not to Go About Getting It A classic way of getting seen and noticed on the web is to make sure your site is linked to as many other sites as possible. The strategy of link-exchange has been so overused and abused that search engines are now wary of it and may penalize sites that are linking to "link farms", or to any other sites with non-relevant content. Web Sites Share Your Dream With The World With over 16 million web sites on the Internet, how do you get your home-based businesss site noticed Now you have a Web site. Have you ever heard of accessibility An accessible Web site is easily approached, easily understood, and useable for all. There are accessibility standards set forth by the World Wide Web Consortium, which all sites should adhere to as much as possible. Choosing the Right Web Designer Introduction What is PageRank What is Pagerank - Pagerank is based on how many links to one website. PageRank is a value that represents how important a page is on the web. Robots or Spiders figures that when one page links to another page, it is casting a vote for the other page. Also the importance of the page that is casting the vote determines how important the vote is. It matters because it is one of the most important factors that determines a pages ranking in the search results but It isnt the only factor that Search enginesuses to rank pages. Not all links are counted by Search engines..Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Search engines. The Benefits Of Having a Country Top Level Domain TLD Name Most new websites tend to look for a domain name with a .com or .net tld Top Level Domain. They feel this gives the site a more professional appearance and will appeal to a more international audience and in many cases this is true. However, it can also be beneficial to look at purchasing a domain name with a country specific tld. PHP On-The-Fly! Introduction Cheap Web Hosting - When Cheaper is Better Anyone who has ever shopped for web hosting knows that you can spend anywhere from nothing up to several hundred dollars to host your web site. So what’s the difference Well often times if you’re talking about typical shared web hosting in the $6 to $20 range – nothing. That’s right – nothing! Nothing that is, except good old fashioned marketing and hype! |
| home | site map |
|
|