Over the years, I’ve had several copywriters ask me how important it is to have an “agency quality” website. My answer is always the same: it’s very important if you are prospecting other than locally.
When you prospect locally, the client can meet you personally. But when you prospect nationally, your website, “telephone” personality, and marketing materials form the basis of your prospective client’s impression of you.
Fortunately, it’s not difficult to find a designer/webmaster who can help you build a high quality site at a reasonable cost. And some of my students do a very nice job of creating a quality site themselves.
Because I’ve found national prospecting to be far more profitable than working with local business, I encourage my coaching students to prospect nationally (and sometimes internationally), and create a website that supports a sophisticated positioning.
What, exactly, constitutes an “agency quality” website?
Here are five pointers for creating a website that convinces quality clients that you are the right copywriter for them (plus two common mistakes to avoid):
1. Make sure your website has a “you” orientation. The Home page should not talk about “you” except in the context of what you can offer a client.
2. Have a “unique selling proposition” (USP), or positioning statement. Why are you “the best” choice? Do you serve a particular niche? Are you an expert at some important element of copywriting (e.g., offer development, headlines, concepting, etc.)? Make sure your USP “shines through” on your Home page.
3. View your entire site as a lead-generating tool. If you write a direct response package, you first try to get your prospect into the envelope. Once inside, you attempt to lead your prospect through the package, with the end destination the reply card or order device.
Use the same principle in designing your website and its navigation. Always send your prospect to the “contact me” page, or the page where you offer more information. As with any lead-generation effort, your only goal is to get your website visitor to respond.
4. Create an offer, and offer it on your website. Unlike general advertising, direct marketing is defined by the offer. If you don’t have an offer, you’re not employing the most fundamental rule of marketing, and it will cost you responses.
5. Pay attention to look and feel. Copywriters have the right and responsibility to make sure the end product produces leads or sales.
This means that the copywriter should offer the art director some level of direction on look and feel (without overstepping bounds, of course).
A clean, well-organized website that exhibits a “professional finish” will offer a sophisticated client some level of assurance that contacting you will not be a waste of their time.
What NOT to do on your website:
First and foremost, don’t “preach to the choir.” Because the world of copywriting is new to new copywriters, they have a tendency to “tell what they know” on their website.
But a quality client (usually mid-size to large companies and organizations), doesn’t want to know why copywriting will help him. He already knows that, even if he doesn’t know how to write copy himself.
What he’s looking for is validation that you could be the right copywriter for him.
Websites that attempt to “teach” generally attract clients who need teaching (oftentimes small business with a low appreciation of what good copywriting can do for them, and an even lower threshold for paying reasonable fees).
The second mistake I see is mentioning price on the Home page (or anywhere in the site, for that matter).
Quality clients do not put price first, and any discussion of price usually comes after the copywriter has a complete picture of the marketing problem that needs to be solved.
Not long ago, one of my coaching students complained that his prospects seemed fixated on price. After going to his website I noticed that his Home page positioned him as more attractively priced than other copywriters.
This positioning inadvertently created a USP based on “low price” — something we copywriters should always avoid.
Bringing up the subject of price on your website will actually cause your prospect to put it front and center. Best to let pricing discussions occur “naturally” in the process of landing a job.
Chris Marlow publishes a free newsletter for consultants who want to land the high quality, high value clients.
GetGreatClients.com
Filed under Copywriting · Tagged with Agency, Best Choice, Copywriter, Copywriters, Creating A Website, Direct Response, Element, Have, Important, Marketing Materials, Nice Job, Niche, Orientation, Personality, Pointers, Positioning Statement, Principle, Prospective Client, Quality, Quality Clients, Quality Website, Reply Card, Unique Selling Proposition, Unique Selling Proposition Usp, Website
Copywriting is the single most important component of Internet marketing. You need copy that attracts clients and converts lookers to buyers. So when you hire a copywriter, you need to get the most benefit from your investment.
Many of my clients tell me, “I paid for copy and it is sitting in a drawer, not my website.” Or they used up their budget for websites that do not attract clients. So here are 9 killer mistakes most professional service businesses make when it comes time to develop your website.
1. Writing copy – not content strategy.
Copywriting is more than putting words on paper. Your copywriter should help you fine-tune your content strategy before writing a single word.
Who is in your target market? Where is your competition? How are you unique?
Your copywriter should ask a series of questions at the very beginning. Expect to complete a questionnaire or participate in a phone interview. Most likely your copywriter will uncover surprising benefits and selling points. You will also get ideas for giveaways and features to add value and promote your business.
2. Creating a website that drowns out the copy.
Ouch. Every so often I write great copy for a website — and the client gives me a tan font on a beige background. Or a well-meaning web designer creates sites that buzz, whir and chirp. Or the copy gets lost in a sea of images, buttons, icons and more.
Your copywriter should offer to work with the web designer to create a site that attracts clients.
Think of your website resources as a football team.
The copywriter is your quarterback. She (or he) will call plays and move the ball to the goal posts so you can score.
The web designer is your offensive line. He (or she) will protect the quarterback and make sure your message gets through.
3. Expecting miracles.
Every so often I get an email like this: “Can you revise our sales letter so we will start getting lots and lots of sales immediately?”
Well, if you have a compelling offer for a service your market really values, and you attract traffic to your website, you will see fast results.
Often your goal will involve getting visitors to sign up for your ezine, not buy immediately. For a “soft” service like coaching, you will need to build relationships over time. Measuring results will be harder.
4. Asking “just a tweak, please! And hold the heavy stuff.”
Good copywriters can’t just tweak a few words in fifteen minutes. They want to learn more about your target market and your goals. Hire the copywriter for a diagnostic review (sometimes called “blueprint,” “critique” or “breakthrough”). Competent copywriters will include suggestions to improve your copy (even a tweak or two as needed).
5. Choosing one version of copy without testing.
For some projects (especially websites) you may be thrilled with copy and explore no further. I recommend asking the copywriter how to compare 2 versions (and if she can help you). You can compare anything. Which headline works best? Does your photo bring you more sign-ups (or cost you)? Does a blue or a red headline deliver more business?
You test one element at a time. And you must have something to be tested: sales or sign-ups for your complimentary product.
6. Insisting on industry experience.
.
Some of my most effective work has been with services that were completely unfamiliar when I started. I was forced to ask lots of questions, so I didn’t assume what “everybody” knows about benefits and features. Often your copywriter will import out of the box thinking: what’s old-hat in one industry will be exciting and fresh in yours. When in doubt, test.
7. Choosing a copywriter based on a free diagnostic consultation.
Who’s got time these days? Good copywriters are always busy. I like to say I work for myself, selling my own information products. When times are slow, I become my own best client.
Anyway, a complimentary consultation is nothing more than a sales pitch. You won’t get a sense of what the copywriter can do for you or what he’s like to work with. And you rarely get ideas you can use to bring in revenue. Your whole dynamic will shift when money changes hands.
8. Hiring a friend or relative to write copy.
No one should have to choose between family and business. Enough said.
9. Choosing copywriters by their hourly rate.
Prospects often ask copywriters, “What’s your hourly rate?” Then they say, “Wow – that sounds too high” or “That sounds too low – is there a catch?”
Instead, begin with what you need. If you wrote the copy yourself, you would need at least 20 hours for a website (maybe more) and even more for a long-copy sales letter (10-30 pages). Now calculate your own hourly rate – not the copywriter’s. If you charge $100 an hour and you write your own copy, you give up 20 billable hours or $2000.
Or consider how many new clients you might win from better copy. If you average $1000 from each new client, and your new website gets you 2 more clients, you break even by paying $2000. Hopefully you will get many more.
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is a Website Marketing Consultant for service professionals who are tired of cookie-cutter advice and ready for results. Download her free eBook 7 Best-Kept Secrets of Client Attracting Websites. here.
Filed under Copywriting · Tagged with Avoid, Beige Background, Buttons Icons, Chirp, Content Strategy, Copywriter, Copywriting, Creating A Website, Expecting Miracles, Fine Tune, Goal Posts, Hire, Killer, Killer Mistakes, Mistakes, Offensive Line, Phone Interview, Professional Service Businesses, Single Word, Surprising Benefits, Target Market, Website Resources, Well Meaning, When, Whir
With the high rate of demand of internet, the easy accessibility, blogging in journalism is also becoming quite a common affair. Journalism is a powerful medium as it has the power to influence a great many people. This is the reason why a number of journalists are using the internet for reaching across directly to a greater number of people.
There are a number of journalists who are creating a website for their blogs. From participatory journalists to mainstream journalists everyone is seeing as creating a site for their blogs. In fact one study found out that there are more than 300 mainstream journalists who are doing active journalism in such blogs.
As there is no censor in blogging hence many times you would find this could become a very dangerous medium. In their blogs the journalists can present you with many unadulterated facts which you would not find otherwise in the newspapers or the television. Hence, some journalists find the internet as the way of skirting around the filter. This way many times it presents the public with news that is true but filled with all the gory details and which is unedited in its form.
As it has no copyright rules hence, many times we find that the journalists use the media to present just any type of news. There is no control on the quality of news. And many times the new are copied from different mediums like local newspaper or television channels. In the newspapers the journalists are subjected to certain amount of scrutiny or abridgment of their message or the news items. Whereas in the blogs they themselves are the authors and there is none to stop publication as long as the contents are not bad. While with news papers the criticism or appreciation they receive for their publication is limited to the availability of space, the blogs offer a great deal of openness for any visitor to speak his mind on the post and the journanlists get enthused to cover their topics.
In fact this lack of control on it can rise up many adverse issues. The bloggers or journalists can present the public with a false piece of item just to keep up the interest and raise the traffic to their sites. Some people may use a journalism blog to raise a false rumour about a person or an incident and cause harm.
The false claims in these are it can also trigger off unfortunate situations. This is especially the case in politically sensitive areas. A blogger who is the follower of one party can use it to malign the other political party. He/she could also declare the other political party of some false misdeeds making the general public move against it. Hence, the malicious bloggers can use the internet for the wrong reasons to serve their own political needs. Sometimes these are set up by the politicians themselves, but more often than not it is the solo blogger or a group of bloggers who are using the site to serve their own needs. And as this news on the internet is not checked nor have any government control hence they can give wind to mass hysteria.
He can practically sky rocket your blogging success and can hand hold you to make real money from blogging. Srini Saripalli’s video on Blog Traffic has shocked the
internet marketing world. Watch the video & Download your
Free E-Book on Blogging
Filed under Blogging News · Tagged with Abridgment, Accessibility, Authors, Best, Blogging, Blogs, Creating A Website, Dangerous Medium, Getting, Gory Details, Journalism, Journalists, Limited, Mainstream Journalists, Many People, Mediums, News Items, News Papers, Newspapers, Openness, Scrutiny, Television Channels, Television Internet, Their
It is hard to believe but everyone can be a small businessman. For showing this to you, I will present a tutorial about how to make money without money or, in other words, an introduction in e-business (online business). All you have to do is mix some principles for making your website a success and also for monetizing it.
So, let’s start making money! First thing you need to know is what affiliate programs are and how they will generate profit for you. In simple terms, affiliate programs allow website publishers to earn a commission by selling products on their websites. The basic idea is to search for a niche product. You must also check if your “merchandise” is really a niche one and following that you can start creating a website to sell the “merchandise”, optimizing your e-business to generate profit.
After you have decided about the product, you must verify if our product will be successful. How to verify if our product is a niche one? It’s simple, just run a test on search engines. If the search engines will generate more than one million results it means that you’ve chosen the wrong product. Best products are those with no more than 50,000 results given by the search engines. The next step is to make the website, the store where you’ll sell the affiliate links. Making a website is very easy if you create a blog site with Wordpress, Blogger, etc. Let’s try to do a blog with Wordpress. There are a number of reasons why it’s good for you use the Wordpress blog for your website:
1. You can use the control panel to write, edit or delete the articles.
2. The Worpress ping system, which is very important for search engines.
3. Your website will have an advantage being a subdomain of a very powerful website.
4. Using Wordpress platform, your website will have a very fast indexing.
5. You have a lot of plugins which make your website “smarter”.
Ok, you have the product, the blog site and now you have to choose the name of the website. The best thing for the search engines is that the name of the product to be in the website’s domain, title, description and keywords. So, after you download the wordpress application, and after your registration at wordpress.com is complete, you are able to choose your blog domain which will appear like “the-product.wordpress.com”. If the registration is complete, you need a theme. Here you can find a lot of wordpress themes.
The plugins will have a great effect on your website. For example, All-in-one SEO Wordpress plugin will give you some fields where you can put the name of the product in title, description and you can fix the keywords.
The next step is to write the articles. If you don’t have any idea about your product, try to develop some subjects like “How to”, “Comparative”, “Reviews”, “Tips”, “Latest News” or “FAQ’s”. Writing an article is very easy when you use Worpress, just select from control panel the option “Add New”. Try to create the article and add the affiliate links into the text. Select for every link the option “no follow” for helping your articles and the search engines. You must have a minimum of 10 articles about the product. The optimum way to write is two articles per day to start with.
Now is the moment for making your website a star and start making money. You’ll optimize the website for the search engines. First of all, you must be “a friend” of the search engines, so you must have some back links throughout your website. A simple way is to publish your articles onto articles directories like Digg, Technorati, Ezinearticles, Affsphere, Goarticles, Articlecity, Articlesbase, Articledashboard, Squidoo, etc. (a lot of articles directories can be find in “Web site like Digg“). It is not only a “friendly” way for the search engines but more than 70 per cent of your website’s traffic will come from those websites. Also, the traffic will be well targeted.
Another way to improve your website’s SEO qualities is to submit your website in website’s directories. Many people forget the importance of website’s directories but these are the most important tools for making your website friendly for the search engines. The secret is in the title! To submit in website’s directories, you need a title, description and some keywords representative for your website. Usually, the title has the link to your website, so the search engine associates the title with the relevance of your website. A little trick for making the submitting in website’s directories easy is to use the firefox addons, Autofill Forms. Autofill Forms enables you to fill out web forms with one click or a keyboard shortcut. Here you can find a list of website’s directories.
Forums and newsgroups represent another option for gaining links. All you have to do is to post into related places and along with posts also include links to your website. Most of the forums accept html code, so when you’ll write a post or the signature try to “cover” the name of your product with a link to your website. Links can be integrated in the signature or also in part of reply, if there is appropriate information.
The last free SEO tool is the link exchange and the link networks. If you find other websites with relevant articles, try to contact the webmasters and propose them to make a link exchange.
In conclusion, you must follow three easy steps for starting to make “free” money:
1. Get a product from an affiliate program
2. Get a website
3. Optimize your business
Filed under Wordpress · Tagged with Affiliate Programs, Business Online, Control Panel, Creating A Website, How To Make Money, Make, Making A Website, Money, Niche Product, One Million, Plugins, Search Engines, Small Businessman, Start Making Money, Subdomain, Website Publishers, Without
Search engine optimisation is the process of changing a website by altering the internal and external elements of web pages to make them more search engine friendly. By performing optimisation on a website the eventual hope is that traffic to the site from search engines will be improved and subsequently the company will do more business. The approaches to search engine optimisation vary greatly depending upon the practitioner you decide to employ; some will focus on specific elements of your site whereas others will take a more general approach to the process.
As the optimisation process can be considered to have an element of art as well as science it is understandable that different SEO practitioners have a variety of unique methods to solve the problem of increasing search engine traffic. Many practitioners in the industry will have diverse methods of operation and will be vociferous about the methods they employ.
By why does your company need to undertake a process of search engine optimisation? Recent research has found that the majority of the traffic across the internet today goes through search engines. Of the search engines used, Google is easily the most popular, taking almost forty percent of the traffic while the next two popular search engines are Yahoo and MSN with thirty and fifteen percent of the usage respectively. Courting these three is essential if you wish to experience online success, optimisation, will enable you to do this.
Getting your site listed in these search engines is fundamental; without this, you will find it difficult to attract many visitors and hence your business will suffer. Optimisation will make your site more visible in search engine databases meaning your site will be available to more internet users. Whatever your field of business this is fundamental in creating a website that attracts custom and trade.
When you are undergoing optimisation it is essential that you select search terms that will be popular. They must also be suited to the information contained within your site. By doing this, the visitors that you attract will be more targeted to your products and hence more likely to purchase. As a bi-product of this, having high search engine traffic can be akin to a self fulfilling prophecy, the more people you attract the more word will spread about your products or services. Understandably due to this, SEO can provide excellent returns whether investing time or money.
However much search engines try to improve their technology of trawling the internet for information there will always be an argument for optimisation. Algorithms have limitations and no matter how good your site, you will not reach the top of the rankings without SEO help. In the same vein, if you do not pursue the right forms of optimisation techniques you rankings will be inadvertently harmed rather than improved. Ultimately you want to increase your visibility; by pursuing unethical methods this task may prove impossible.
The difference between ethical and unethical optimisation methods can be hard to define without specialist knowledge. Before you undertake SEO or employ a specialist it is advisable to research differing methods on the internet before beginning the process. If you do not you may find yourself in the position where your rankings are dropping due to ineffective or unscrupulous methods.
As the online business environment becomes evermore competitive you truly need to utilise optimisation as a matter of course. Without doing this, your business may fail to attract visitors and hence make less money. It may mean investment, but this investment will ultimately worthwhile in creating a situation where you can take advantage of the huge numbers of search engine users.
Internet marketing expert Thomas Pretty looks into how search engine optimisation can be undertaken and how it is vital for online business success.
Filed under Traffic · Tagged with Business, Business Strategy, Creating A Website, Element Of Art, Engine, External Elements, Fundamental, Google, Increasing Traffic, Internet Business, Internet Today, Internet Users, Optimisation, Optimisation Site, Popular Search Engines, Process Optimisation, Search, Search Engine Databases, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Traffic, Search Google, Search Yahoo, Should, Strategy, Strategy Search, Web Pages, Yahoo, Your
I bet that got your attention, didn’t it? I’ve been working on my headlines. Sorry to disappoint you but this article isn’t about counterfeiting or how to get rich quick. It’s about how to create a successful website which will draw lots of traffic and make you lots of money.
This is an enormous subject and you could write a book on each different step. I’m just going to provide a general outline here of the 6 crucial steps to creating a website that’s successful over the long term.
1 – Pick Your Niche
Choose something you enjoy researching and writing about because you’re going to spend a lot of time doing both. It shouldn’t have a lot of competition. For example, don’t choose “electronics.” I guarantee you’ll never get a better ranking in the search engines than Sony or Amazon.com. Narrow it down to something like “high end audiophile speakers”.
Do some research. Check out how much your keywords are going to cost for advertising. If they’re really expensive you might want to choose another niche. Check out some sites with similar subject matter so you can see who you’re going to be competing with for rankings in the search engines.
2 – Choose Your Service Providers And Register Your Domain
Your service providers must be reliable. If your internet connection is always going down or your server is constantly crashing it’s going to be difficult to maintain a successful business. Don’t skimp on quality just to save a few pennies here.
Your domain name should contain your most important keyword that you’re hoping to rank well for in the search engines. It should be something unique that’s related to your niche and easily brandable. By brandable I mean easy for people to remember and associate with your site. Some call it “mindshare”.
3 – Create Your Content
Your content must be unique. If you’re content is plagiarized, Google will tend to ignore you. They now recognize duplicate content and refuse to list it. They want to provide their users with useful results. People have been slapping together crappy “made for adsense” websites by just copying and pasting content and Google’s decided to put an end to it.
My advice is not to mess with Google. They’re the 900 lb gorilla of the internet that you really don’t want to piss off. If you can’t get listed in the search engines, you’re pretty much doomed from the start. So give them what they want. You’ll need 30-100 pages of good content before you even put up a website. You could just start with a few pages and add a page day – like you would with a blog – but it will take you longer to get indexed. Are you noticing a theme about the search engines here?
4 – Create Your Website
You’re either going to have to use a program like Dreamweaver or a Content Management System. I’d suggest considering a CMS. You’ll need to update your website frequently, and even for experienced web designers this can be difficult. A CMS removes all the hassles of publishing new content daily. However, you have to make sure your CMS is search engine friendly. Probably the easiest thing to do for a beginner is use a blogging program like Wordpress. Search engines LOVE blogs, they’re very easy to update, and best of all Wordpress is FREE.
You should create the website with search engine optimization in mind right from the start. SEO is a very in-depth subject that I can’t get into here. Basically, you’ll want to make sure your website can be easily crawled by the search engine robots or “spiders”. This requires all kinds of things like proper meta-tags and making sure you have good keyword density on your pages.
Also, you MUST make sure all your pages load quickly. Much of the world still doesn’t have broadband. The average surfer will only wait about 4 seconds before they click off elsewhere. If your pages load too slowly you will be losing massive amounts of traffic. Navigation is very important as well. If people have a hard time finding their way around they’ll quickly get frustrated and leave.
5 – Drive Traffic To Your Website
Setting up a business on the net is different than at a physical location. In the “real” world it’s all about location, location, location. If your store’s in a high traffic area it’s easy to get customers. But on the net no one just passes by, they SEARCH for specific things. Until your site is listed in the search engines there’s no way for anyone to find it – It’s up to you to drive traffic to it.
There a several ways to do this:
You can buy it by creating ads and then bidding on certain keywords so the ads will show up whenever anyone searches for them.
You can get it for free by:
- Writing articles on your niche topic with a link to your site in the author’s resource box, and submitting them to article directories so publishers can use them and distribute them to thousands of readers.
- Submitting your site to free SEO friendly web directories.
- Social bookmarking some of the more interesting pages on your site at places like del.icio.us and Blink.
- Submitting some of your articles to sites like Digg or Reddit, where people vote on whether they should be displayed on the front page. If you’re item is popular and gets displayed on the front page of Digg, the amount of traffic you get could crash your server. I’m not kidding, I’ve seen it happen.
- Participate in forums and provide a link to your site in you signature. Don’t spam or you’ll get banned – make intelligent comments.
- Comment in blogs with a link in your sig. Again – don’t spam. And make sure the blog isn’t using no-follow or you’ll be wasting your time.
- Post free classified ads. These provide a high value link back from a popular site, plus you get free targeted traffic to your website from the ads.
- There’s many ways to get free traffic – just be creative – but don’t be too creative. There’s a lot of illegal ways to get free traffic as well but they’ll backfire on you in the long run.
6 – Monetize Your Website
This is the fun part. Now that you’ve got all this traffic how do you make money?
- You can sell advertising – probably the easiest way is with Google Adsense. You can also sell banner space, text links, almost anything really.
- You can sell merchandise – I’d suggest drop-shipping. Why do all that packing and shipping if you don’t have to? That’s too much like work.
- You can do affiliate marketing – one of the easiest ways to do this is to feature recommended products that link through to your affiliate’s site for purchase. Just make sure you choose quality products to be affiliated with.
- The sky’s the limit when it comes to monetizing your website. Be creative here too – but again, not too creative. You don’t want to do anything stupid and get banned from Adsense or your best affiliate program.
And there you have it. How to make your computer print money in six not so easy steps. Now get going and have some fun!
Filed under Wordpress · Tagged with Amazon, Computer, Computer Money, Computer Print, Creating A Website, Domain Name, Easy, Enormous Subject, General Outline, Google, Headlines, Internet Connection, Lots Of Money, Make, Mean People, Money, Niche, Pennies, Print, Search Engines, Service Providers, Sony, Speakers, Steps, Subject Matter, Successful Business, Your
Fortunately creating a website doesn’t require a lot of knowledge, free time or money for that matter. Nowadays having a site won’t cost more than a few dollars per month and that really depends on the hosting provider you choose. More affordable hosting plans can start at only $4 month whilst other more complex solutions could literally reach the hundreds of dollars. Beginners won’t have to worry about this given that in most cases a basic hosting package offers all the necessary features required to host a site.
When thinking of creating a website there are a few questions each individual should ask before venturing on. Knowing exactly what is pretended and how to achieve those goals is the most important step to be taken before initiating a project. The internet presents many extremely flexible solutions that could all provide the results pretended but the problem is that some require basic knowledge whilst others don’t.
The first way in which an individual could create a website is by coding it himself with the aid of an HTML editor. This might seem rather complex but the truth is that HTML is a programming language extremely easy to use and perfectly suited for creating basic internet sites. Please not that this solution is only suited for simple sites which consist mostly of static content.
Advantages
- Easy to dominate
- Full control over every aspect of the site
- Good learning experience
- Well documented on the internet, information widely available
Disadvantages
- Only suited for very simple sites, more complex sites require good skills
- Not suited for dynamic content sites
- Requires some learning
- Long time to develop
The best solution for someone lacking basic programming knowledge is the use of a CMS. A content management system (CMS) is used to manage the content of a site. Instead of creating a bunch of static HTML pages a user can install a CMS and have it organize, store, and display the content efficiently. Individuals are only required to create the actual content and publish it.
Advantages
- Most CMS are extremely easy to use
- Robust, many features on offer
- Saves time
- Tolls that help in the creations and publishing of content
- Many CMS to choose from
- Most are Free
- No programming knowledge required
Disadvantages
- Some CMS are complex
- Might seem overwhelming at first
Wordpress is one of the most popular and widely used CMS on the internet. Although the initial project anticipated the development of a stable blogging platform, that notion has changed considerably over the years. Today Wordpress is an extremely easy to use, robust CMS that can be utilized in many projects be it to create a simple blog or a complex site. The advantages of using Wordpress are considerable.
Advantages
- Extremely easy to use
- Enormous community ready help if any problem arises
- Many free plugins to add extra functionalities
- Unbelievable amount of free Themes to chose from
Disadvantages
- Initially intended as a blogging platform, other CMS might offer better solutions for sites
- Creating a complex site requires a lot of technical experience
Joomla! is a free, open source content management system especially created for publishing content on the internet. A more robust solution, Joomla could be considered a multifaceted, feature rich software package best suited for complex sites. The reason for this is that not only can an individual create a simple website with the aid of this CMS but they can also develop a large scale portal or community site with extreme ease. With Joomla the possibilities are endless.
Advantages
- Free to use
- Very well documented
- Good community of users ready to help
- Extremely flexible
- Possibilities are endless
Disadvantages
- Beginners will struggle seeing as Joomla is a rather complex CMS
- Some extensions are expensive
As you can see creating a site isn’t very hard, all that is needed is the right tools. The resources provided free of charge on the internet are more than sufficient for any individual to start putting together a site. All you have to do is chose the best solutions and build the site.
Filed under Wordpress · Tagged with Basic Internet, Basic Knowledge, Basic Programming, Best Solution, Blogs, Complex Solutions, Content Management System, Creating A Website, Dynamic Content, Flexible Solutions, Free Time, Hosting Plans, Html Editor, Html Pages, Internet Information, Internet Sites, Learning Experience, Making, Money, Multiple, Necessary Features, Powerhouse, Programming Knowledge, Programming Language, Running, Single
Traffic is the life and blood of every internet website. Creating a website is only the beginning. You can get instant templates at www.templates-source.com to get started, but what do you do when you have completed the website. Search engines are fine, but it is a painstakingly tedious process to submit to the search engines. Therefore, you want to find a faster way to get traffic and the answer is google.
Google has paid advertising like adsense or adwords, but there are a few other ways to utilize google to add traffic to your website and these methods are free.
Google news is one of the ways that you can benefit from free google traffic. If you go to http://news.google.com and recommend your website as a newsworthy website and it may be approved by google, but you must keep it updated every 30 days. Another way is submit a press release to www.prweb.com and your site will get listed in google because all press releases from www.prweb.com are listed in google.
http://images.google.com is another free method to use google. If you have existing pictures on your website you can optimize them for google image search. Google describes each image with text and list the source website that carries each image. The key is to use relevant text to describe your images. For example, if you have a cat page and a picture of a cat, you could label it, “free cat pictures” and google will grab this description and your web address and add it to google image.
Having google sitemaps set up will let google know about all your web pages from you site and get them fully indexed. It will also help you to know what is happening with your website as it pertains to google sitemap at http://sitemap.google.com. You will need a google account to set up this feature. You will get detailed reports about the visibility of your website and all your pages. Once you verify that you are the site owner, google will provide statistics, analysis and reports about your site. You will verify your main page by adding meta tags that google will provide after you register. This will help you to stay connected to google site map.
Google base is where you can submit content and have it show up on google. If you go to http://base.google.com you can add all types of content with specific keywords and this will generate lots of free traffic for you. Make sure you pick the right keyword and include it in your title, so people who see the title will click on it to go to your content. You can also add pictures to draw attention to your content. You are also allowed to add your web URL to lead traffic to you. You can also add keywords in your description and in your content.
You can also add google book search to your arsenal of free traffic at http://books.google.com. Even though google carries the entire book, you are also allowed to submit pages of your books or ebooks. Make sure your book has your niche keywords that will get your targeted audience to purchase the entire book. Your book will contain your website address. You can get private label content or your own written content to create an electronic book and submit it to google books. You will need an ISBN number to get the book listed with google books. You can also list the book at http://froogle.google.com as well.
There are a few more tips to getting free google traffic and you can get more information at http://www.freegooglehit.com. This article is written by Cheryline Lawson, Internet Marketer. You are welcome to use this article as long as you keep all the links intact and the resource box.
Filed under Blogging Tips · Tagged with Adsense, Adwords, Creating A Website, Discover, free, Free Cat, Getting, Google, Google Google, Google Image, Google Images, Google News, Google Search, Hidden, Hidden Secrets, Image Search, Images Google, Internet Website, Relevant Text, Search Google, Secrets, Source Website, Traffic, Traffic Traffic, Visibility, Website Search Engines
Blog or website, creating both of them takes a lot of time. But what if I tell you that you can do so in a short period of time? Sounds unbelievable, doesnât it? So, you are creating a website or a blog space for some reason and for that you are reading a lot about HTML coding and other coding. But when you put it to the test, your blog or website still doesnât looks that way you want it to look. So this is one of those situations when you want to pull your hair out. But you donât want to do that, because you want to run a website or blog, and you donât want to do so without any hair on your head. So in this case, the most easiest way and when I say easy, I really mean it.
So, the most easiest way to create a website or a blog is with the help of wordpress themes. In this article I will tell you how to choose a wordpress theme because it also seems to be one of those tasks which takes a lot of toll on the person. So following are some tips that will help you to find the best wordpress theme for your website or blog.
The first thing that you must keep in mind is that, instead of searching through thousands of themes for the right color and design. The best thing to do is to decide on the color first. If you know about the color scheme that will suit your blog or website the best then you can search for only those, which suits the color scheme of your blog or website. Keep in mind that, some websites where you can find the wordpress themes allow you to search on the website in which you can specify the color, which you want. This way, you will only see the designs in the color, which you have already chosen for your website or blog. If you haven’t donât this, then this means that you will spend a lot of time searching for the right theme with the right color and design for your website or blog.
Keep in mind that this way, you will be able to find the right WordPress theme in a short period of time for your blog or website. The key is that, you must know before hand that what you exactly want for your website or blog.
Filed under Wordpress · Tagged with â, Best Wordpress Theme, Blog, Choose, Color Scheme, Create A Website, Creating A Website, Design, Html Coding, Lot, Period Of Time, Reason, Short Period, Theme, Wordpress, Wordpress Themes
Because a great deal of time and effort is spent when creating a website, it is always beneficial to catalogue the basic principles that need to be enforced in order to increase website traffic and search engine rankings before you actually begin. Commence using the correct principles and your website is sure to be successful.
- Use valuable content, services and products when creating a site.
- For the purposes of attracting your target audience, then it is vital that you use the correct keywords and phrases on your site.
- Place keywords, both primary and secondary, within the first 25 words of your page content ensuring that you continue to spread them evenly throughout the entire document.
- Ensure that your keywords are used in the correct fields and references within your web page, such as headers, META tags, and title.
- Make certain that your site designs are kept simple to enable potential customers to easily navigate between web pages, find what they require, and to purchase products and services.
- Ensure that all of your web pages are submitted. For example, submit every web page that you have, not only the home page, to the most popular directory services and search engines. If you do not wish to do this yourself, then you can hire someone to do it for you. However, it is crucial to ensure that this is submitted manually, rather than using an automated submission service.
- Monitor any changes in search engine algorithms and processes and modify your web pages accordingly. This will allow your search engine ranking to remain high. Monitor your website by using online tools and utilities.
- Always keep an eye on your competitors as well as the top ranked websites and have a look at what they are doing in the way of design, content, keywords, navigation etc.
- Have a look at where your website traffic is coming from, using reports and logs from your web hosting company. Check the locations of your visitors as well as their incoming sources, whether they are through search engines or links from other websites, as well as the keywords that they are using to locate your website.
- Make certain that your customers can visit your site with ease and allow them enough ways in which they will remember your site, such as providing them with newsletters, free reports, reduction coupons etc.
- Write and submit articles for your website or article banks to demonstrate your product or service expertise. This will ensure that you are seen as being an expert in your field.
- Use simple payment and shipping methods when you are selling products online. This will make it much simpler for your customers to purchase your products or services.
- If you are not sure of how to undergo these things yourself then it is always advised to hire professionals. Even though this may seem to be a costly process, it will be much less expensive than using your money to create a website that no one visits.
- Never look at your website as a static brochure. Ensure that you treat it as a dynamic, ever changing sales tool and location. Look at it as you would look at a real store and treat your customers with exactly the same seriousness.
Filed under Traffic · Tagged with Content Keywords, Content Services, Correct Keywords, Correct Principles, Creating A Website, Design Content, Directory Services, Increase, Meta Tags, Online Tools, Page Content, Phrases, Place Keywords, Ranking, Search Algorithms, Search Engine Algorithms, Search Engine Rankings, Search Engines, Simple, Submission Service, Target Audience, These, Tips, Top Ranked Websites, Traffic, Website, Website Traffic, With, Your
