Latest News from Mohsin Khawaja

Do Not Build a Website, Build an Online Business

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:15:00 EDT

Ever since the burst of Dot-Com bubble, everyone is rushing towards creating a website, blog or any other sort of online presence like social media profiles. It is seems to be virtually impossible to count the number of these online profiles being created with every passing second. Although it has helped people and business in many ways but the most successful ones are ones who have planned themselves well ahead of their peers.

Search Engine WARs

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:27 EDT

Search engine WARs – Where is Yahoo ? Year 2009 has proved to be very exciting when it comes to new features and enhancements. Many companies, especially big brands, have taken recession as a pause for self analysis and they have been constantly upgrading their infrastructures for the time when economics crisis will be over. Search [...]

Define & Monitor Conversion Actions

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:22 EDT

Define & Monitor Conversion Actions: These are the actions that should be measured and have a strong relation with your internet marketing strategy. Remember , sales are not the only available goal , when you have a good business plan and well defined internet marketing strategy , you can and should consider the various steps involved [...]

Website Optimization

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:20 EDT

Website Optimization is a far more crucial and technical subject than search engine optimization. Although SEO has it’s own technicalities but to get traffic is relatively easy than to convert that traffic in leads and loyal visitors. This section of the site is dedicated to website optimization, processes to improve user experience and maximize ROI. [...]

Google Product Search Tips – From Google

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:18 EDT

Google has recently launched a new video, to help e-commerce store owners increase their products visiblity in Google Search Results. For those who do not know about this, Google has a service called Google Product Search, to facilitate online shopping. Also Google maintains a plateform,Google Base, where you can submit your products to be included [...]

Organic Search – Still the Source of Online Purchase – Fact Sheet

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:16 EDT

Omscore recently reported State of the U.S. Online Retail Economy for the first quarter of 2009 The graph shows that driving consumers to search via display advertising is even more powerful. Source: Searchengineland Blog

SEO without PPC in-demand! Paid Search Traffic Share Down

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:14 EDT

How to write a Press Release?

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:11 EDT

How to write a Press Release? The use of a press release is common in the field of public relations, the aim of which is to attract favorable media attention to public relations professional’s client and/or provide publicity for products or events marketed by those clients. A press release provides reporters with the basics they need to develop a news story. [...]

Check List for a PressRelease setup

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:09 EDT

Titles & categories optimized for keywords Chronological press release archives Site search that saves user queries for later analysis Share/Save bookmarks Subscribe RSS Feed Optimized newsroom content: press releases, past media coverage, events, case studies, white papers, archived webinars, images, videos and audio Cross link using keywords to related pages on main web site Publishing content to a newsroom typically follows a [...]

testingmethods

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:00:07 EDT

testingmethods

How to Write a Press Release?

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST

A press release provides reporters with the basics they need to develop a news story. Press releases can announce a range of news items such as: scheduled events, personal promotions, awards, news products and services, sales and other financial data, accomplishments, etc. Source: Wikipedia. While preparing the press releases and while researching for this article, I have found numerous examples of poorly written press releases that not only create headache but also serve as a barrier between you and your possible audience in your future press release. So choose your steps wisely and think well before sending out your press releases.

How to write a Press Release?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 05:37:14 EST

How to write a Press Release?

The use of a press release is common in the field of public relations, the aim of which is to attract favorable media attention to public relations professional's client and/or provide publicity for products or events marketed by those clients. A press release provides reporters with the basics they need to develop a news story. Press releases can announce a range of news items such as: scheduled events, personal promotions, awards, news products and services, sales and other financial data, accomplishments, etc. Source: Wikipedia

While preparing the press releases and while researching for this article, I have found numerous examples of poorly written press releases that not only create headache but also serve as a barrier between you and your possible audience in your future press release. So choose your steps wisely and think well before sending out your press releases.

Below we will summarize not only the contents of a Good Press Release and the factors that make up the one; but also we will mention some basic questions or points, you should ask, before writing a press release for yourself or for your clients.

Following are the essential elements of a typical press release:

· Headline:

Remember the aim of a press release is to motivate others (journalists) to get excited and write about you, your company or services. So the press release should not be over promotional in itself. Write catchy, attractive and meaningful headings in the least possible words. Your headings should be good enough to get eye balls attracted to your press release. Adding keywords to your press release is also a good idea, it will help your press release get found not only through internal site search but also through search engines. So bottom line: Write good, attractive headings, can include keywords but do not stuff them.

· Summary:

After the heading, it is the second most critical area to put your effort. If you have gained attention by a good heading, you can lose it fairly quickly by using bad summary. To make your summary attractive identify a unique feature about your product or service and then write how it is going to revolutionize the world.

The summary should be a single paragraph with about three to five lines. Can have keywords but the most important thing is to retain attention.

· Body:

This is you main playground to express what you have got to say? It is always a best to keep that attention that you have managed to get through your heading and summary and make your press releases descriptive, informative and noteworthy. Remember there is a big difference in normal article writing/marketing and press release writing. The body part is divided into following main areas.

1. Dateline:

The dateline contains the release date of the press release and usually also the originating city of the press release. For online press release services , the date stamp is automatic and need not be entered usually.

2. Introduction:

The introduction is where the press release body starts. It is the first paragraph in a press release, that generally gives basic answers to the questions of who, what, when, where and why.

3. Details:

The details come after the introduction. It gives further explanation, statistics, background, or other details relevant to the news and also serves to back up whatever claims were made in the introductory paragraph.

The body is typically 500 words long, depending upon the service you are using. The body should have a minimum of two paragraphs. All paragraphs should be ideally between 5 to 8 lines each. There should be a blank line after each paragraph for good visibility.

· About

The about section is also called the "boilerplate" as it used over and over again. It is generally a short section providing background information on the press release issuing company or organization.

· Contact Information

This section contains the contact information like name, phone number, email address, mailing address, etc for the media relations contact person. For good credibility, the email address should be the same as the organization the press release is about. For example, if the press release is about an organization with a website called abcd.com, then the email address should be email_address@abcd.com.

Note: A press release should be written in third person. Instead of using we, us and ours, you should be using they, them and theirs. It is very useful to look at other people's press releases, outside your industry and market also, and note down the points that inspire you most while reading these press releases.

Before Your Write A Press Release, Question to Ask?

Below are the most important questions to ask yourself or client, before you begin your press release campaign. Although some might not be needed in your niche but these have found to be useful for all nearly everyone.

· What is the subject of your announcement?

· Who is your audience?

· What important dates are associated with your announcement?

· Who will be affected by the news?

· How will this news affect your business? (Please include pertinent numbers, dollar amounts or percent increases you plan to achieve)

· Where did key events related to your story take place?

· How does this news affect your overall business strategy?

· What obstacles did you / will you have to overcome to achieve those goals?

· Who are the key players in this story?

· Who would you like to quote in the release? (usually this is the President/CEO or top executive involved in this story)

· If the announcement is about a promotion or appointment, can you provide a bio or resume of the featured person?

· Do you have a website and if so, what is the address?

· Please provide a brief (1 paragraph) description of your company.

· Who is the key contact for this press release and what is that person’s contact information and title?

· On what date do you want to make the announcement?

If you follow the above mentioned steps, I am sure your will be able to write much better press releases. I will appreciate your in suggestions the comments below.

Understanding Customer Experience

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:17:23 EST

Understanding customer value and experience is vital in online business strategy. Companies that focus on short term sales rather than long term customer relations tend to loose their market share quickly. Gone are days of short sales cycles and quick purchases on e-commerce sites, customers are more conscious than ever. Here are some quick facts about customer behaviour online:

• 77% of online shoppers in the US actively seek out reviews before they buy*

• 92% of shoppers find customer reviews “extremely helpful” or “very helpful” in making their decisions**

• 97% said they trusted recommendations from peers*

Source: Forrester, ** eTailing Group and JC Williams Consultancy

With this scenario in focus, we should try to influence the optimal customer behavior that will lead to win-win outcomes for your company and your customers.

Let us take an example of a software company that provides both a basic and a professional version of their product. Now it is upto their marketing strategy that what value and position they want to place in the mind of their customers about their product. It is possible that they can make more money in the short term if the customer buys Professional today. But our job as site owners is for us to help customers figure out right version of the product for a particular need and if it is the basic version then we should help the customer buy basic vrsion not the Professional edition !

The reason behind this methadology is that it is possible that if customer will buy Profes-sional, use it, get frustrated because it is too advanced for them, and we’ll never see them again (and they will share their suboptimal experience with others). But if we help them buy the right version, Basic, then next year they’ll be back for Professional !

Conclusion: Understand the needs and wants of your customers and solve for that.

Understanding Customer Experience

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:17:23 EST

Facts

• 77% of online shoppers in the US actively seek out reviews before they buy*

• 92% of shoppers find customer reviews “extremely helpful” or “very helpful” in making their decisions**

• 97% said they trusted recommendations from peers*

Source: Forrester, ** eTailing Group and JC Williams Consultancy

With this scenario in focus, we should try to influence the optimal customer behavior that will lead to win-win outcomes for your company and your customers.

Conclusion: Understand the needs and wants of your customers and solve for that.

Blogging basics

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:37:09 EST

I jsut read a very good post by ,Leo Babauta, on blogging basics. The post contains the content writing guidelines for bloggers, these are steps that should be taken care of while writing your posts.

Oh, and feel free to break any of these “rules”, as nothing is ever set in stone.

Write for the reader. This is the most fundamental of the fundamentals, and though this list isn’t in order of importance I’d be remiss if I didn’t start here. While a blog can be a personal journal, if you want an audience of more than your friends and family, write for an audience. Don’t just write about your random thoughts and experiences, but think of what the reader wants to know, what the reader’s concerns are, what the reader is interested in, and how you can help provide that.
Solve the reader’s problems. What are the reader’s problems? Solve them, one post at a time. To do this, I think about the problems I’ve been addressing in my own life, and as it turns out, most people have the same problems. I’m not as unique as I thought. And then I write about how I’ve been solving them — what actually works for me. People seem to find that useful.

Put yourself in there. While the post should be for the reader, it’s really a conversation between you and the reader. So don’t be afraid to put yourself in the post. Share what you’ve learned, talk about your life, as it’s relevant to the post, and let your personality show. Make it personal, and the reader will connect with you.
Find your voice. This is the personality I talked about above. It’s about finding a conversational tone, but it’s more: you have a unique voice, and that voice speaks to the reader, in her head, as she reads your posts. You need to learn to find your voice, by experimenting, trial and error. The more you write the more that voice will emerge.
Be concise. This is an ironic statement given that this is a long-ish post, but concise doesn’t mean short. It means there aren’t a lot of unnecessary words. Write all the blather you want, but go back and edit, so you’re not wasting the reader’s time. Read more.
Make it scannable. The reality of reading on the Internet is that people scan articles, get the main points, and only if those main points are worthy of their time do they read the full text — despite what long-winded ranting bloggers have to say about the issue. So write for that reality, if you want people to read your posts: make it easy to scan and find your main points, through lists, sub-titles, blockquotes, or the like.
Headlines matter. The most important few words of your posts are your headlines (or post titles). They need to catch the reader’s attention and promise to solve a problem the reader has. If it doesn’t do this you’ve wasted a headline.
Offer solutions. This is almost a repeat of an earlier point, but it’s worth stressing. Often a blogger will bring up a problem but then end the post. You need to offer a solution, or the reader will be left feeling unsatisfied. If you don’t have a solution, maybe toss out some ideas and then ask for reader solutions. But in most cases, write a solution.
Post regularly. This doesn’t have to be daily, but if you haven’t posted for a few weeks (except to apologies for the lack of posts), you’re not likely to build a good-sized audience. People subscribe because they have a reasonable expectation, based on past performance, that you’re going to come out with useful content on a regular basis. I’d say weekly posts are a minimum, and 2-5 times weekly is ideal. More than once daily isn’t recommended (unless you’re a huge blog like Lifehacker) because people don’t like too many posts in their inbox.
Mix up post lengths. I prefer long-ish posts full of useful information, but short posts that get to the point and have a big impact are good too. Don’t be set on one post length. If a post gets so long that it takes 20 minutes to read, you might narrow the topic and split it into two posts.
Make it worth talking about. Don’t just write what everyone else writes. Write about something that’s a bit (or a lot) different, or in a way that’s different. Write about something that people will want to respond to, pass on, talk about with others. Be bold and be different.
Link often. Don’t be self-contained. Don’t be afraid to send your readers to other good posts or blogs, because they’ll appreciate it, and so will the other bloggers. Be a part of a wider conversation. For example, my favorite blogs about blogging:Problogger, Copyblogger,Daily Blog Tips etc.
Feel free to tell stories. Not every posts should be a “story” post, but a well told story captures the reader and conveys information in a time-tested form. A good method to try out is starting a post with a relevant story.
Establish why the post is important. The intro of your post — the first 3-7 paragraphs (roughly) — should not only grab the reader’s attention but establish why the reader should even care about the post. Show why the problem is a problem, and why the reader needs to read the rest of the post.
Read the best, and mimic them. The best bloggers break all of these rules but do it so well.

Blogging basics

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:37:09 EST

I jsut read a very good post by ,Leo Babauta, on blogging basics. The post contains the content writing guidelines for bloggers, these are steps that should be taken care of while writing your posts.

Oh, and feel free to break any of these “rules”, as nothing is ever set in stone.

Write for the reader. This is the most fundamental of the fundamentals, and though this list isn’t in order of importance I’d be remiss if I didn’t start here. While a blog can be a personal journal, if you want an audience of more than your friends and family, write for an audience. Don’t just write about your random thoughts and experiences, but think of what the reader wants to know, what the reader’s concerns are, what the reader is interested in, and how you can help provide that.

Solve the reader’s problems. What are the reader’s problems? Solve them, one post at a time. To do this, I think about the problems I’ve been addressing in my own life, and as it turns out, most people have the same problems. I’m not as unique as I thought. And then I write about how I’ve been solving them — what actually works for me. People seem to find that useful.

Put yourself in there. While the post should be for the reader, it’s really a conversation between you and the reader. So don’t be afraid to put yourself in the post. Share what you’ve learned, talk about your life, as it’s relevant to the post, and let your personality show. Make it personal, and the reader will connect with you.

Find your voice. This is the personality I talked about above. It’s about finding a conversational tone, but it’s more: you have a unique voice, and that voice speaks to the reader, in her head, as she reads your posts. You need to learn to find your voice, by experimenting, trial and error. The more you write the more that voice will emerge.

Be concise. This is an ironic statement given that this is a long-ish post, but concise doesn’t mean short. It means there aren’t a lot of unnecessary words. Write all the blather you want, but go back and edit, so you’re not wasting the reader’s time. Read more.

Make it scannable. The reality of reading on the Internet is that people scan articles, get the main points, and only if those main points are worthy of their time do they read the full text — despite what long-winded ranting bloggers have to say about the issue. So write for that reality, if you want people to read your posts: make it easy to scan and find your main points, through lists, sub-titles, blockquotes, or the like.

Headlines matter. The most important few words of your posts are your headlines (or post titles). They need to catch the reader’s attention and promise to solve a problem the reader has. If it doesn’t do this you’ve wasted a headline.

Offer solutions. This is almost a repeat of an earlier point, but it’s worth stressing. Often a blogger will bring up a problem but then end the post. You need to offer a solution, or the reader will be left feeling unsatisfied. If you don’t have a solution, maybe toss out some ideas and then ask for reader solutions. But in most cases, write a solution.

Post regularly. This doesn’t have to be daily, but if you haven’t posted for a few weeks (except to apologies for the lack of posts), you’re not likely to build a good-sized audience. People subscribe because they have a reasonable expectation, based on past performance, that you’re going to come out with useful content on a regular basis. I’d say weekly posts are a minimum, and 2-5 times weekly is ideal. More than once daily isn’t recommended (unless you’re a huge blog like Lifehacker) because people don’t like too many posts in their inbox.

Mix up post lengths. I prefer long-ish posts full of useful information, but short posts that get to the point and have a big impact are good too. Don’t be set on one post length. If a post gets so long that it takes 20 minutes to read, you might narrow the topic and split it into two posts.

Make it worth talking about. Don’t just write what everyone else writes. Write about something that’s a bit (or a lot) different, or in a way that’s different. Write about something that people will want to respond to, pass on, talk about with others. Be bold and be different.

Link often. Don’t be self-contained. Don’t be afraid to send your readers to other good posts or blogs, because they’ll appreciate it, and so will the other bloggers. Be a part of a wider conversation. For example, my favorite blogs about blogging:Problogger, Copyblogger,Daily Blog Tips etc.

Feel free to tell stories. Not every posts should be a “story” post, but a well told story captures the reader and conveys information in a time-tested form. A good method to try out is starting a post with a relevant story.

Establish why the post is important. The intro of your post — the first 3-7 paragraphs (roughly) — should not only grab the reader’s attention but establish why the reader should even care about the post. Show why the problem is a problem, and why the reader needs to read the rest of the post.

Read the best, and mimic them. The best bloggers break all of these rules but do it so well.

The Process Of Search Engine Optimization

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:15:00 EST

How to find and select Keywords: Remember this is a start-up's guide the science of keyword research is so vast that only this step can take so much time and effort of a newbie that he might give up the field after few mismanaged projects or might get stuck into never ending reading and learning process. To keep things simple and straight I will present here the most obvious and necessary steps here and as our knowledge will grow I will introduce more advanced methods, tools and tips. But do not worry for now, if you do the things correctly you will get results motivational enough to keep your spirits up.

Create SEO Plan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:20:31 EST

Learn How To Create SEO Plan: Following are the steps that I think are crucial in any SEO plan or strategy. The article will a little longer than usual, but I believe it will be noteworthy and helpful to most of the people. Let's start the SEO plan.

Competitive Analysis:

Competitive analysis is one such step you should take in the very beginning of your SEO efforts. It should be right at the top of your to-do list, along with keyword analysis and tagging your web site. In fact, you should probably do a competitive analysis even before you begin tagging your site. Get a list of 3 of your major competitors and note the following points:

Site rankings:

Page saturation: How many of the competition’s pages are indexed?
Page titles
Meta data
Site design
A robots.txt file
Content quality and quantity
Link quality and quantity

Prioritizing pages:

You should realize that not every part/page of your website requires equal amount of work and attention. Similarly, if you have a long list of products then you should focus on high demand product pages first and then move on to other product pages or conversely if you can not manage the high competition at the beginning then you should focus on those products which have demand but less competition; however it all depends on your overall plan but make a decision first and then stick to it, so that you can always know what is working and what not.

Site assessment:

Your SEO assessment should be a document that outlines the current standing of the main SEO elements of each page. It should contain columns for the element of the site you’re assessing, the current status of that element, what needs to be improved in that element, and the deadline for improvement. It’s also helpful if you have a check box next to each item that can be marked when improvements are completed and a column for follow-up, because SEO is a never-ending process. The elements that should be considered during an assessment include:

Site/page tagging: The meta tags that are included in the coding of your web site
Page content: How fresh is your content? How relevant is it? How often is it updated? And how much content is there?
Site links: links to be in-context, meaning the link must come from or lead to a site that is relevant to the page that is being indexed.
Site map : make sure it’s accurate and up to date.

Note the strategies you plan to use:

It include strategies that can be efforts such as submitting your site or pages from your site to directories manually and planning the content you’ll use to draw search crawlers, or they can be keyword marketing plans or pay-per-click programs you plan to use. Also be sure to include a time line for the testing and implementation of those efforts as well as for regular follow-ups.

Follow-up:

Follow-up is also an essential part of your SEO plan. Give your plan at least three months but no more than six between checkups.

User experience:

User experience is a little harder to quantify than other site-ranking elements. It’s easy to say that users will find your site simple to use, that they will find the information or products that they’re seeking, or that they will have reason to return to your site. But in practice, that’s a little more difficult to achieve.

Site interactivity:

We now live in the Interactive Age. Most of us want to interact with the web sites we’re visiting. That interaction might take the form of a poll, the ability to comment on a blog post, the downloading of a file, or even a game that relates to the site content. No matter what the type of interaction, users expect it, and search crawlers look for it.

Why is interaction so important? Simple. If you can influence a user to interact with your site, you have more of a chance of gaining a goal conversion. Goal conversions are the completion of some form of activity designed to gather further information about your user. A goal conversion can be something as simple as enticing users to sign up for a newsletter, or it can be more specific, like persuading them to make purchases.

Interactive forums: When you’re creating your web-site content, consider interactive forums. If you’re adding articles to your site, give users a forum in which they can respond to the article, or a comments section. This leads to more frequent updates of your content, which search crawlers love. The result? An interactive relationship with your web-site users will keep them coming back, and give an extra boost to your search engine ranking.

Navigation:

Take the time to design a navigational structure that’s not only comfortable for your users, but is also crawler-friendly.

Caution about cookies: Any navigation that requires cookies will cause the crawler to be unable to index the pages.

Understanding entry and exit pages:

Although this aspect is a part of another topic i.e. Landing Page Optimization, but you should note that in your SEO plan about your top landing pages and how do you want to improve them. [You can find separate tutorials on Landing Pages and How to Optimize them on this very site, kindly check this: Landing Page Optimization]

Creating great content:

Two points should be kept in focus while developing content contemplating and completing. Great content starts with the right keywords and phrases. Select no more than three keywords or phrases to include in the content on any one of your web pages. Have a keyword density of 5 to 7 percent the freshness and focus of your content is also important. Also remember to write powerful page titles with compelling calls to action.

Using blogs:

One reason many companies began using blogs on their web sites was that blogs are updated frequently and they’re highly focused on a specific topic. This gives search engines new, relevant content to crawl, and crawlers love that.

Consider implementing a content strategy that includes regularly adding more focused content or expanding your content offerings. It doesn’t have to be a blog, but news links on the front page of the site, regularly changing articles, or some other type of changing content will help gain the attention of a search engine crawler. Don’t just set these elements up and leave them, however. You also have to carry through with regular updates.

Keep the links included in the content active:

Dynamic content links can occasionally break. Be sure you’re checking this element of your content on a regular basis and set up some kind of a user-feedback loop so broken links can be reported to your webmaster.

Graphics:

Images or graphics on your web site are essential. You’re not going to be happy with using plain text instead of that cool new logo you had designed for your company, and neither are your users. They want to see pictures.

One technique that will help your SEO make use of graphics on your site is to tag those graphics with alt tags inside the img tags.

You want to tag your images as part of your SEO strategy for two reasons. First, crawlers cannot index images for a search engine (with an exception, which is covered shortly). The crawler “sees” the image and moves on to the text on the page. Therefore, something needs to take the place of that image, so the crawler can index it. That’s what the alternative text does. If this text includes your keywords, and the image is near text that also includes the keywords, then you add credibility to your site in the logic of the crawler.

Duplicate content:

If you must use content that’s not original, or if you must have multiple copies of content on your web site, there is a way to keep those duplications from adversely affecting your search rankings. By using the <robots.txt> or <noindex> tags, you can prevent duplicated pages from being indexed by the search engine. That small tag of code tells the search engine not to index the page, but to follow the links on the page.

Internal and external links:

Links can be incoming, outgoing, or internal.

Using Internal Links:

One linking strategy that’s often overlooked is internal linking. Internal links are those that lead people from one page to another within your web site. This is different from the navigational structure. Internal links are more natural links that occur in the text on your web pages. Without a good internal linking strategy, you run the risk of not having your site properly spidered. It’s not enough simply to have a navigational structure or a site map (though site maps help considerably). You should also have links that lead from one element (like a blog post) to other important elements (like an archived article or news clipping on your site), so site visitors find that moving through the information they’re examining on your site is a natural process that takes place without too much difficulty or thought.

Getting External Link:

Getting links from other websites towards yours is bit time consuming and effort seeking, the techniques require an other article to explain, but I will list common methods to acquire links.

Requesting Links - You can simply ask other related sites to link to you,if you have link worthy content.
Writing Articles
Blogs
Press Releases
Affiliate Programs

I hope this will give you a good start on your SEO project and you can fine tune you SEO plan later on by experience. Kindly share you comments below and If you have got question, ask them here.

Create SEO Plan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:20:00 EST

Competitive Analysis:

Site rankings:

Page saturation: How many of the competition’s pages are indexed?
Page titles
Meta data
Site design
A robots.txt file
Content quality and quantity
Link quality and quantity

Prioritizing pages:

Site assessment:

Site/page tagging: The meta tags that are included in the coding of your web site
Page content: How fresh is your content? How relevant is it? How often is it updated? And how much content is there?
Site links: links to be in-context, meaning the link must come from or lead to a site that is relevant to the page that is being indexed.
Site map : make sure it’s accurate and up to date.

Note the strategies you plan to use:

Follow-up:

Follow-up is also an essential part of your SEO plan. Give your plan at least three months but no more than six between checkups.

User experience:

Site interactivity:

Navigation:

Take the time to design a navigational structure that’s not only comfortable for your users, but is also crawler-friendly.

Caution about cookies: Any navigation that requires cookies will cause the crawler to be unable to index the pages.

Understanding entry and exit pages:

Creating great content:

Using blogs:

Keep the links included in the content active:

Graphics:

One technique that will help your SEO make use of graphics on your site is to tag those graphics with alt tags inside the img tags.

Duplicate content:

Internal and external links:

Links can be incoming, outgoing, or internal.

Using Internal Links:

Getting External Link:

Getting links from other websites towards yours is bit time consuming and effort seeking, the techniques require an other article to explain, but I will list common methods to acquire links.

Requesting Links - You can simply ask other related sites to link to you,if you have link worthy content.
Writing Articles
Blogs
Press Releases
Affiliate Programs

I hope this will give you a good start on your SEO project and you can fine tune you SEO plan later on by experience. Kindly share you comments below and If you have got question, ask them here.

First Lesson In SEO

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:42:55 EST

Although it is a first lesson in SEO, but believe me, as far as my experience is concerned, this is the lesson that most seo's learn in the last and the hard way i.e. after many failures. Remember the purpose of SEO is not to SPAM or Dodge search engines nor to fool the internet searcher. SEO is a very responsible task that requires deep thinking and long term focus, rather than short trem benefits.

First Lesson: Know Your Audience

The fist and foremost thing that you should focus with all web-site design, the best objective for your site, is to help your visitors achieve a desired result, whether that’s purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or finding the desired information.

You should be able to answer these questions i.e. Why people are coming to our site? Where they are coming from? And what they do once they get there?

If you do not have clear answers for these yet, my advice is to forget everything for now and solve these seemingly innocent and easy but very diffult and core questions first.

Next keep in mind the

Important Elements of a Website

Search engine optimization is essentially the science of designing your web site to maximize your search engine rankings. This means that all of the elements of your web site are created with the goal of obtaining high search engine rankings. Those elements include:

Entry and exit pages
Page titles
Site content
Graphics
Web site structure

The second imporatant thing is :

Search Engine Criteria

Some of the chief criteria by which a search engine crawler determines the rank your site should have in a set of results include:

Anchor texts
Site popularity
Link context
Topical links
Title tags
Keywords
Site language
Content
Site maturity

Much has been said and written about the definitions of these terms that I have listed above, if you have not yet mastered them fully, do not worry, I will clarify them in detail in coming posts, however if you are curious enough, read my internet marketing article on Google Knol and other on SEO at Hubpages.

If you have read these articles and you have questions, feel free to ask them in the commnets below, and I will try to answer them one by one. Thanks

First Lesson In SEO

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:42:00 EST

You should be able to answer these questions i.e. Why people are coming to our site? Where they are coming from? And what they do once they get there?

If you do not have clear answers for these yet, my advice is to forget everything for now and solve these seemingly innocent and easy but very diffult and core questions first.

Next keep in mind the

Important Elements of a Website

Entry and exit pages
Page titles
Site content
Graphics
Web site structure

The second imporatant thing is :

Search Engine Criteria

Some of the chief criteria by which a search engine crawler determines the rank your site should have in a set of results include:

Anchor texts
Site popularity
Link context
Topical links
Title tags
Keywords
Site language
Content
Site maturity

If you have read these articles and you have questions, feel free to ask them in the commnets below, and I will try to answer them one by one. Thanks

Boost Conversions - Segment Your Audience

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:03:07 EDT

How to boost Conversions-Ways to segment a market:

One of the major aspects of maximizing conversion rate is to make your marketing campaigns relevant to the audience. However, it should be always taken care that audience comes from numerous sources and a good marketer is always able to distinguish all of these channels or segments separately and designs an appropriate strategy for each segment. In this article we will explore some of the important ways to segment a market.

· By Lead Source:

You should be able to check/detect the source of the visitor/lead, because the person who has attended your Trade show has a different impression than the one who has attended your webinar. Similarly, a prospect visiting a site due to online advertisement is different from the lead as a result of your inbound call. For every set of audience you should have separate landing pages, offers and promotions.

· By Behavior Criteria:

Another way to filter out the leads from online traffic is by examining the visitor behaviors on your site which include Activity on Website i.e. RSS subscription, email opt-in etc. Also you should note that how visitors response to your Online Surveys and Forms and also do not under-estimate the potential traffic from your email marketing campaigns.

· By Lead Stage:

The buying cycle is not always single stepped or spontaneous(see: understanding sales funnel), customers often make their decisions after repeated visits and email inquiries. So you should cater to the needs of specific audience according to their unique needs, prospects vs existing customers is a common scenario.

· Contact Type:

Another important segmentation is based upon the relation of visitors to your organization. You should employ a separate lead generation message to various people i.e. partners vs employees and customer vs prospects.

· Demographics:

It is the most common and obvious segmentation type and should also include Job function, industry, company size etc.

· Purchase History:

While dealing with existing customers you should keep in touch with their Purchase Histories so that you can make proper propositions for Renewal of licenses, while you plan to cross-sell/up-sell your existing customers.

Boost Conversions - Segment Your Audience

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:03:07 EDT

How to boost Conversions-Ways to segment a market:

· By Lead Source:

· By Behavior Criteria:

· By Lead Stage:

· Contact Type:

· Demographics:

It is the most common and obvious segmentation type and should also include Job function, industry, company size etc.

· Purchase History:

Landing Page Optimization

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:45:00 EDT

Landing page testing: The primary objective of landing page testing is to predict the behavior of your audience given the specific content on the landing page that they see. You will collect a limited sample of data during your test, summarize and describe it, and predict how people from the same traffic sources will act when interacting with the page. The ultimate goal is to find the best possible version of the landing page among all of the variations that you are testing.

Variable

The word variable (when used by it) means a page element that you have selected. For example, a variable might be the headline of your landing page, or a whole-page redesign. In multivariate testing, a variable is also commonly referred to as a factor.

Branching Factor

The total number of possible values for a discrete variable is called its branching factor. the branching factor must be at least 2 (the original version and one alternative).

Recipe

A recipe is a unique combination of variable values in your test.

Multivariate Testing

The purpose of multivariate testing is to simultaneously gather information about multiple variables, and then conduct an analysis of the data to determine which recipe results in the best performance.

Multivariate testing approaches differ on three important dimensions:

How the test is constructed (deciding what to test)
How the data is collected

The data can be collected in a full factorial or fractional factorial fashion

How the data is analyzed

The subsequent analysis can be either parametric or nonparametric

If you choose an arbitrary test construction, you may not be able to use fractional factorial approaches. Likewise, if you choose fractional factorial data collection and test construction, you automatically lock yourself into a very restricted subset of parametric models for your subsequent data analysis (i.e., non-parametric analysis is impossible if you conduct fractional factorial data collection).

Search Space Size

The number of unique recipes in your test is your search space size.

The following char summarizes a comparison of some of the testing method possibilities:

Test Construction

When you are deciding how to construct your test, there is an important distinction that must be made: Is your test structured or unstructured?

Unstructured designs are by far the simplest to implement. You simply choose exactly how many variables you want to test, and the branching factor for each one. As long as you are reasonable, you can choose very different numbers of values for each variable. For example, you can pick 7 different headline, 2 button colors, and 9 calls-to-action. This allows you to pay particular attention to the test elements that you think will result in the greatest performance improvements, and devote more of your test sampling to finding the best values for them. The branching factor is simply a function of how many good creative alternatives you want to test for a particular variable. If you choose full factorial data collection, you will enjoy the benefits of unstructured designs.

Structured designs are an artifact of fractional factorial data collection. By assuming a specific underlying model, they force you to have a specific shape to your test. In other words, the number of variables and their branching factors are predefined, and cannot be violated. For example, you might be forced to have one variable with a branching factor of two and seven variables with a branching factor of three. There are a number of standard test constructions to choose from, but you must use one of them.

Data Analysis

Parametric data analysis in landing page optimization builds a model of how the variables tested (the “independent variables”) impact the conversion rate (the “dependent variable”). For each recipe in your search space, the model will produce a prediction of the expected conversion rate (or other optimization criterion of interest). Unless you happened to have sampled data on the exact recipe predicted by the model as being the best, you do not really know if the prediction will hold up. That is why it is critical to run follow-up A-B split tests between the predicted best challenger recipe and the original baseline recipe for all parametric data analysis methods.

By contrast, non-parametric data analysis does not try to build a model based on the input variables. Non-parametric methods try to identify the best challenger recipe, but without being able to tell anything about why it is the best, or exactly how much better it is than your baseline.

The two approaches are unrelated and are answering different questions. They are both recognition of the fundamental reality that only so much useful information can be extracted from your data collection sample. The only question is what you want to do with the data. You can try to create a general model of the output variable and try to describe it in terms of the input variables, or you can find the best individual recipe and not know why it is the best.

Although there are some difference among these common fractional factorial methods, their basic predictive power, required data sample size, and underlying assumptions are pretty similar. The main difference lies in the test construction and shape of the search spaces that each can be used for. So if you are going to use any of these methods, you should base your decision on your familiarity with each and the number and branching factor of the variables in your test. There is no reason to prefer the Taguchi method over Plackett-Burman, or Latin squares, but since it is gaining currency in landing page testing I will focus on it here.

Conclusion:

There is much more to add in this article and there are certain drawbacks and advantages of each data collection and analysis method. But to conclude my opinion is that Full Factorial Non-parametric Testing methodology is optimum for most of the testing needs. However, there can be other views, and if you have a certain opinion, I will like to hear it on the comments below, thanks.

Landing Page Optimization Methods

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:20:26 EDT

Landing page testing: The primary objective of landing page testing is to predict the behavior of your audience given the specific content on the landing page that they see. You will collect a limited sample of data during your test, summarize and describe it, and predict how people from the same traffic sources will act when interacting with the page. The ultimate goal is to find the best possible version of the landing page among all of the variations that you are testing.

Variable:

Branching Factor:

The total number of possible values for a discrete variable is called its branching factor. The branching factor must be at least 2 (the original version and one alternative).

Recipe:

A recipe is a unique combination of variable values in your test.

Multivariate Testing:

Multivariate testing approaches differ on three important dimensions:

How the test is constructed (deciding what to test)
How the data is collected

The data can be collected in a full factorial or fractional factorial fashion

How the data is analyzed

The subsequent analysis can be either parametric or nonparametric.

Search Space Size:

The number of unique recipes in your test is your search space size.

The following char summarizes a comparison of some of the testing method possibilities:

Test Construction

When you are deciding how to construct your test, there is an important distinction that must be made: Is your test structured or unstructured?

Unstructured designs are by far the simplest to implement. You simply choose exactly how many variables you want to test, and the branching factor for each one. As long as you are reasonable, you can choose very different numbers of values for each variable. For example, you can pick 7 different headline, 2 button colors, and 9 calls-to-action. This allows you to pay particular attention to the test elements that you think will result in the greatest performance improvements, and devote more of your test sampling to finding the best values for them. The branching factor is simply a function of how many good creative alternatives you want to test for a particular variable. If you choose full factorial data collection, you will enjoy the benefits of unstructured designs.

Structured designs are an artifact of fractional factorial data collection. By assuming a specific underlying model, they force you to have a specific shape to your test. In other words, the number of variables and their branching factors are predefined, and cannot be violated. For example, you might be forced to have one variable with a branching factor of two and seven variables with a branching factor of three. There are a number of standard test constructions to choose from, but you must use one of them.

Data Analysis:

Conclusion:

There is much more to add in this article and there are certain drawbacks and advantages of each data collection and analysis method. But to conclude my opinion is that Full Factorial Non-parametric Testing methodology is optimum for most of the testing needs. However, there can be other views, and if you have a certain opinion, I will like to hear it on the comments below, thanks.

Taguchi testing Basics & Comparison of Taguchi testing with A/B testing

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:03:58 EDT

Taguchi Testing Method:

Dr. Genichi Taguchi was the founder of Taguchi Testing Method, developed 50 years ago ,it is a statistical method originally used to optimize automobile and other product manufacturing. Recently, The Taguchi Method is being applied to Landing Page Optimization and is often regarded as “Multivariate Testing”

What is special about Taguchi and Multivariate Testing:

Multivariate testing has many different forms, depending on what you are trying to achieve. Taguchi testing is a subset of multivariate and is generally recognised to be the best place to start your calculations.

Usually with traditional A/B split tests you can test two versions of one variable, typical A/B split tests are limited to - headline A vs. headline B - or a price test among $99, $199 and $299 etc. Split testing is testing version A versus version B, if we explain it simply.

With Taguchi test methodology you test not one but many variables and in a relatively short time.e.g. you can test various elements like : three pre-heads, six headlines, three subheads, three salutations (e.g., "Dear Home Builder" vs. "Dear Lumber Buyer" vs. "Dear Wood Trader"), three lead paragraphs, three visuals (e.g., a product photo vs. a photo of the inventor vs. a photo of a happy customer), three guarantees and three calls to action.etc., at once.

Sorting out and pre-planning is what Taguchi testing is all about. Think of Taguchi testing as advanced split testing with many different combinations pre-planned. It was originally designed to test factory production lines. What Taguchi can’t tell you is what relationship all of the variables have to each other outside those preplanned combinations. So essentially, it’s split testing with more versions.

With specialized Taguchi testing software, each unique visitor to the site sees the landing page with a different combination of the elements being tested. Results are measured, tabulated and analyzed. Reports are generated to show which headline pulled best, which lead paragraph pulled best, which visual pulled best and so on.

However, to do Taguchi testing, you need to write complete copy for your landing page along with the elements listed above: the six headlines, three subheads and so on

conversion rises incrementally for each variable: e.g., a 20 percent lift in orders for the best headline, a 17 percent increase in conversion for the best lead and so on. By incorporating the winning versions of all variables tested in the final landing page, Taguchi testing can double, triple, even quadruple the conversion rate of your landing pages.

Traffic Requirements:

Typically, you want at least 1,000 unique visits per test cell. Depending on the number of test cells, you need 12,000 to 20,000 visits for a full test.

Benefits: This means you find out, more quickly, what parts of your sales page are converting- and which aren’t. Knowing how to use and apply the Taguchi method can hours of time and thousands of dollars in testing.

Acknowledgement:

I have benefited from following articles specially, among many others, to prepare this article. I am thankful to the repsective authors.

http://www.louisrburns.com/types-testing-software/

http://www.dmnews.com/Taguchi-testing-can-triple-conversion/article/93753/

Taguchi testing Basics & Comparison of Taguchi testing with A/B testing

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:03:58 EDT

Taguchi Testing Method:

What is special about Taguchi and Multivariate Testing:

However, to do Taguchi testing, you need to write complete copy for your landing page along with the elements listed above: the six headlines, three subheads and so on

Traffic Requirements:

Typically, you want at least 1,000 unique visits per test cell. Depending on the number of test cells, you need 12,000 to 20,000 visits for a full test.

Acknowledgement:

I have benefited from following articles specially, among many others, to prepare this article. I am thankful to the repsective authors.

http://www.louisrburns.com/types-testing-software/

http://www.dmnews.com/Taguchi-testing-can-triple-conversion/article/93753/

Forrester's Social Media Research Tool

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:30:43 EDT

Forrester has recently introduced a new social media research tool for Internet Marketeers. It enables a very good combination of demographic & geographic filtration of online audience. II is also ideal for marketeers willing to place adds on social media networks, must check it out below:

Forrester's Social Media Research Tool

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:30:43 EDT

.htacess file tutorial – useful tips

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:51:55 EDT

For those who are unfamiliar with .htaccess file, here is the basic info:

.htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of a directory-level configuration file that allows for decentralized management of web server configuration. The .htaccess file is placed inside the web tree, and is able to override a subset of the server's global configuration; the extent of this subset is defined by the web server administrator.The original purpose of .htaccess was to allow per-directory access control (e.g. requiring a password to access the content), hence the name. Nowadays .htaccess can override many other configuration settings, mostly related to content control, e.g. content type and character set, CGI handlers, etc.

Following are some basic tips and uses of .htaccess file, I think every webmaster should at least have an idea of the power and usefulness of .htaccess file.

1. Create a custom error page.

.htaccess makes it easy to create your own custom error pages. Just create your custom error page files and then add this code to your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 401 /401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /500.php

(you should replace the “/500.php” or whatever with your own file path and name.)

2. Prevent directory browsing.

If you don’t include an index file in a directory, visitors can browse the directory itself. But preventing that is as easy as adding a single line to your .htaccess file:

Options All –Indexes

3.Block access to your .htaccess file

By adding he following code to your htaccess file will prevent attempts to access your htaccess file. This extra layer of security protects your htaccess file by displaying a 403 error message on the browser.

# secure htaccess file
<Files .htaccess>
Â order allow,deny
Â deny from all
</Files>

4. Set the default page of each directory.

If you don’t want to use an index page in each directory, you can set the default page visited when someone reaches (like an about page or a page offering the newest content) that directory by adding this:

DirectoryIndex news.html

(And of course you’d replace the “news.html” bit with whatever you want to use as the default.)

5.Redirect everyone to different site except few IP

If you want to redirect all the visitors to a different IP. Also give access to certainÂ few IPs. You can use the code below:

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.youdomain.com
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 124.34.48.165
Allow from 102.54.68.123

6.Redirect Visitors While You Update Your Site

Update and test your site while visitors are redirected to the page of your choice:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 123.123.123.123
ErrorDocument 403 /page.html
<Files page.html>
allow from all
</Files>

Replace 123.123.123.123 with your IP address. Also replace page.html with the name of the page you want visitors to see.

7.Disguise your file types.

You can disguise all of your file types by making them appear as PHP files. Just insert this snippet in:

ForceType application/x-httpd-php

8.Protect your site from hotlinking.

The last thing you want is for those stealing your content to also be able to embed the images hosted on your server in their posts. It takes up your bandwidth and can quickly get expensive. Here’s a way to block hotlinking within htaccess:

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([ -a-z0-9] \.)?domain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ - [F,NC,L]

(Of course you’ll want to replace the domain\.com with your own domain name.)

9.Restrict file upload limits for PHP:

You can restrict the maximum file size for uploading in PHP, as well as the maximum execution time. Just add this:

php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 10M
php_value max_execution_time 200
php_value max_input_time 200

Line one specifies the maximum file size for uploading; line two is the maximum size for post data; line three is the maximum time in seconds a script can run before it’s terminated; and line four is the maximum amount of time in seconds a script is allowed to parse input data.

10.Force a file to download with a “Save As” prompt.

If you want to force someone to download a file instead of opening it in their browser, use this code:

AddType application/octet-stream .doc .mov .avi .pdf .xls .mp4

11.Redirect to a secure https connection

If you want to redirect your entire site to a secure https connection, use the following:

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

12.Block script execution.

You can stop scripts in certain languages from running with this:

Options –ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .pl .py .php .jsp. htm .shtml .sh .asp .cgi

Just replace the types of scripts you want to block.

13.Set up a 301 redirect.

If you move around the structure of your site and need to redirect some old URLs to their new locations, the following bit of code will do so for you:

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
Redirect 301 /original/filename.html http://domain.com/updated/filename.html

Important Note:

1-Be careful of spelling- .htaccess is not forgiving of spelling errors.
2-htaccess is case sensitive. If something is shown in the examples with a capital letter, make sure it’s capitalized in your htaccess file.

For readers interested in advance knowledge, I will recommend the following guides:

While preparing this article, I have taken benefit from many good tutorials on the web,like:

.htacess file tutorial – useful tips

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:51:55 EDT

For those who are unfamiliar with .htaccess file, here is the basic info:

.htaccess (hypertext access) is the default name of a directory-level configuration file that allows for decentralized management of web server configuration. The .htaccess file is placed inside the web tree, and is able to override a subset of the server's global configuration; the extent of this subset is defined by the web server administrator.[1] The original purpose of .htaccess was to allow per-directory access control (e.g. requiring a password to access the content), hence the name. Nowadays .htaccess can override many other configuration settings, mostly related to content control, e.g. content type and character set, CGI handlers, etc.

Following are some basic tips and uses of .htaccess file, I think every webmaster should at least have an idea of the power and usefulness of .htaccess file.

1. Create a custom error page.

.htaccess makes it easy to create your own custom error pages. Just create your custom error page files and then add this code to your .htaccess file:

ErrorDocument 401 /401.php
ErrorDocument 403 /403.php
ErrorDocument 404 /404.php
ErrorDocument 500 /500.php

(you should replace the “/500.php” or whatever with your own file path and name.)

2. Prevent directory browsing.

If you don’t include an index file in a directory, visitors can browse the directory itself. But preventing that is as easy as adding a single line to your .htaccess file:

Options All –Indexes

3.Block access to your .htaccess file

# secure htaccess file
<Files .htaccess>
Â order allow,deny
Â deny from all
</Files>

4. Set the default page of each directory.

DirectoryIndex news.html

(And of course you’d replace the “news.html” bit with whatever you want to use as the default.)

5.Redirect everyone to different site except few IP

If you want to redirect all the visitors to a different IP. Also give access to certainÂ few IPs. You can use the code below:

ErrorDocument 403 http://www.youdomain.com
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 124.34.48.165
Allow from 102.54.68.123

6.Redirect Visitors While You Update Your Site

Update and test your site while visitors are redirected to the page of your choice:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 123.123.123.123

ErrorDocument 403 /page.html

<Files page.html>
allow from all
</Files>

Replace 123.123.123.123 with your IP address. Also replace page.html with the name of the page you want visitors to see.

7.Disguise your file types.

You can disguise all of your file types by making them appear as PHP files. Just insert this snippet in:

ForceType application/x-httpd-php

8.Protect your site from hotlinking.

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://([ -a-z0-9] \.)?domain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpe?g|png)$ - [F,NC,L]

(Of course you’ll want to replace the domain\.com with your own domain name.)

9.Restrict file upload limits for PHP:

You can restrict the maximum file size for uploading in PHP, as well as the maximum execution time. Just add this:

php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 10M
php_value max_execution_time 200
php_value max_input_time 200

10.Force a file to download with a “Save As” prompt.

If you want to force someone to download a file instead of opening it in their browser, use this code:

AddType application/octet-stream .doc .mov .avi .pdf .xls .mp4

11.Redirect to a secure https connection

If you want to redirect your entire site to a secure https connection, use the following:

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

12.Block script execution.

You can stop scripts in certain languages from running with this:

Options –ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .pl .py .php .jsp. htm .shtml .sh .asp .cgi

Just replace the types of scripts you want to block.

13.Set up a 301 redirect.

If you move around the structure of your site and need to redirect some old URLs to their new locations, the following bit of code will do so for you:

view plaincopy to clipboardprint?
Redirect 301 /original/filename.html http://domain.com/updated/filename.html

Important Note:

1-Be careful of spelling- .htaccess is not forgiving of spelling errors.
2-htaccess is case sensitive. If something is shown in the examples with a capital letter, make sure it’s capitalized in your htaccess file.

For readers interested in advance knowledge, I will recommend the following guides:

While preparing this article, I have taken benefit from many good tutorials on the web,like:

What Matters Most? Quantity or Quality of Opportunities

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:51:00 EDT

As long as the leads are qualified, meaning... they have an interest and a need... I'll start working those leads whether they are going to convert now, or a year from now. Appointments- I want to get in front of as many prospects as possible. If they are willing to meet with me, then they most likely have some level of interest. In both cases, I always have a chance to close more deals when talking to more people than not talking to them at all.

Develop an Attitude to get success in business and life

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:38:20 EDT

Develop an Attitude to get success in business and life:

I have prepared this article for some of my apprentices who have recently joined me in my business. This is a short article to help them create a focus, a broad vision and a successful attitude.

Remember “Greatness is won not granted”
Success Begins right with in you, create a positive attitude toward things and develop sound ethics or rules for yourself, and stick to them.
Remove negativity from outside and inside. Let no one disappoint, and nothing distract you, from your goals.
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
Everyone gets into a little slump once in a while. It is during these slumps, that leaders want to make core changes because they think, “What we were doing isn’t working anymore.”
If you fail once it does not mean you will fail forever.

Develop a Successful Team of your own!

Observer people carefully when they are not in public and when they feel that nobody’s watching? Notice their attitude:

The great ones are talking shop, creating strategies, and role-playing techniques that will make them more successful. They are sharing product knowledge and developing industry expertise. These high achievers are encouraging each other and looking for ways to build on strengths!
Then there are those who are huddling up to share in each other’s misery. They complain about change, fairness, and various forms of rejection, these are to be avoided!
The next time you get stucked in to a conversation where people are saying it can’t be done… take a leadership role with something like, "Wait a minute, what is it that we are fighting for here? What are we trying to accomplish by convincing each other that our goals are unachievable? If we continue down this path of negativity, where will it lead us? In other words, once this conversation is over… then what?"
One of two things will happen. Either they’ll follow you… or they won’t. Both scenarios are a win! You should join forces with those who agree to think and behave like top performers, while parting ways with those who won’t be around long anyway.
Build an impenetrable force with your success minded teammates.

(Acknowledgement: This article is an excerpt from Doyle Slayton’s eBook.)

Google Product Search Tips

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:07:00 EDT

Google has recently launched a new video, to help e-commerce store owners increase their products visiblity in Google Search Results. For those who do not know about this, Google has a service called Google Product Search, to facilitate online shopping. Also Google maintains a plateform, Google Base, where you can submit your products to be included in Google Product Search.

Search Engine Wars: Where is Yahoo?

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:10:00 EDT

2009 has proved to be very exciting when it comes to new features and enhancements. Many companies, especially big brands, have taken recession as a pause for self analysis and they have been constantly upgrading their infrastructures for the time when economics crisis will be over. Search engines are no way behind and I have noticed some remarkable changes from Microsoft and Google. Yahoo, although being a major player among search engines, has not yet taken active part in the recent Search Engine Wars.

Google Wave Is Much Better Than Twitter

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:45:00 EDT

Although Google Wave is not open for public yet but after a preview at the features just introduced by Google I think Google Wave is much better, interactive, fun and less-hectic than some of today's top social media tools.

Technorati

Fri, 22 May 2009 15:44:51 EDT

Technorati Profile

Understanding Sales Funnels

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:28:57 EDT

Anyone interested in analytics always come across a term "Funnel" or sometimes "sales funnels" or "goal funnels", below I will explain in short "What a Funnel is?" and What to measure from it?

This is a typical funnel, below is a short explaination of each part:

Website Visitors -- Website visitors are at the top of the funnel. These are the people you've attracted to your site via channels like your blog, social media and search engine optimization.

Leads -- Leads are the website visitors who express interest in your product by submitting information on a landing page. Maybe they fill out a form in order to download a white paper. Maybe they requested an demo. Whatever it is, these people are potential customers, and you have more information about them than you have about your website visitors.

Customers -- These are the folks who pay you. If you're not already tracking them, you're in trouble.

Here's what you should be measuring in this funnel:

Conversion Rates -- This is the percentage of website visitors that converts to leads and the percentage of leads that converts to customers. This is important to know because you need to understand where in the funnel you can improve. Are you better at converting leads to customers? Or visitors to leads? The answer to that question will help you determine where to focus you energy and how to drive more sales.

Channel-Level Funnel -- This means tracking everything above (the funnel) for each channel. How many website visitors, leads and customers do you get from organic search traffic? How about from your blog? And what are the conversion rates for each? The answers to these questions will help you determine which channels to focus you marketing resources on.

Which Online Medium Provides Maximum Conversion ? A Comparison

Tue, 19 May 2009 09:02:24 EDT

comScore recently published it's survey for April 2009 and compared the various online medium and there importance in online purchase process, following were the main mediums of research:

Search Engine Traffic
Online Coupon Sites
Comparison Shopping sites
Auction Sites
Online Classifieds

It is a nice piece of information for internet advertisers and marketers willing to maximize their marketing ROI.

View Source

SEO without PPC in-demand! Paid Search Traffic Share Down

Tue, 19 May 2009 08:31:12 EDT

Hitwise data indicate that the share of search traffic coming from paid listings is decreasing at the expense of organic traffic. In the four weeks to May 9, 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to All Categories of websites was from paid clicks. This compares to 9.84% in the same four week period in 2008 - representing a 26% decline in the share of paid clicks. This trend is apparent across 16 of the 17 Hitwise parent categories (i.e. Automotive, Food and Beverage, Health and Medical, etc). The only category that didn't see a decline in paid traffic was Education, which received 1.45% of search visits from paid clicks compared to 1.39% last year.

Referrals from search engines continue to climb but the proportion of clicks going to sponsored or paid listings is decreasing.

For a detailed analysis visit: SearchEngineLand Blog

Check List for a PressRelease setup

Fri, 15 May 2009 08:16:23 EDT

Most web sites with active media relations programs host an online newsroom. Analysts, journalists and even some bloggers find newsrooms a useful resource for finding past media coverage, press releases, image assets, executive bios, company history, webinars, white papers, case studies and other information helpful for researching stories.SEO and user friendly features of an online newsroom include:

Titles & categories optimized for keywords
Chronological press release archives
Site search that saves user queries for later analysis
Share/Save bookmarks
Subscribe RSS Feed
Optimized newsroom content: press releases, past media coverage, events, case studies, white papers, archived webinars, images, videos and audio
Cross link using keywords to related pages on main web site

Publishing content to a newsroom typically follows a process. To realize the SEO benefits in the most efficient way, make sure those responsible for adding content are trained on basic SEO and include keyword optimization as part of the newsroom update process. Following factors are also noteworthy

Research a keyword glossary
Keyword optimize title tags (dynamic AND hard coded)
Keywords optimize category names
Use keywords in document titles, directory names, file names
Add social links: make it easy fo readers to bookmark and share newsroom content
Include an optimized RSS feed to facilitate syndication and ease of discoverability within RSS search engines like Google Blog Search
Optimize digital assets: images, video and audio as well as other file formats: MS Office docs & PDF

(This content is coutesy of Internet Marketing Blog)

Measure Success of PR Efforts

Fri, 15 May 2009 07:17:45 EDT

Measuring the ROI of SEO efforts is the most intense aspects of the whole Internet Marketing industry, people are always curious to find ways to measure success of their efforts, below is a summary of the steps that can be taken to measure the value of your internet marketing efforts with respect to your competetion:

Moniter competitor social search visibility vs client/company
Moniter competitor’s optimized news content ranking in various types of search engines where the company/client is not (and probably should be)
Research a keyword glossary and run a ranking report on those phrases. Show the lack of search visibility for what search audiences are actually looking for, relevant to the business
Run a test of a few news items, whether they be blog posts, press releases or a digital asset like video. Take a benchmark measurement first and then show progress.
Set keyword ranking goals for news content and estimate the cost to achieve the same goals with PPC advertising over time. Demonstrate the cost of organic search traffic vs PPC traffic.

If you can’t get budget approval for an overall search campaign as part of specific PR efforts, then using a competitive example or a small scale test might be enough to demonstrate the value of incorporating SEO with Public Relations.

(This blogpost made possible by inspirations from Internet Marketing Blog)

Improve your Conversions with Positive Public Relations

Thu, 14 May 2009 05:25:17 EDT

Successful Online Public Relations:

PR has moved online, build your relationships with a wider audience including bloggers, journalists (on and offline) as well as editors.
Learn the language. Don't assume a blogger isn't a journalist and make sure the terms you use are familiar to them and easy to understand.
Think about how you produce a visual image to accompany your press release, such as a JPEG image or a video.

Improve Website Sales Copy:

Whether reading online or offline sales messages, there's no difference in human behavior. When people are told an "offer ends this weekend, buy now" they act immediately, regardless of whether they're being told to in print or online.

Transparency is key to writing online sales copy. Don't make false promises because customers can read up on your products on comparison websites and customer review forums to get the real deal.

Online customers aren't a captive audience, so making the sale can be harder. Generating leads by offering free trials or a free newsletter may be more important than blindly pursuing the big sales pitch.

Get BackLinks – It Improves Traffic and Conversion also:

Lend a helping hand:

Getting a link strictly for the search engines is one thing. An added bonus is when the link boosts your link popularity and sends targeted traffic to your site.

Strengthen your site’s inner linking structure:

If you’ve got some content that was previously popular and received a lot of backlinks. You can (and should) use those popular pages to give a boost to the newer pages you’re promoting.

Be link worthy:

Remember, if you write like you’re an authority on your subject, then you’re more likely to get backlinks from credible sites such as edu’s, gov’s and news outlets when they’re looking for credible sources or resources for stories or articles.

OFF Page SEO and On Page SEO

Wed, 13 May 2009 11:45:18 EDT

Before I expalin the process of SEO, it is good to know that SEO is divided in two basics aspects or we can say that a website is made search engine friendly and foundable under two set of factors:

On-Page SEO
OFF-Page SEO

On Page Search Engine Optimization:

On-Page SEO is a set of guidelines on how and where to place keywords on a page to maximize
it's chance of ranking for that phrase. It includes ,but not limited to, following major areas of a webpage:

Title of Web Page (Title Tag)
Meta Description Tag
Anchor Text of links to internal pages of site
Anchor Text of Navigation Links
Anchor Text of Footer Links
Anchor Text of In-Context Links

(The details of each part will be mentioned later, for now just grab this check list !)

Off Page Search Engine Optimization:

Off page SEO is the process of attracting and building links to a company's website. In order to rank in the search engines for competitive keyword phrases, search engines evaluate the quantity and quality of links pointing to a page.

(Want to know How to get links to your site ? More Details in advanced section, hang on with us !)

Making Social Media Strategy

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:11:31 EDT

Social Media Strategy Sheet

Important Points to think when planning your online presence and social media strategy.

Hiring SEO? Consider These SEO Questions

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:49:53 EDT

I have once read somewhere on the web this important Q/A and found it very useful. I have forgot the source URL, if you are the author of this content kindly inform me and I will give you a link back.

Twitter Solutions For Joomla-Wordpress-Drupal

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:00:00 EDT

How To Auto Tweet - Joomla – Wordpress-Drupal content

To find and selecet plugins and Modules to auto tweet the content published on joomla , wordpress and drupal is usually a headache for many webmasters with their sites on popular CMS like wordpress, joomla ,and drupal etc.

Although it is p

Learn Definitions

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:43:02 EDT

Internet Marketing is simply an art (or science) of promoting oneself, business or anything on internet. It is the core concept behind every effort on the internet to promote anything, we will talk about this later in greater detail.

Internet Marketing, nowadays , has got some buzz words or in other words this filed is not split up into some parts, which are somewhat equally important to understand.

Landing Page Optimization:

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:00:00 EDT

Landing Page Optimization:

Landing Pages are a crucial factor in internet marketing whether it is seo, sem or social media campaign, the every entry point from outside to your site is Landing page. Below are some of the key question, pain points and solutions, when you are engaged in Landing Page Optimization campaign.

What is Search Engine Optimization? Learn SEO Basics

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:00:00 EDT

This section is dedicated on New-Commers in Internet Marketing. It will provide basic definitions of related terms like seo, sem, blogging, social media, article submission, link building etc.
With the time more information will be added to this section and many more similar sections will be created so hang on.

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