Perhaps my "do everything yourself" approach is not the best approach for every business, especially for existing off-line businesses that are already profitable. However I still prefer a more "hands on" approach for most small and home-based businesses.
When a conventional off-line business starts makes the transition into selling on-line I would consider the following integrated approach. This approach requires more money and less time to accomplish
It's a more aggressive approach that is more suitable if you have access to a proven product that sells.
Purchase Keywords By The Click
One of the first, purchases I would make would be a Real-Name From Alta-Vista. A "real-name" is a keyword that is unique to your business. Words like your company name can be registered so when someone types it in the Alta-Vista your listing comes up first, above all the other listings. You can use this "real-name" in advertising, it's especially when your domain name is too long or difficult to remember.
For a demonstration try typing "IBM" in Alta-Vista
http://www.altavista.com/
The real-name keyword "IBM" is first of 2,557,355 pages found it's hard to find a better advertising bargain
Alta-Vista maintains the biggest index of web pages worldwide so gaining a guaranteed number one position in Alta-Vista for a hundred dollars a year is one of the best values available on-line.
More On "Real-Names"
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?rnsp=0&realname=realnam
I would also suggest setting up an account with Go-To.com. They allow you to bid on keywords. The highest bidder gets the highest position. This and other pay for position search engines are growing their user bases and are a good way to buy targeted traffic by the click.
http://www.goto.com click on the Manage Accounts link.
A newer search engine that may be useful is SearchHound
http://www.searchhound.com/
Buying clicks is especially powerful if your products fit in a specific niche where you can identify a few unique keywords. I suggest working with Go-To.com first because they have a great system in place for identifying great specific keywords. You might be able to bid as low1 cent per click if your best keywords are not too popular yet.
I understand that AOL also sells keywords, I don't know the details but I have heard that can be profitable but not always affordable. It's outside of my price range.
http://www.goto.com
Obtain A Good Yahoo Listing
Yahoo usually takes from 3 weeks to forever to list your site. Yahoo can bring you a lot of traffic. I get about 1500 visitors a day from Yahoo as well as about a 1000 from Google.com which is supplies the database engine that delivers search results go along with Yahoo's directory results.
Sometimes the best way to get listed in Yahoo is to get listed in Google. Getting listed in Google is very easy.
http://www.google.com/
Yahoo has very specific requirements for inclusion in their directory. You can get a quick review but no guarantee for about $200; otherwise it can be difficult to get reviewed at all.
http://www.yahoo.com/
Software Solutions
There are two software programs that work well. WebPosition Gold guides you through the process of developing high positions in the search engines. Most placement companies use this software.
http://www.smithfam.com/wpg/index.htm
I also offer a submission program that I couldn't do without. It makes the actual submissions for you and requires very little time or effort.
http://www.smithfam.com/ts.html
Advertising In Newsletters And Ezines
Ads in ezines and newsletters can be a real bargain. The key to placing effective ads is to make every word count. A compelling headline is a MUST. The reader is not interested in reading your ad so your ad must be compelling.
In order for paid ads to pay off you need to be selling a product with enough profit to pay for the ad as well as deliver a profit. If you can start out earning any profit at all you can usually fine-tune the ad in order to at least double or triple your initial results.
The most common mistake is trying to tell the whole story in a one classified ad. You can't do it anyway, so don't even try. Keep your ads as brief as possible.
Don't even bother to trying to sell something directly from your ad, instead target your ad to generate interest and produce leads instead of sales. A good ad leaves them wanting to know more.
http://www.smithfam.com/autoresponder.html
Include Programmable Autoresponders
In order to establish credibility and build a relationship with your customers start out offering a series of informational auto-responders. Most sales are made on the 4th through 7th exposure.
You are buying access to your ideal target market. The best way to do that is to choose publications carefully and test every word in your ad.
Writing Articles
If you are already writing content for your website and for your ezine or newsletter, why not offer it to other publications in order to get more free exposure. Submit your articles to other publications that offer to consider publishing them. You will find some places to submit your original articles in the list of ezine directories included in our feature article below.
I review articles also for this newsletter and for my on-line ezine where I publish about 30 articles a month, send them to.
mailto:articles@smithfam.com
http://www.smithfam.com/weekly.html
Search Engine Strategies
You must be listed in the search engines in order to be successful. The following are the most common reasons that off-line businesses make when taking their conventional business on-line. Don't Use Frames
The most common problem I see in corporate websites is the use of frames in design. You won't get as much traffic from the search engines when using frames for the following reasons.
- When using frames your entire website's traffic would depend on the positioning of the main page.
- Normally when I use frames I maintain all the other pages as stand alone pages leading to the main page on each stand alone page I would have links to all the other pages.
Dump The Flashy Splash Pages
People visit your website mostly for information. They are not impressed with flashy design especially if they have to wait longer for them to load.
All of the studies I have seen show that flashy main pages or splash pages turn off at least 80% of visitors before they fully load. They are slow, not interactive, and can be really annoying. The same is generally true for adding sound to your pages. I can't tell you how many times I have been blasted with someone's background music and couldn't click away soon enough
To see if this is true with your site analyze your server logs. If you find that most of your hits are to your main page and very few visits to your other pages you should suspect that your main page is not working as well as it could.
Look at the total unique visitor count. Then look at the total number of pages displayed. A "sticky" website should deliver several page visited per visitor on average. For example I average 5 pages loaded for each visitor on my site. I am always dreaming up ways to increase that number.
Set Up Doorway Pages
A doorway page is a stand-alone page which is usually not part of the website as a whole. These are most important if you use frames in your design because the pages in your site
A doorway page should focus on answering a single question or respond to a specific keyword phrase. Each doorway page should consist of one to 4 paragraphs of useful information specific to a search term or keyword phrase.
The doorway page should include links to all of the important pages in your website
Start by creating a template like your main page. The content for each page and the list of keywords you choose can be optimized to get better placement in the search engines. This approach is a long-term strategy but still worth doing as almost as 80% of your visitors still visit your pages from a query in a search engine.
Most search engine placement experts charge $30 to $60 dollars an hour for placement services. Even at $100 a page positioning services can be a real bargain should your business be able to afford the cost.
I hope you are able to use some of these strategies in your business.
Bob
Click Here to Email Bob Smith
