May, 2009
Strategies for growing – improving your affiliate businesses Part 1
Posted on May 9, 2009 |
This section will provide you with couple of strategies for growing and improving your affiliate businesses from few hundreds into tens of thousands of dollars a month using websites and search engine optimization.
As In any business it is important to have strategy. The same applies to affiliate marketing since it is your business and has to be treated like business.
Each has own strengths and weaknesses, that’s why we’re stepping in and providing your with couple strategies to use separately or in one big marketing mix to ensure growth and stability of your affiliate business. Read more
Writing Strategy for Better SEO
Posted on May 9, 2009 |
So, as you can see content is very important in search engine optimization. Here you can find a useful
and effective writing strategy.
Write in “chunks”
Don’t overwhelm visitors with too much information in one paragraph. Present information in neat, readable chunks. If you chunk, your paragraphs will be about two to three sentences each.
Use headlines
Headlines are another way to make your pages more readable. In the past, using keywords in headlines or heading tags in the HTML was a recommended technique for optimizing your page. We still think it’s a worthwhile technique.
Use lists
Lists allow visitors to scan your pages quickly, as well.
Do not use underlines for web text (oops…)
Underlines should be reserved only for hyperlinks. Underlining text may confuse your visitors. Does it
annoy you when you try to click on underlined text that goes nowhere? Why would you want to annoy
your visitors?
Write at an eighth grade reading level
You want to make a web page easy to read. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be interesting. While you need to keep your visitors excited about your content, many people don’t have time to read involved text. If you need to include detailed explanations of your product, save them for pages deeper in the linking structure. Even so, always explain things to people in as simple a way as possible. Your first priority is getting visitors interested. For an example of this type of writing, read a newspaper. Newspaper stories are generally written at an eighth grade reading level.
Use the Inverse Pyramid
Write your most important information first. Again, the newspaper story is a good example of this format. This format allows people to read only the first few paragraphs of a story to get the main facts. On the Web, you want to do the same thing: present the juiciest information first. This way, people can quickly scan the first few sentences of the page to see if it contains the information they are looking for.
Using the Inverse Pyramid style of writing has an advantage in search engines, as well. Some search engines will not “read” the entire page. Although this is changing and many search engines are now
programmed to read the whole page.
Write it the way you say it
Write conversationally. Talk to yourself! Having trouble getting something on paper? Dictate, using a tape recorder. Verbalize what you want to say on your web page into the tape recorder – then transfer that to the web page. Also, write as if you are talking to one person, not to a group of people. Use the word “you.” For example, “Do you have trouble finding the time to read a good book?” Avoid phrases like, “Many people never have time to sit down and read a book.” Make it personal.
Focus on your visitors
Once you have figured out who your customers are, focus your writing on them. Write just for them. For instance, if your customers are webmasters, your writing may include words that webmasters understand – words like “server,” “host,” and “FTP.” If, however, you are targeting people with no knowledge of the web, seriously think about your language. If you are writing to mechanics or gardeners or the hip-hop culture, use their lingo and discuss the benefits of your product in a way they would understand and relate to.
Other writing strategies to help your customers stay interested
• Use punctuation (- . , ! ” % $ & ~ : to name a few). The em dash (—) can be very powerful
— leading people to the next bit of text. Get a little creative.
• Use colorful, positive language. Use words that evoke emotion or motivate people.
• Paint images with words. Use comparison and adjectives to create pictures in people’s minds.
Tell stories
Telling stories can help people relate a concept to their real lives.
Is your page neat?
After you finish writing a page, walk away from it for a few minutes. When you come back to the page, does it look neat and orderly or messy and unreadable? Do certain words or phrases stand out? Are those the concepts that you want to stand out? Scan the headlines. Do they make sense? If people just read the headlines will they get the gist of the page?
Proofread
If you’re not sure if you can proofread, hire someone. It’s the best thing you’ll ever do for your site. Nothing turns someone off faster than glaring spelling errors. If your copy is sloppy, people may think your company is sloppy. Also, if your readers are concentrating on your errors, they may miss your message completely.
Web copy is never finished
The advantage of the Web over “hard” media is that it’s never written in stone. A click and a save and it’s changed. Keep going over your web copy. There’s always something you can improve.
Understanding Why You Need SEO
Posted on May 8, 2009 |
Before you can understand the reasons for using SEO, it might be good to have a definition of what
SEO — search engine optimization — is. It’s probably a safe assumption that if you’ve picked up this
book, you have some understanding of SEO, so I’ll keep it simple.
SEO is the science of customizing elements of your web site to achieve the best possible search engine
ranking. That’s really all there is to search engine optimization. But as simple as it sounds, don’t let it
fool you. Both internal and external elements of the site affect the way it’s ranked in any given search
engine, so all of these elements should be taken into consideration. Good SEO can be very difficult to
achieve, and great SEO seems pretty well impossible at times. Read more