Web Design Discussion

If your competitor is receiving tons of traffic, has 1000s of backlinks and is making lots of sales it would be wise to study them so you can use that information to your advantage.

1. Find the top 10 competing web sites in Google

Enter your main keyword in Google to view the top 10 web sites in your niche then dissect them to see why they rank well.

2. Find the main keywords they are using

Visit your competitor’s web site and do a view-source in your web browser to view the main keywords they are using in their meta tags. Observe where those keywords are repeated in the text.

You may want to use a few of the same keywords for your own web site.

3. Do a backlink check

Enter the URL of your competitor in Yahoo explorer to view how many links are pointing back to their website. The number and quality of backlinks determine rankings.

Contact the same web sites to get backlinks to your own site.

4. Check traffic levels at Alexa.com

Enter the URL of your competitor in Alexa.com. It will display a monthly traffic history graph for that site.

Offer to write an article or provide free software to this site in exchange for link to your own. A link on a high traffic site will boost your own traffic levels.

5. Study the content

Well written content has high conversion rates. By studying your competitor’s content can get an idea what to include in your own.

6. Subscribe to their newsletter

Subscribe to several competitors newsletters to see what they are offering to their customers and how they write their web copy.

If you’re going to sell products through your newsletter you need to write compelling content.

7. Visit and contribute to their blog or forum

Engaging in communication with your competitors will help you to keep up with recent news, articles and tap into the minds of their customers.

For more information on how to conduct market search and write articles to start an online business please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

So you’ve found a niche you’re passionate about and found many people are searching for the main keywords related to your topic. You’ve also discovered that you could attain first page rankings in the search engines because your competitors have only a few hundred backlinks.

Why is market research necessary?

1. Protects your online business from costly errors

If you don’t know much about your target market you’ll spend time on off-target strategies. This will cause you to lose money and time on wasted efforts.

2. Increases potential to be profitable

Conducting market research before creating and marketing your product will give you an idea if it’s going to fly.

3. Get to know your customers

If you can get into the mind of your customers, what they’re thinking and feeling it will be easier to craft the right message for them

4. Get to know your competitors

By studying your competitors you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Your competitor may have already have been in business for decades so there’s no need redo what he’s been doing but find a way you can set yourself apart from him and offer something unique.

For more information on how to conduct market search and write articles to start an online business please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

Part 1

An online business constantly requires new content for it to be profitable. The phrase “content is king” is very true because the essence of the internet is content. If you can write an article or articles you will quickly establish the core of your online business.

Benefits of writing articles

1. Create content for web pages

If you get into the habit of writing articles you can easily write content for sales pages, product pages, and other types of web pages.

2. Increase search engine rankings

Writing optimized content (content containing keywords) will boost your search engine presence because search engines index web pages containing keywords that people search on. By continuously adding content to your web site you increase the paths by which visitors can find your business online.

3. Boost link popularity

Article directories allow links to be placed in the resource box of your articles. The more articles you write and submit to article directories the more links you build. Top rankings are achieved by building a large amount of links pointing to your web site.

4. Well written content attracts visitors

If you create original content that captivates your visitors’ attention, they’ll want to come back and visit your web site. Don’t get into the habit of scraping content from elsewhere. It will repel your visitors.

Steps to start an online business with articles

1. Choose a topic you’re passionate about

Spend time thinking and researching a topic you can invest in for the long term. It needs be something you either know or want to know alot about by doing the necessary research. This is a necessity if you want to write lots of compelling content.

2. Do keyword research

How do you know if the topic you chose is marketable?

Use the keyword research tools Wordtracker, Google keyword selector tool and SearchIt to see if people are actually searching for your main keywords. Click here to read the review of SearchIt.

For example if you enter “worm farming” in the search box and no search numbers appear for that phrase, select another topic.

3. Check out your competition

If there are too many competitors in your field it will be very difficult to create a profitable online business because your competitors probably get millions of visitors to their web site and have 1000s of backlinks. You’ll spend too much time competing with them. It’s better to choose a less competitive niche or topic.

To find out how many backlinks competing web sites have enter the top 10 web sites from Google in your niche then enter each web site address separately in the search box of Yahoo Site Explorer
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ It will show the number of backlinks that site has. If it has 4000 backlinks you will need over 4000 backlinks to effectively compete with it.

Part 2 will discuss Market Research

For more information on how to write articles and start an online business with them please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

You don’t need a product to make money online. If you already have an established service-based business you can improve your presence by marketing your services online. Many folks prefer to search for a service online rather than search through the yellow pages.

Benefits

Easy to find

If you are the only business in your local area or there are only a few, you have a good chance of getting top rankings in the search engines. This means local people will find you instantly when they enter the appropriate keywords in the search engines. For example if you enter “web site design Bowie Maryland” my business web site ranks No 1 (after Google Map results).

Expand your audience

Instead of relying on print advertising (which can get expensive) increase your exposure (inexpensively) by creating an online presence with a custom built web site. A beautifully designed web site allows you to include unlimited information about your business.

Use multimedia to enhance web site interactivity

You can build relationships with your customers by interacting with your web site visitors online. Talk to a professional web designer about your options for creating an interactive web site.

Here are some things you can do to improve interactivity:

Add content regularly – add articles, latest news, specials, coupons. Content can easily be added by incorporating a blog on your web site.

Describe your services using multimedia – add photos, videos and audio to your textual content to enhance your visitors experience. You don’t want your visitors to just read text but also appeal to their visual and auditory senses.

Get testimonials from satisfied customers – this helps build trust and credibility with your future customers.

Create a contact form – visitors have many questions. Add a contact form and include your email address and phone number as well ( for the shy visitors).

Here are a few examples of the types of service-business services you can offer online:

General contracting, remodeling
Coaching
Consulting
Computer services
Web Design and development
Repair services

If you need a custom built web site for your online business services visit:
Web Site Design Services Maryland

Recently I was asked to design a web site for a non-profit organization. Since it would mostly contain articles it would need to be built with one of the web content management systems.

Factors to consider when looking for Content Management System Software

1. Structure of the web site

Simple Structure

For a simple CMS web site that only needs a home page and article pages use WordPress. Even though it’s used primarily for a blog you can set the home page as a static page. The static page is basically a html page that can be beautifully designed so it will captivate first time visitors. WordPress enables you to create as many categories as you wish. Each category can have 100s of articles. You can also build stand-alone pages.

Another option is to use Web Baker. It’s easy to take a web site template you’ve already designed in html and convert it to a CMS site. You simply insert the php tags into your html template. You can manage the site from the administration panel where you add as many pages as you like.

For more details please read: http://help.websitebaker.org/pages/en/advanced-docu.php

Complex Structure

Joomla

For a more complex CMS web site that needs a separate design for multiple pages consider using Joomla or WPRemix software. If you’ve never used Joomla there is a fairly steep learning curve because it has so many features and options. It takes a while to figure out how all the elements work together.

Pros of WPRemix

Another option is to use WPRemix which uses the WordPress software to build different static pages plus you can add a blog that integrates nicely with the theme. It contains 50 static templates that can be easily customized as needed. Each template can be edited from the visual editor within WordPress (a great help for clients who don’t know html).

Cons of WPRemix

The templates don’t always display correctly in the visual editor. How the template appears in the visual editor may not equal the appearance in your browser. To remedy this make sure you preview the template after editing then publish it. It helps if you know some html (you can switch to html view in the editor) so you can correct display errors.

Technical support is only offered through a forum. It’s often slow or non-existent so you’re mostly on your own however often times forum members jump into help.

Tip

Plan out the structure of your CMS web site before deciding what CMS software you’ll use. You’ll make a more informed decision which will save you many headaches down the the road.

For more information read The Top 12 Benefits of a Content Management System

3. Online ecommerce store

If you have one product or 1000s of products to sell consider offering them online. Many local merchants are expanding there brick and mortar business by creating an online store that carries the same products as their offline store. This increases their audience and sales because they aren’t limited by the geographical location of their physical store.

How to find a product or products to sell

Select a product that is in high demand but not sold in large box stores ie Walmart, BestBuy, Sports Authority. These large stores can afford to offer very low prices because they buy in bulk.

Example:
Sinkbiz.com
I created an online store for this customer who sells all types of sinks ranging from stainless steel to porcelain, and eco-taps. Customers purchase the sinks online which then get shipped via UPS.

How to set-up an online store

First you need to register a domain name then build your online store by creating a web site. To process orders online you’ll need a shopping cart, merchant account, payment gateway, SSL certificate and web hosting. An alternative to purchasing your own merchant account is to use PayPal. It enables you to process orders online without signing up for a merchant account.

Read my article: How to Build an Ecommerce Web Site Using the PayPal Shopping Cart

How to market your online store

It’s not enough to just place your store online. Make sure you submit your web site address to specialized directories and local directories. Find related web sites that are already well established on the Net and ask them to place your link on their web site. To do this you may need to offer something in return ie a well written article, money or a even free sample of your product.

Try different marketing strategies until you find one that continually generates traffic to your online store.

To receive information on ways to generate traffic visit
101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site

2. How to create and sell information products

You can sell someone else’s products (affiliate programs) or create your own information product. Creating your own product is better because you’re not just receiving a commission. Instead you receive the full price of the product.

Types of information products

The easiest info-products to create and sell are ebooks or short reports. A large ebook may take months to write however a short report of approximately 20 pages will only take a few days. If you sell the report for $7-$10 people would have less resistance purchasing it than if you were selling a large ebook for $97.00

Benefits of creating an ebook or report

Easy to create

You can write your ebook or report then save it as a PDF file in Open Office(openoffice.og) The PDF file can be downloaded by visitors after they make the payment from the sales page of your web site.

Low cost

Your only cost is a web site and a web host to get it online. Once this is set up you can sell your ebook/report 24 hours a day automatically hands-free.

Recruit affiliates

You can increase your ebook sales by offering affiliates a 50% commission for every ebook they sell.

Allow reprint rights

Charge a fee for people that have the complete reprint rights to your ebook. They place there own affiliate links in the ebook and sell it for the same price to others.

For more information on how to create and market your ebook please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.

One of the major problems of starting an online business is knowing where to start. There are many ways to make money online but you need to pick idea then go with it all the way till it makes money. Once it is profitable you can expand or duplicate it. For example when I started my web design business I focused exclusively on designing web sites. Later I added web hosting and search engine optimization services. I also created several ebooks to generate some passive income.

Please read my previous articles before selecting one of the online business ideas below.

Starting an online business – 7 questions to ask before you jump in

Starting an online business – How to have the correct mindset

7 Online Business Ideas

1. Affiliate Programs

I mentioned this one first because it is the easiest online business to start. You make money by selling someone elses products. You make a commission everytime you sell something. The parent company processes all the payments, tracks the sales then sends you a commission for each sale. Often they also provide banners, emails, even a web site to help you make sales. It’s in their best interest to make you a great affiliate because they make money when you make money.

Find companies that offer large commissions, and will track clients for multiple sales over a long period of time (ie lifetime) so you can get recurring commissions. Make sure they offer multiple tiers (at least 2) for sales. ie you still get paid if one of your affiliates makes a sale.

Oe of the best examples is the 5 Pillar Affiliate Program from Ken Envoy.

He offers a number of great products with high commissions with excellent sales materials and content to help you presell his products.

Read the free ebook: Affiliate Masters Course to become a high-earning affiliate champion.

Recently I found Antivirus 2009 (a fake anti-malware application) on my laptop computer. Thinking it was a program one of my kids downloaded I went to control panel – add/remove programs but it was not there. This made me suspicious so I Googled “Antivirus 2009″ and discovered it was a new rogue anti-spyware program.

Once this malware enters your system, it floods your computer with popups and fake system notifications, supposedly to inform you of an infection. While your system may indeed be infected, Antivirus 2009 will inform the user of this regardless of whether it’s true or not. The point of this disinformation is to convince you that your computer is infected and need to purchase an antispyware program to dispose of the threat.

How to remove Antivirus 2009

Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware can detect and remove this rogue application for free.

Download the Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware to your desktop.

* Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
* At the end, be sure to check the following:

o Update Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
o Launch Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware

* Then click Finish.
* If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
* Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad. The rogue application should now be gone.

Tips

Don’t install an antivirus program before removing this fake anti-malware application.

I initially installed the McAfee antivirus program because it comes free with my Comcast High Speed Internet service. I then scanned my computer but it did not detect or remove Antivirus 2009. You need to first remove it before installing your new Antivirus software.

If you are not sure about downloading an application Google it first. You’ll quickly read if it’s fake or not.

Last year I created an ebook titled “Article Marketing Strategies” and only used article marketing to promote my one page web site. The result: Listed on the first page of Google, MSN, AOL, HotBot, Netscape and second page of Yahoo. Sales from this ebook generate passive income each month automatically.

With many people losing their jobs and/or stuggling to pay their bills they will be starting an online business. Article marketing will become more prominent in 2009 as a way to generate free traffic to web sites.

Here’s an article from the No 1 article directory on the Net..EzineArticles.com

2009 Article Marketing Predictions

Want to stay on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the Article Writing & Marketing field?

Here are (10) trends that will have an impact in 2009 from our perspective:

1. Article Marketing Niche Expansion: Recessionary economy combined with the growing fear of starting a PPC (Pay Per Click) ad campaign due to perception of complexities to get started will lead more experts in every niche to produce more articles than ever before in an effort to drive more qualified traffic and leads back to their website. Yes, of course I’m biased here.

2. Attention Given To Time Efficiencies: Expert authors feeling both the pressure to produce a high volume of articles to achieve traffic & media exposure success combined with a lack of time or a lack of desire to give it the time will turn to two primary time-saving strategies:

* Audio to Articles – Either producing new audio clips and having them transcribed or taking existing audio training products, having them transcribed and edited into dozens of articles per hour of audio recording.
* Hiring of virtual assistants and/or part & full-time employees who will help edit new articles & repackage existing content into new articles freeing the expert to spend more of his or her time on producing more unique & original content.

3. Article Rejection Rates Go Up: Article rejection rates will go up another 3-5% (approaching 32-37% rejection of everything submitted) due to many issues largely having to do with a lack of original thought put into the article writing process, lack of interest in following the Editorial Guidelines and combined with our improved ability to deflect derivative article submissions (those that are rewritten to death).

4. Article Review Speed Improves: Article review speeds will increase by 3-6 hours faster for every membership level. We’re selfishly motivated on this one as we know there is a correlation between article submission quantity and speed of article review. Expect us to test this further in 2009.

5. Dead Links In Old Articles Become Unlinked: People come and they go; websites come and they go… yet often we’re left with tens of thousands of articles that are very good in content yet the link is dead because the website owner walked away or shut down their site. We’re going to solve this problem this year as we’ve already spent a large part of 2008 in setting up an elaborate dead link discovery process… that will ultimately end up first encouraging members to fix their dead links, giving fair notice and time to complete such, ending in their articles with dead links getting the active link removed along with a text notice of the link. Articles with dead links are a liability (because they provide a poor user experience) we will not allow to continue in 2009.

6. Freelance Writers Who Niche-Specialize Will Be Richly Rewarded: Members who hired and were burned by cheap generalist ghostwriters will seek freelance writers who are specialized in knowledge around their niche instead of hiring a ‘jack or jill of all trades’ article writer. Articles will cost more, but the quality of reputation & trust factor will make up for it.

7. Members (Who Hire Freelancers) Take On Trainer Roles: Members who hire ghostwriters will seek writers who will dedicate a large chunk of their time to them (instead of serving hundreds of clients) and thus will create more of a partnership where our members will want to train the freelancer just the same as they would a full or part-time employee. This leads to higher quality articles & consistency.

8. In-House Writing Teams Become Common. The top .05% to 1% of members will hire part-time and/or full-time article writers to work in-house as employees to help them to repackage their existing content and produce an enormous amount of fresh new original & unique content that is quality-controlled in-house. Many will invest tens of thousands of labor dollars this year in this strategy and will find that the qualified traffic that results from it gives them a significant profit (and competitive market advantage) over other means of traffic acquisition.

9. Article Submission Service Provider Eco-System Expands: More than any other year, an industry will emerge stronger to support experts in all walks of life who want to leverage the power of Article Marketing, but don’t have the expertise in packaging or repackaging their content, doing the manual submissions on a frequent basis & performance reporting.

10. No End In Sight To The End of the Long Tail of Content Demand: Most of your competitors still have no idea what the LONG-TAIL is. Expect to see more experts exploit the long-tail specifically centered around their niche topic of expertise. It seems the closer one gets to answering the long-tail of demand for their niche, the more they discover there is no end to the tail of market demand for their unique expertise.

***************************
Attract 1000s of NEW visitors to your website with

“Highly Effective Article Marketing Strategies”

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of Affordable Web Site Design