Text Format And SEO

By Mike Francis

Text format and SEO, one of the most discussed topics, among SEO experts as they are invariably connected with each other. In SEO, text format acts as an important factor for consideration as it can influence the spiders that come to the webpage. Text formatting is the method of arranging or presenting, the contents in the webpage. As search engine parameters accounts, even the slightest factor, the text formatting becomes an important web layout factor that decides the quality of the webpage. And, as SEO is the compiled form of the eligibility factors to get attention of the webpage, essentially text formatting is also one among the SEO factors.

SEO, search engine optimization, is the process of building up of a webpage according to the preferences of the search engine algorithms. And, search engine optimization of a webpage can be compared to a grooming session. Obviously every one wants to dress in the best, but as a rule, beauty is in the beholder's eye. It is taken for granted in search engine optimization, also. To meet the requirements of the web page listing, the text formatting has to essentially follow the specified preferences of the search engine algorithms. As the primary necessity of a webpage is to get the top position of the search engine result pages, text format has to be undertaken as per the search engine optimization guidelines.

In text format and SEO, innovative formatting specialties as well as introduction of highlighting to the text is well appreciated. As internet communication is based on the HTML language, the specific tags are to be used to communicate the effects in the pages with the search engine browsers. The highlighting of the headlines is considered as a text formatting essentiality in SEO, and it is done using the (H) HTML tags. The effective tags such as (h1) and (h2) tags can be either used for the purpose of highlighting. But, (H) HTML tag is less used now, as the highlighted text page appearance can be redefined using CSS. However, the tag highlighting in the text formatting is relevant for SEO.

Text format and SEO, also gives importance for the highlighting of the page. The keywords in text are expected to be highlighted in bold fonts. However, it does not mean that the whole text can be highlighted. The keyword text can be highlighted twice or thrice in the text. And, as the rule, instead of the traditional (B) bold tag, (strong) tag has to be used for highlighting. Also, include the keywords in the headings, title, and links as they will give the webpage a cutting edge in the page rank of the search engine result pages.

Text format is thus an essential part of search engine optimization. And, the text format and SEO seems to be requirement of the web pages to get the best result in the search engine listing.

About The Author:

Mike Francis' page : http://www.pegasusdirectory.com is a free web directory, that helps webmasters increace their traffic and get known on the internet. For more quality directories try http://www.topdirectorys.com

Sphere - About The New Blog Search Engine

By Danny Wirken

Searchers would never say no to something that would make their work a lot easier. With the coming of Sphere - the latest blog search engine, it promises to help users discover high-quality, relevant and timely blog posts with the use of its advanced search algorithm. It aims to deliver results far better than other existing blog search services.

The People behind Sphere

Sphere was founded by Tony Conrad, Martin Remy, Steve Nieker and Toni Schneider to assist readers in their discovery of relevant blog content as well as encourage more people to read blogs or be bloggers themselves. Investors who helped Sphere get started include Doug Mackenzie, David Mahoney, Kevin Compton, Mike Winston, Phil Black, Vince Vanelli and Will Hearst. Its partners and capitalists, on the other hand include Darcy Bentley of Hearst Publishing and Venetia Kontogouris of Trident Capital.

This blog search engine had a very successful first private beta release in late 2005. Its success can be attributed to Martin Remy and Steve Nieker who have worked on blog and content matching technology for a long time. It also has for its advisors the likes of Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automatic/WordPress and a blog content tool leader; Mary Hodder, founder/CEO of Dabble and a blog user experience expert; and Scott Kurnit, founder and former CEO of http://www.About.com who was instrumental in creating a work community there.

The feedback gained from the well received private beta was used to add some advanced and intuitive features. Sphere is based in San Francisco but members of the team work virtually from other places like Seattle, Denver, Vancouver, New York, Phoenix and the Bay Area. It highly recommends its own Sphere Blog for information regarding ongoing updates.

Tony Conrad was a general partner at VSP prior to founding Sphere. This was where he led consumer-tech and marketing software and services investments. He has also served as a director for Oddpost, Iconoculture, MusicNow and Centive. He has likewise been very active in managing investments in Post Communications and Stonyfield Farms. At present, he serves on the Board of Directors for Automatic/WordPress.

Martin Remy and Steve Nieker have worked together for a long time and are both considered technologists extraordinaire. They were together when they founded Think Tank 23 during the so called dot-com boom. It was able to survive largely because they were able to build a lot of great technology and sold a few software projects to big publishing companies in spite of being funded by venture capitalists. They have extensive roots in information retrieval that goes back to the end of the last century. Their NAV 4 which is a document-analysis genome that drove precise information retrieval across broad networks without onerous manual overhead is baked into Sphere. This has provided many benefits including the base technology driving the related news stories links.

Toni Schneider worked at Yahoo! and at Oddpost which was subsequently acquired by Yahoo He created the Yahoo! Developer Network. He comes from Switzerland and only came to California to study Computer Science for a year. At present, he is happily based in San Francisco while serving as the CEO of Automatic and a venture partner at True Ventures. He remains an adviser to Sphere.

The Relevant Blog Search

Sphere is being touted as a search engine that has made blog search much better. Its interface is designed by Adaptive Path and comes out quite clean and understandable. One of its more notable features is the profile link that produces a small DHTML overlay with some vital stats for each blog such as average posting frequency, posts per week and blogs recently linked to among others. Its technology is believed to be more resistant to spam blogs than other search engines. It doesn't actually filter out such spam blogs but is able to rank them so low that readers rarely encounter them.

The right combination of factors that produces a more robust ranking technology of blogs and posts is the reason why Sphere seems to work better than other blog search. It pays attention to the ecology of relationships between blogs and credits a higher weighted value to links that have more authority. This will ensure that the work of an author who goes off-topic and engages in rant will rank considerably lower compared to that written by a reputable blogger who regularly writes about the topic.

The metadata about a blog is also considered by Sphere. It would look into the frequency of postings, the length of the posts and the average links a post gets. Sphere will not rank blogs well if they are not part of a larger ecosystem of linking.

The system has made it possible to have spams fall at the bottom of the ranking. It also gives ways to filter results either by date, relevance or by language. A new version of the services has some neat interface hacks along the lines of a time axis.

Blogs are definitely big, with millions of existing blogs multiplying by the second, relevant information can be very hard to find. Sphere helps readers to find relevant and intelligent blog posts on a specific topic based on authority. It should be noted that the authority being mentioned here is not an arbitrary decision of a human community but rather a collective effort.

Searching the Sphere is very easy. The user needs to enter some keywords and the system shows related posts, blogs, profiles, related news, photos, books and podcasts. It sorts the results by relevance or time and refines the date range with dropdowns right on the results page. It also supports quotes for phrase searching, Boolean operators and minus for exclusions.

The entry of multiple words or phrases in a query finds posts that match all these words and phrases. A query comprised of two words will find posts that contain both words. Posts that contain the words together usually turn up first while posts that contain the words separately and in different places will show up much later. If the search is to be limited to an exact phrase, only results that mention the words together are obtained. For finding posts that match either of the words, the OR operator can be used.

Excluding posts can be done by putting a minus before a term or phrase. Parenthesis is used to group terms and expressions together. A search can also be confined to the blog's domain.

Sphere has taken a new approach to blog search as it uses variables to understand both individual blog posts and the nature of the blog they appear on. It attempts to understand
link structures. In the process of analyzing these structures, it attempts to understand who is starting or linking discussions instead of bloggers who simply comment on conversations.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Five Tips For WAHM's To Remain Professional When Working From Home

By Top Wahm

Work At Home Mums: The better you look, the better you will feel, the better you will sell!

Today's entrepreneur competition is tightening daily. Looking professional when working from home is now a must. It will help curb the "Get a real job." comments. Also, when communicating with your customers via e-mail or telephone, you will unsurprisingly come across more professional and this can affect your profits in a positive way. We have collected five tips to help you to keep up a professional appearance, even when no one is looking.

Tip #1: The Early Bird Gets the Worm!

This old stand-by is truer than ever. Getting up before you children, your husband and before any professional obligations need to be tended to, gives you a professional start. Wake up, wash your face, style your hair and dress professional casual. You may not have a need for strict professional dress. So, just dress as you would if you were to meet your customers in person.
This will positively affect your performance, your drive and your vocal tone when communicating with your customers.

Tip #2: Clear the Junk!

It may sound easier said than done, but it could be the difference in your total sales for the year. Clear your workspace. You can take old shoeboxes (Ask your local shoes store for left over boxes) and create mini file cabinets for all of your knick-knacks that pile up over time. Be sure to label them! Magazine holders are great ways to store file folders that you need to keep at close range, such as those for current or open projects. Also, use a pleasant smelling cleaner or air freshener.

Tip #3: Create a Professional Assistant!

Cutie greetings on your answering machine will not do. Record a professional and direct message. For inspiration, call a large company and listen to theirs. Also, there are several answering services that cater to WAHM's and small businesses. That way, when you need to focus on your family, you can still have a professional appearance and never miss a call. And finally, get rid of the free service e-mail addresses. Nothing says busniess like a serious e-mail address. BoblovesbettyATyoohoo.com does not inspire confidence in those who are looking to work with you.

Tip #4: Print Professional Business Cards!

Home printed business cards are so very 1995. Printing and computer design may not have anything to do with your business, but the appearance of professionalism does. You can get one thousand business cards professionally printed for around $20. Search around and see what suits your business. Keep in mind that just like your answering machine greeting and your email account name, keep the cutie stuff out.

Tip #5: Set your Own Hours!

Finally! The one thing they always promised you when you we told about working from home!Let's rein it in. You have to set your business hours. Have an open time, a time for lunch and a time to turn off the computer. The tighter your hours of business, the better you can manage the family side of your life. Obviously there is wiggle room for overtime, just try to keep your work hours from pilfering your family time!

Remember, although you may never meet with your customers in person, how you prepare yourself will significantly affect the attitude your customers will notice. They will trust you more with their money, and you will win the battle for business over your competition, even if the competition charges less. So go set your alarm for tomorrow morning, right now!

About The Author:

Top Wahm recommends that you find out more about succeeding as a work at home mom by visiting http://www.topwahms.com/

Internet Marketing Advertising Options

By Sg-Web

As a webmaster of several quality sites, I often have to decide how I want to promote them, especially when they are new. There are several common options available to webmasters, but first, let's try to understand more about why webmasters need to advertise the sites.

Many new webmasters make the mistake of building new sites and leaving it alone for the search engines to come and crawl it. Assuming that the search engines somehow managed to find these new sites and index them, chances are they will never be able to rank well. And that usually means no traffic, and a website is nothing without traffic.

In order to get some traffic, webmasters must advertise their sites. There are a few options that I would like to discuss in this article.

First, webmasters can buy banners. These are usually prominently displayed across the top fold of the websites. If the site is a popular site, it'll generate awareness over time and also some traffic. The problem I have with this option is that awareness is hard to measure and it may be hard to justify paying for a banner month after month without being able to justify the return on investment.

Another method of advertising that brings more predictable results is Pay Per Click (PPC)advertising. PPC has been around for years and is already a very much accepted advertising model. This can take some time to find out what works and what doesn't but when done right, conversions can be great. However, this method can also burn up cash pretty quickly.

The third option is to buy text links. Text links can be bought either through a monthly subscription or a one-time payment. Many webmasters buy text links for search engine optimization purposes. Usually, the higher the page rank, the more costly it will be. There are warnings flying around recently that some websites use a sneaky 301 redirect to fake a page rank. Therefore, do not rely solely on the toolbar for the page rank. I've found this tool to be most useful (http://database-search.com/sys/pre-check-en.php). Also, when paying monthly for links, try to select sites that have a good chance of bringing in some traffic.

My personal favourite is to buy permanent text links or links that require a one-time fee. Many web directories accept free submissions. The more popular ones will charge a one-time fee but this fee is usually an affordable one.

My recommendation is to have a mix of PPC advertising and text links advertising. PPC advertising can bring in some initial traffic when the site has not been indexed by the search engines. This will help bring in some profits. Eventually, when the search engines start sending organic traffic, cut down on PPC advertising but do not stop completely. That's because PPC still offers the best form of predictable earnings, which makes planning easier. So start promoting those sites now, before your competitors beat you to it.

About The Author:

Darren Chow owns a network of quality sites. He also owns a couple of unique web directories. http://www.awardtrophy.netand http://www.suggestlinks.org

Rewriting Articles For Increased Distribution Reach

By Trey Pennewell

Hey! I just figured out how to both promote my website and cut down on my workload. I know what I will do: instead of writing five articles a week to distribute, I will take a single article and change it slightly to produce five different "versions." What a great idea! I will change the title also, so that there are five different titles. Then, I will change the introductory paragraph a bit and alter my word choice a bit. Whew! That is going to be much easier than writing five separate and unique articles each week.

Now, if only it were that simple.

What is wrong with the idea of writing an article and revising it so that you can get five back links instead of one? Isn't this what has made the business of Private Label Reprints (PLRs) so popular? In theory, doing something like this could save a lot of time and generate a great deal of content. Then, you could send various editions of your article to different publishing websites. But...

Many Distributors Will Prevent Duplication

One of the problems with rewriting the same article is that many distributors have mechanisms in place to prevent the publication of both pieces. Article distributors do not do this to harm your business; in fact, these limits are in place to protect your career. If you take the time to write an informative and helpful article to generate traffic back to your site, you probably do not want someone plagiarizing your work. This is why article distribution services work to prevent people, even you, from publishing an article very similar to what you've written.

Instead of being frustrated with the distributors, we should in fact thank them for protecting our work. Some article distributors run a code that will test five strings of data against previously submitted articles; some only use one code to match against, but they all aim to prevent duplication of content.

If you don't use an article distributor-if you submit the piece on your own-then you don't need to worry about duplicate content, right? Wrong. Imagine being a Webmaster who runs a site that accepts article submissions. What are you going to think when you get five articles that are obviously the same, with only simple changes made? Do you think that, as a Webmaster, you would publish these articles or delete the authors from your list for safety purposes?

Webmasters and E-Zine publishers are looking for new and unique content that will provide their readers with useful information. When you revise an article and send it to them, you are not giving them the freshness they look for. In fact, you are likely to irritate your editors.

Credibility

Another reason not to submit a revised article is because it takes away from your credibility as a writer or expert. Let's say that a customer comes across one of your articles and loves it. This reader thinks, "Wow, the author knows what he is talking about, I will look for more of his work." The reader searches for you on the Internet and reads a few more of your articles, only to realize that it is the same information, altered only slightly. Do you think this reader will convert to a sale on your website?

More than likely, this reader will become frustrated because he or she was hoping to learn more about you and your services or product. Instead, they will see that your writings do not offer unique information. Imagine buying a book from a respected author. Imagine that, when the author puts out a new book, you buy it, only to realize that they've rehashed the same information for republication. Would you buy a third book from this author? Would the writer seem a credible, knowledgeable or trustworthy authority?

Revising the same article over and over again will likely end up hurting your business. There is nothing more embarrassing for an author than to be ousted (and rightly so) from a forum for plagiarizing, even if you are plagiarizing your own work.

Quality Over Quantity

There are many reasons why it is a bad idea to submit multiple, slightly altered versions of the same article for publication. If you struggle with writing five articles each week, then only commit to writing one or two and composing them to the best of your ability. It is far better to go for quality than quantity in the article reprint business. A customer will appreciate finding a few articles from you that offer new and fresh information rather than finding dozens written by you that effectively state the same thing.

If you want to achieve both quality and quantity, you may consider hiring a ghostwriter. This will keep you from facing the loss of respect and credibility that often results from rewriting a single article.

Writing Articles That Get Read, Remembered And Recommended

By Mark Silver

You already know that writing articles will help your business. You know they establish you as an expert, as someone with authority. And they also create a depth of connection and trust with your customers.

But, maybe you still have a question.

How do you write a great article for your business? (Meaning an article that someone actually reads, remembers, and recommends.)

Well, now, that's a mighty big subject. Obviously, there are many ways to do it, so I'll just give you one simple way, so you have something to jump in with. It involves three things: a Keyhole, a Drama, and a Stepladder.

First, the Keyhole

When you look through a keyhole, you only get to see a small piece of what's going on inside. And you see what is directly in front of the door- what you can't help but trip over when you do open it.

The problem you face is that you know a whole heck of a lot about your business- you know the whole room, not just what's visible through a keyhole. It's probably painful to not give someone as much as you know.

But, think back- how long did it take you to learn all that you did? That's right- months or years. So why try to compress your six months, six years, six decades of experience and knowledge into a five-minute slot?

For your best potential clients, they are tripping over things that you can help them with things that are directly in front of their doorways. Pick one of your customers, and look through his keyhole. What's one thing you see directly in front of the door? Write about that.

For instance, I saw several people in my classes struggling with article-writing. It was the next step for them to take. So I wrote this article- but only as much as I needed to fill a keyhole- just a little bit.

A great article is a refreshing gulp of water- not a firehouse blasting them over.

Second, engage your reader's physical senses with drama.

A drama is simply an engaging story. For an article, obviously you don't want a complicated plot. Something as simple as 'what do you see when you look through a keyhole?' can be a drama. :)

Use this law of Nature: everything exists in everything else. Meaning use the drama as an analogy to bring an in-body, immediate understanding, and make your point with interest.

For example, I recently used tailgating when driving a car as a metaphor for the struggle to be unique in your business. How do you be uniquely you when you've been learning from/following the masters in your field? The drama of tailgating, and examples of when to tailgate and when not to, took an intellectual concept about uniqueness, and made it engagingly, physically real.

A great article engages your reader's physical senses, because 'sitting in a chair' is more real than 'thinking about support.'

And third, help your reader climb the Stepladder.

In some ways, the Stepladder is the most important part. So, I'm going to direct you to read about it in:

Keys to Helping Your Reader Climb Up Beside You

* It may look obvious... but it's out of reach.

Your readers may 'get' the point you are trying to make, but if they don't have a way to apply it in their life, it won't really sink in, and they won't get any results.

The do-ability of your article is critical, because someone may read something and say, "Yah, that's interesting." But it's when they apply what you are talking about that they get something more profound. And that creates trust and connection with you.

And a desire to get more of what you are offering.

Whatever concept you are writing about, break it down into a step-by-step process. Or identify two or three keys, with examples, of how Johnny Reader can make it work for him.

* I say again: Make it Doable

I know you are afraid that if you give away your secrets, that they won't need you anymore. Please hear me with your heart: it's not true! The more you help people, the more they will want. Why?

It's taken you months or years to learn the basics of what you do, and years or decades to master it. Take a moment now and ask your heart to show you how profound and broad what you know is compared to your customers. You didn't learn your mastery from a single article, or even 100 articles.

And your customers won't either. But they will be grateful to know more about the Keyhole. And when they need to see the rest of the room? They'll be coming to you.

* There are more ways to core an apple.

There are, of course, other ways to write articles. But this is a darn good one, and easy enough. I challenge you: write an article by choosing a Keyhole view of a subject, finding a Dramatic analogy for it, and then unfolding the Stepladder for your reader.

Then, feel free to share it with your customers.

My very best to you and your business,

Mark Silver

Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online: http://www.heartofbusiness.com

Google's PR 0 And Link Exchange Difficulties

By Tracy Weber

With your brand new, professional looking website up and ready
for the masses, using link exchanges can be a powerful way to
drive high quality traffic to your website and provide useful
content for your readers. Unfortunately, having a newly built
website creates a number of hurdles you must cross before
reciprocal linking becomes an easier process. Learn to spot
these roadblocks up front and you will break through the PR 0
barriers.

Why do I have a PR of 0?

Google Page Rank (PR) is given to websites approximately once
every quarter to determine their level of importance on a scale
of 1-10. Many factors determine PR, most of which Google keeps
very secret. It is during this time when Google has yet to rank
your website that you will show a PR of 0 in the Foxfire Google
toolbar.

Why Does a PR of 0 Matter?

One aspect of backlinking to websites that greatly affects your
PR is the quality of the pages you are linked to. For instance:
linking your car parts website to ten dog grooming websites
will not give your PR much of a boost due to lack of relevance,
but if you link to several websites that are also automobile
related, it will send your PR in the right direction.

Many webmasters look at the requesting website's PR before they
will complete a link exchange fearing that a low PR will bring
their website page rank down. Though this is not really the
case, it is a hurdle you must cross.

What to do about it?

Unfortunately, the PR of 0 will not change until Google updates
their page ranks, but you can push through the next few months
by doing the following:

1. Run the numbers. There are several tools available to help
lessen the burden of manually searching for link partners. I
suggest using one of these to help find a large pool to start
from. Set a goal to send a determined number of link requests
each day. I generally look for 50 matches, sort quickly by web
title for relevance and apply to the link exchange forms that
match my content. Even if you only get one response a day, you
are still building quality reciprocal links.

Note: If you see they have a PR restriction, honor it and put
them in a category for the future.

2. Build relationships. If you know a Webmaster with a site
relevant to yours, send a personal note requesting a link
exchange. Many website owners are willing to help out if they
know the quality of the site.

3. Build one-way links by sending out articles, posting in
newsgroups or by building a profile on high traffic sites such
as MySpace. Commenting in newsgroups or on high traffic sites
and adding a comment about your website in your signature file
(making sure the link is active) gives you backlinks to your
website from those pages.

Having an initial PR of 0 is a reality all new webmasters must
face, but if you forge ahead, building a high quality link
exchange network, you will be pleasantly surprised when Google
makes it's page rank updates. Don't be discouraged and don't
give up. Soon you will be in a position to easily gain
reciprocal links to other websites with content your readers
will value. This will give you both a steady stream of targeted
traffic from your partner sites, and a high quality, content
rich website as well.

About The Author: Tracy Weber the successful owner of the
eProZone Internet Article Directory http://eprozone.com , has
written unbiased reviews of link exchange tools to make the
process run more smoothly.
http://www.eprozone.com/Article/Link-Exchange-Product-Reviews-/20

Google Webmaster Tool For SEO Experts

By Editor Sg-Web

I just finished watching a video that shared some updates on
what's happening at the major search engines lately. Since
webmasters are always interested in learning more about search
engine optimization (SEO) techniques, I thought it would be
good to share a neat trick using Google's webmaster tools.

The first time I heard about Google webmaster tools, it was
known as Google sitemaps. That was very little that we can do
with it, except upload a sitemap so that a new site can be
included in Google's index quicker. After toying with it for a
couple of days, I find it a hassle to generate those sitemaps.
If a website is destined to grow, that would mean taking up
more time submitting those sitemaps. Strapped for time as it
is, I figured it would be better to just concentrate on
building more content for my websites.

It's still hard for me to refer to Google's new toys with a new
name but I guess it's a much more suitable name, now that so
many new tools have been added. To begin using the tool, login
to the control panel using a valid Google username. If you do
not possess one, just sign up at the site
google.com/webmasters. After logging in, enter the URL that you
would like to obtain more information about. You'll be required
to verify that you own the site. To do so, you can either add a
META tag or upload a HTML file. Verification is instant and
you'll see your verification status as Verified if it's
successful.

Upon verification, all kinds of interesting tidbits about your
site will be available. The one that interests me most is the
page analysis (Statistics > Page Analysis). This allows any
webmaster to view information about external links. In other
words, Google learns about a website's general theme from
external text links. You'll be able to see all the keywords
that other people have used in the text links that link to your
site.

Many webmasters have already discovered the "secret" that
anchor texts should be used in text links. Anchor texts look
something like Anchor texts. There are many ways to obtain
keyword targetted external links. One popular way is to submit
to web directories.

In many instances, web directories allow webmasters to submit
their sites for free. Some web directories become more
established and may charge a small fee for a site submission.
However, fees are usually one-time payment and are better deals
compared to text links that require monthly subscription.

So, take a look around the webmaster community and spot SEO
friendly web directories and start submitting some links. Your
competitor may be doing exactly the same thing and I don't know
about you but I hate to lose. See you at the number 1 spot!

About The Author: Darren Chow owns a network of quality sites.
He also owns a couple of unique web directories.
http://www.awardtrophy.net and http://www.suggestlinks.org

6 Critical Elements In Creating Successful Web-Marketing Campaigns

By Jerry Bader

With the growing realization that the marketplace is not what it used to be, more and more companies are turning to the Web as the marketing environment capable of reaching a dispersed diaspora of 'Long Tail' (Chris Anderson, "The Long Tail", Wired Magazine) interested prospects with a relevant memorable marketing message.

Realizing that you now have an economically viable multimedia platform that evens the marketing playing field, you must carefully consider how to proceed. If you merely transfer your traditional print advertising and direct marketing mailings to the Internet, you will be left behind.

Any business can put together a successful Web-based marketing plan if they take the time to define the six critical elements of a Web-marketing campaign:

1. Marketing Purpose
2. Marketing Objectives
3. Presentation Vehicle
4. Information Format
5. Marketing Venue
6. Achievable Expectations

1. Marketing Purpose

Marketing is all about building a brand personality that relates to an interested audience of either business-to-consumer or business-to-business prospects. Prospects search-out brands that help them construct and maintain their own self-image or at least an image that they aspire to, an image that they are comfortable communicating to others. The purchase, for example, of a Macintosh computer says as much about who bought it, as it does about that person's computing requirements.

"Thus, while the psychological/emotional need is to construct, reconstruct, and maintain the self-identity, the socio-cultural need is to communicate to others the self-identity." -Ouwersloot & Tudorica, 'Brand Personality Propositions'.

Accepting the need to build a brand personality that legitimate prospects can relate to might very well mean rethinking exactly who you are as a company and exactly what you are offering on both a psychological, emotional and socio-cultural level.

Most companies have a well-defined list of functional benefits that they provide clients; but what you have to ask yourself is, what psychological, emotional, and socio-cultural benefits do you offer and are they represented by your corporate image or brand personality? And if you think this only applies to consumer product companies, you are mistaken. Every company from industrial widget suppliers to packaged goods manufacturers needs to define their personality in terms of the emotive benefits they provide.

2. Marketing Objectives
One of the most difficult things for small companies to accept is that sales are the result of establishing an appropriate marketing framework. Once you recognize that the real purpose of marketing is to create a relationship with your audience based on an emotional connection in the form of a brand personality, you are ready for the next step: defining your marketing objectives.

Successful marketing campaigns rely on strategies and tactics that grow out of defining eight important marketing objectives.

Awareness: objective one is to make your market audience aware of your existence, but name recognition alone won't bring in the orders.

Attention: objective two is to draw attention to your company, product, or service. Your market audience may be aware of your existence but not understand or care what you do or why they should be interested. You have to do something to attract their attention before they'll listen to what you have to say.

Comprehension: objective three is to explain to your market audience what it is you are offering them. Telling people you sell the best widget and provide the best service is meaningless - your audience must understand how their personal or professional lives are going to be improved functionally, emotionally, and socially. Most automobiles will get you were you want to go (functional benefit), but a Mercedes gets you there in style (emotional benefit) and displays to the world that you are a success (social benefit). When was the last time you saw a real estate agent drive around in a jalopy? As focused on closing the sale as real estate agents are, they instinctively know they must project a confident, comfortable, successful professional image.

Knowledge: objective four is to provide your audience with the ammunition they need to make the purchase. Your prospects need to justify to themselves, their corporate superiors, or maybe their spouses, their purchasing decision. Prospects must be educated, informed, and enthused with the knowledge that your company, product, or service is the right choice.

Behavior/Experience: objective five is the creation of a corporate culture that matches your brand personality. If prospects are frustrated or annoyed by their experience in dealing with you, your website, or your email landing page, then all the feel-good advertising in the world is wasted. The customer experience of dealing with your company must match the image you project.

Involvement: objective six is to evangelize your customers so that they become involved in promoting your product, service, or company to their friends and colleagues. People want to show-off their intelligence, good taste, and business acumen. If your product fulfills your customers' emotional and psychological needs, they will become your best sales people.

Ability: objective seven is to education your customers so that they can maximize the benefits from their purchase. Show customers how to increase their ability to achieve, perform, or excel by using your product or service. It is absolutely amazing how many 'how to' books are sold by third parties to supplement the dreadful instructions and manuals provided by manufacturers. Think about the message you are sending customers when they have to buy a book with the word "Dummies" in the title, just to make your product work.

Opportunity: objective eight is to give customers the opportunity to purchase you product or service either directly or through an appropriate channel of distribution. Spending money on advertising and promotion for things people can't get is not much value. If prospects can't satisfy their needs when they want to, you'll have missed your chance.

3. Presentation Vehicle
Old habits and ideas are hard to overcome. After all we are creatures of habit, more accurately we are creatures of pattern. We understand the world around us by absorbing familiar patterns of action and behavior. Patterns make it easier for us to deal with the complexities of modern life and the demands of everyday work. This is a good thing as long as these patterns serve our needs, but the world of marketing communication has changed.

There is a new marketing paradigm that needs to be accepted and new sets of behavior patterns that need to be acknowledged. There was a time when you used the phone book to lookup phone numbers and the local newspaper to find what movies were playing; but today, the first place people go is the Internet. Things have changed and businesses have to change with the times.

Sure every business has a website, that's a given, but most websites are nothing more than digital versions of company brochures or catalogues that have been pushed and pulled out of shape by SEO consultants selling the latest miracle marketing cure - more traffic. Never mind the appropriateness of the traffic, or the relevancy of the bloated SEO-massaged content, or the meaningfulness of the marketing message. Traffic by itself will not win the day or get you where you want to be - this is nothing more than the same old shotgun volume broadcast approach that we know doesn't work for most companies.

The real issue here is presenting relevant, meaningful, compelling, informative, memorable material on your websites and landing pages to an interested audience that actually cares what you have to say - just make sure you say something worthwhile.

So how do we do it? The answer is Web-based multimedia presentations. Now let's be clear what we are not talking about: we are not talking about adding meaningless background music or irritating banner animations to your site. What we are talking about is using audio and video to present information that establishes your expertise, creates your brand personality, and delivers your marketing message so it sticks in the minds of your audience.

4. Information Format
Your Web-marketing campaign should consist of a variety of information vehicles that each build on one another, creating the image and delivering the information that will ultimately lead to a relationship.

Your Web-marketing campaign should be aimed at achieving more than just a sale; it should be aimed at creating a satisfied customer who will promote your company through word-of-mouth.
To achieve this end you must deliver a variety of information to potential clients; information that attracts attention, narrows decisions, instructs usage, and promotes involvement.

Information as entertainment: when you want to establish a personality or image, your audio or video presentation should have some entertainment element. This entertainment element could be in the character of the presenter, the script or dialog being presented, or merely the style and panache of the voice-over announcer or on-screen actor.

Information as knowledge: there used to be a Buffalo-based clothing retailer that featured the slogan, 'an educated consumer is our best customer." They never had a sale, but all their clothes were discounted the same way on a sliding scale based on how long the merchandise was in inventory. All their advertisements explained their policy in clear, concise terms. They understood, that if customers know and trust their policy they would have confidence that they were buying from a legitimate retailer at a legitimate price.

Information as instruction: we live in a very complex world where products and services are increasingly complicated. If we want customers to take the leap of faith and buy our merchandise and hopefully upgrade to bigger, better, more expensive versions, then customers must understand how to use the product and also how to maximize the promised benefits from their purchase. Teaching people how to take better photographs with the camera you sell is a far better sales tactic that promoting an extra feature they will never use.

Information as involvement: we all know word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising. Getting your Web-audience involved in your campaigns through the use of contests, surveys, and interactive entertainments are only a few ways to get them involved. But the best way to get people involved in evangelizing your product is to provide an experience that echoes their psychological, emotional, and socio-cultural aspirations.

Information as promotion: let's face facts, the vast majority of website visitors are jaded and cynical and hypersensitive to unscrupulous online businesses. Most of your Web-audience puts you right next to politicians and used car salesman in the trust department. You are not going to overcome this lack of confidence with a website that smacks of high pressure or alternatively a website that bores people. Present your offer using real people delivering a well crafted message that reflects your company persona and inspires confidence rather than puts out danger signals.

5. Marketing Venue
The Web's multimedia capability has often been equated to an egalitarian form of television, where every company has a shot at attracting an audience without the high cost of buying airtime, but like television it is the programs people are attracted to, not the commercials. If your website is nothing more than a commercial your visitors will hyperlink themselves away from your site at warp speed.

If we equate the new multimedia Web to television, we must construct our websites as if they were programs, not brochures. An excellent example of this new style website is the Ford Motor Company's 'Bold Moves' site (http://www.FordBoldMoves.com).

Your email marketing and Adword campaigns are the equivalent of program teasers, attracting people to your main site, campaign micro-site, or landing page based on a content hook and promise.

6. Achievable Expectations
We are all concerned about ROI but you cannot expect instantaneous results. Websites are long-term investments that must be continually tweaked to conform to your long-range strategic objectives. You must have realistic achievable expectations: new leads, customer inquiries, information requests, newsletter sign-ups, and even complaints. You cannot determine the value of your site based on direct sales alone. If you are not achieving adequate results, then it's time you rethought your website strategy in terms of it's multimedia content and program potential.

About The Author:

Jerry Bader is Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in using audio & video to create memorable Web-experiences. Visit
http://www.mrpwebmedia.com, http://www.136words.com
http://mrpwebmedia.com.

What's Hot In Google Labs - Google Page Creator

By Aviva

One of the latest resources from Google is the Google Page Creator.

The Google Page Creator is, as you've probably guessed, a web page creator that is still being tested. The Page Creator allows anyone with a Gmail account to set up their own website. Currently, one site is allowed per account with up to 100 pages on that site. Templates are used in order to generate the overall look and feel of the site and as with all good web page creators, it includes a page manager and WYSIWYG editor.

Perhaps one interesting point is that in the FAQ section of the Google Page Creator, it states that Google can crawl the page within hours of being created. On the other hand, it also states that no preferential treatment is ever given to sites created by the Google Page Creator. Those who have struggled to get the all-important first Google indexed link or, worse still, for the manual submission service to take effect will know that this is a contradiction. Getting crawled and potentially indexed by Google within hours is definitely preferential treatment.

Hosting is provided in the form of a subdomain. You will receive yoursubdomain.googlepages.com as your own website. Each page that is added will be a part of this one site until a time when Google graduate the Page Creator from Labs into full time service.

Page Creator is still in the very early stages of production and testing apparently, so as yet nobody really knows when it will be published. However because it is essentially in Beta testing then you can sign up using a Gmail account and leave feedback regarding any changes or alterations you would like to see.

Visit the http://www.googlepages.com site for more information or to sign up and try it out.


About The Author:
Aviva recommends that you promote your website by submitting it to http://www.avivadirectory.com/

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

By Kalena Jordan

Does your web site make search engines happy? Despite all the negative hype lately, it's pretty easy to design a web site that search engines will accept with open arms. All it takes is 3 easy steps:

1) Follow the Search Engine Guidelines

Nearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be "spam". They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.

It's not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You'll find them at the following search engine sites as well:

- MSN Search webmaster guidelines

- AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)

- Yahoo terms of service

- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)

- Yahoo content guidelines

- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy

- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines


2) Avoid Spamming the Search Engines

Often, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site's rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner's knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.
Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn't use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.

Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.

Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:

----------------------------------------------------
Sample Re-inclusion Request Email:

Dear [search engine name],

I am the owner of [your site URL].

I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and
[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I was
assured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].

I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I've removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.

I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,
[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]
--------------------------------------------------

To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine's public guidelines, you can report it using these links:

- Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com

- AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)

- AltaVista search results manipulation report (or via Yahoo's spam report below)

- Yahoo spam report

- AskJeeves spam report or via information@ask.com


3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search Engines

The methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to "good" or "white hat" SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.

Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.

Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.


About the Author:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.