As you develop your website, you add a new graphic here, an image there, maybe a video, a new cool snippet of javascript, maybe a little flash and pretty soon, you have created a slow-loading website one little piece at a time.

It’s easy to get into adding a little bit to your site frequently. You find cool new things you want to share with users. Those little facebook, google plus and twitter icons and plugins for your blog, a cool new flash header you’re sure your visitors will just love and of course you have to add that new video you just made.

Adding freash content to your website is a great way to improve your rankings in the search engine. But add that new stuff on new pages you add to the website. Don’t keep over-developing your home page or any other page. If you slow down your website, your rankings will suffer.

Take a fresh look at your website. Look at each item. Ask yourself, “Do I really need this here?” and “Is the time it takes to download this worth it if it is going to affect my SEO efforts?” Trim the fat and you’ll be much better off.

There are some really big companies online that could use this lesson. Those slow-loading flash ads on some news sites, sports sites, gaming sites and others are annoying to users. Those ads that expand when you mouse over them might look cool, but they are annoying to your users and they slow your website down.

Most importantly, they do not convert any better than an adsense text ad that loads really fast. I’m not saying start promoting adsense instead of the ads. But use the fastest loading ad possible, not the one you think looks really cool. Your conversion rate will actually improve.

Related articles

• Web design tips – things to avoid (marketing.yell.com)
• Flash and SEO: why it’s best to keep it simple (marketing.yell.com)

Business websites are ads though. First you had print advertising, then radio advertising, then tv advertising, now the Internet is the next in that line of progression.

people call their websites their online business, their home on the web, etc. But it isn’t. it’s an ad for your products or services.

There is an old saying on the web. “You build your first website for show and the rest for dough.”

When you buy print, radio, or television advertising, you know that repetition is the key to successful advertising. You don’t buy one ad in a newspaper or magazine. You don’t buy one radio or tv spot. They sell them in bunches.

The Internet is no different. Of course you want your one “corporate website” or base, which has information about your company and everything you sell. But is that all you need to do?

Many seo services and webmasters focus on that one website and continue to make changes they think the search engines will like or because they learned the latest “google trick” or something they read on someone’s blog.

The truth is you should adopt a build em and leave em alone philosophy. Cover all the bases when you build your website. Make sure filenames, titles, keywords, alt tags, anchor text, and everything else is covered. take the time to build it right the first time around.

Then go build more sites! Here is an example. You run a website that sells tools. In your main website you have all the tools you sell in a shopping cart and ready to be purchased. maybe you were smart enough to have a page for each type of tool, like hammers.html, screwdrivers.html, etc.

You can now take each of those categories and build a microsite. Each microsite is about just one category. So you get a domain name that is like hammersforsale.com or buy-hammers.com and build your microsite. You need an about us page, a contact page, a terms of service, and a privacy policy just like any website.

Then you optimize the index page for the same key phrase you targeted in the domain name. Then you can add a page for each brand or type of hammer and optimize those for those specific phrases. Then when someone searches google or other search engines for a particular type of hammer, you have a chance of being one of the top results.

The cool thing is that you do not have to put a shopping cart into each microsite. You already have one in your main website, so all the links from the microsite for a purchase go back to your main website to complete the deal.

The second cool thing is that these microsites are ads that never expire and they are extremely cost-effective.

We build you a basic 7 page microsite for just $600. Additional pages are just $50 each. If you want to learn more about how microsites can help you advertise your products or services or how they can help you generate more leads for your business, call Chris McElroy at 786-317-8774.

Many, many years ago in a galaxy far, far away, if you wanted to advertise your business, there was only print media, basically newspapers and bulletins.

Then Radio came along and at first advertisers stuck to print media rather than advertise on that newfangled radio. Soon they began to see the value of advertising on radio and all was good. They now had two ways to advertise.

Then the television hit the scene. But many saw this as a fad and stuck to their print and radio advertising until they saw everyone liked watching TV. SO advertisers had three choices and began to favor TV ads because it combined the voice that radio had with the visual elements that print media had, only better.

And Now Internet Marketing Changes Everything

Now we skip way ahead where the Internet and its wide commercial use came around in the 1990s. Again, companies believed it was a fad and stuck to other forms of media for their advertising.

Now most companies saw the error in that type of thinking and have shifted a good portion of their advertising and marketing budget to Internet Marketing. They learned that their company needed a website. They were told to think of it as their own home on the web, their online store, or their web address. And all was good as long as they had a website.

Many still believe all they need is a website. Build it and they will come. When they bought print ads, radio ads, and TV ads, they did not have to do anything but buy the ad and people saw it. The sellers of the ads took care of getting their ad in front of the public. So it stands to reason they would think the same about the Internet.

Most have learned that they have to do more than just build a website. That is where search engine optimization comes in. To get your website in front of your audience you need to rank well in the search engines or buy more ads about your website to get users to visit.

Your Website is just an AD

Think of your website as your Internet Ad the same as you think of a commercial as your TV Ad. Your website and the pages within are advertisements. They are not your home on the web, your online store, or some physical address in cyberspace. There is no such thing.

The Internet is just another form of media companies were slow to adopt. Then when they did adopt it they saw their website as some sort of store location or semi-physical space. Again, it isn’t. It’s just an ad.

Now that being said, when you buy an ad in print media like newspapers or magazines, do you buy just one ad and stop? How about on the radio? Do you buy one radio ad and stop? And with TV, one commercial and you’re done?

If the answer is no to those questions, WHY DO YOU HAVE JUST ONE WEBSITE?

The smart way to use the Internet as a form of media is to build one website that is your corporate image online. It can have everything you sell there, company history, investor information, and more. It can be huge. It’s still an ad, but it is your corporate identity ad.

Why You Need More Than One Website

Now, you can build campaign websites, satellite websites, mini-sites, or micro-sites, whichever you want to call them. They are really just smaller ads. Each one should be only about one product or one service or one campaign you are promoting. They do not have to be big. They do not need to be expensive.

These smaller ads are much easier to optimize because you are targeting only one topic, product, or service, while your main website has all of your products and services.

In print media, on radio, and on television, everyone knows repetition is the key. Everyone knows you have to keep advertising and keep creating new ads. On the web, people seem to throw that logic out the window and think they only need one website.

How many demographics do you target? If more than one, you need more than one website. If you sell to both senior citizens and to teens, would you design the same ad for AARP Magazine as you would for Teen Magazine? I doubt it. Those two ads would be nothing alike. SO WHY WOULD YOU BUILD JUST ONE WEBSITE?

The Internet has a huge advantage over other forms of media. Your magazine or newspaper ad is in one issue and it expires and you have to create a new one. Each radio or TV spot is heard or shown one time and it’s gone. You have to buy more. Your website doesn’t expire so when thinking of it as an ad, think of an ad that just keeps getting better with age and doesn’t expire.

The more advertising you do in any form of media, the more business you bring in. The Internet is no different. Keep building websites. Doing so is no different than buying other forms of advertising in that you are using repetition, but your old ads/websites are still there earning money for you while you build your new moneymakers.

Another difference with the Internet is the ability to advertise your ads. Your website is an ad, then when you use PPC or buy ads on other websites, you are advertising to bring people in to read your bigger ad.

Now I doubt you would buy a radio ad and tell people to watch the TV commercial you have coming out. However, you do see the value in buying a short TV commercial or radio ad and telling people to visit your website right? Buying ads on the Internet that bring people to your website is no different.

If you would like to discuss the different ways you can really use the Internet to advertise your business, products, and services, call me at 786-317-8774 for a free consultation.

How do I build links to my website?

There are dozens of different ways to increase your link popularity. But what is the difference between building link popularity and getting links that actually send you traffic and makes you sales? That is the important distinction to make.

Every seo company will talk to you about link building and why link popularity is important. Obviously link popularity is one of the factors in determining how well your website ranks in the search engines, but are the search engines the only source of traffic you want?

Some link building should be done based on the fact that the website linking to you might send you some quality traffic that might buy your products and services. So there are two different types of link building strategies.

Link Building for Link Popularity

This is where you are working to get a lot of one-way inbound links to your website to improve your search engine listings. You can submit to web directories, get other related websites to link to you, build forum profiles, participate in forums and on blogs, do social bookmarking, and other methods to get these links.

Reciprocal Links

These are dead as far as helping your website rank better in the search engines, however, if you believe the visitors of another website would also be interested in clicking over to your website, then reciprocal links are still valuable. This is link building to increase the number of traffic sources for your website.

Buying Links

Again, almost dead for building link popularity for the search engines, but buying a link on a related website to attract their visitors to your website has value. It becomes another source of traffic to your website. Make sure the place that sells you the link uses a no follow tag to link to you so google doesn’t think you are trying to buy link popularity.

Buying Advertising

This is a buyer beware situation. There are a lot of websites that are real proud of the value of ads on their website. What I mean by that is many people overcharge for advertising.

Example: You have a real estate website and sell real estate in Georgia.

There is a web directory for real estate websites that is broken down by state.

They tell you that it will cost you $300 per month to be added to the Georgia real estate section.

Then they tell you they get 10,000 unique visitors every day and they have proof!

Wow! 10,000 people will see my listing? Nope.

Ask them how many unique visitors they get to the exact page your listing will appear on and ask for proof of that. Then ask them how many people click listing on that page daily.

Let’s say of the 10,000 people that visit that site, 200 actually get to the page with your listing on it. Of those 200, 20 actually click links. Now consider how many other georgia real estate websites are listed on that page. Let’s say there are 20 including yours. That means that likely this website listing will get you 1 click through to your website daily. Are you willing to pay $300 per month for 30 visitors? That’s $10 per visitor.

This was just an example of how you need to analyze the website you plan to buy advertising on before you spend the money. Negotiate once you analyze the data. If it doesn’t seem worth it, don’t buy it.

If you think the stats look good, put in a unique identifier on the link. Like; www.yourwebsite.net?adsite.org

Everything after the ? mark will not affect where the link goes, but in your stats, when you look at pages visited, you can see how many people visited www.yourwebsite.net?adsite.org vs how many visited www.yourwebsite.net.

Do not let it discourage you from advertising though. Advertising can help you build your brand on the web and can bring in some very good traffic to improve your sales. Just buy smart.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising is where you pay for each user that comes to your website whether they actually take any action there or not.

CPA is much more cost effective and is really an older advertising model than PPC. I see a lot of places talking about CPA Advertising as if it is a newer model than PPC.

If you have ever participated in an affiliate program you were likely involved in CPA advertising because you were only paid a commission if people signed up with the affiliate or purchased something. So CPA ia really affiliate marketing turned upside down.

In Affiliate marketing, the affiliate, (The seller), has to recruit new affiliates and get them to promote their products or services.

With CPA Advertising programs, the affiliates, (The places where your ad will appear), are already signed up and waiting for your ads. These places likely have been selected because they already have the quality and quantity of traffic that you need to get conversions.

Azoogle Ads, Clickbooth, and Hydra Network are three places you can try CPA Advertising and learn more about how it works.

One of the feeds that I subscribe to is the Marketing Pilgrim blog. I thought I’d share with you what I like about Marketing Pilgrim. Here’s my list of top 10 reasons for reading Marketing Pilgrim:

1. The Pilgrim provides excellent insights into what is going on in social and search media every single day

2. These guys think outside of the box – in fact, they broke the box down and took it out back and burned it, so there’s really no box any more

3. Andy Beal’s got a nice smile

4. I like the fact that they challenge industry prejudices – like Google is the best search engine – with uncommon suppositions – like Ask.com is cool, for instance

5. Jordan McCollum isn’t just an excellent writer, she’s a beautiful woman (even though I don’t have a snowball’s chance in the fiery furnace and my wife is going to kick my donkey for saying that); besides, she likes poetry (I’ve heard)

6. They have goofy guest writers that I can make fun of

7. I like trackbacking to the Pilgrim and seeing the traffic that results from it

8. Nick Stamoulis reads it

9. These guys clearly know online branding and I admire that

10. They have pretty colors on their website

11. A lot of other cool people respect Andy Beal and Marketing Pilgrim – people like Advertising Age, Business Week, CNET, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal

12. If I’m having trouble finding something to write about, I can always read Marketing Pilgrim and come up with something – even if it’s totally different than what they’re writing about

13. I’ve forgotten how to count to 10 and need The Pilgrim to remind me

If you do take my advice and start reading Marketing Pilgrim, don’t abandon SEO Service Provider in the process. It’s OK it to read two cool blogs at the same time.

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Google trends charts the number of searches done for any keyword or phrase over time. It goes back a couple of years to give you a long-term idea of what is hot and what is not during specific months of the year.

If you are using google adwords or another ppc program to advertise, google trends could help you rearrange your ppc budget to maximize your results during the peak months for your search terms.

Unfortunately, google trends does not show any results for long-tail search phrases that do not have enough searches to warrant them adding it.

An example, Blogging Tips does not have enough searches. Article Writer and Press Release Writer don’t have trends either.

When using Google Trends for the term SEO, it does track the trends. Amazingly enough, although many web gurus are out there saying that social bookmarking is on the rise, but seo is on the decline, it seems google trends disagrees with them.

The search term SEO shows an upward trend over the past 2 years and it’s still climbing. SEO is becoming more necessary, not less. Gosh, hate when that happens. When supposed web gurus are proven wrong.

And to add salt to the wound, the number of searches for social bookmarking seems to be ahead of what it was in 2006, but not by much and declining. Uh oh, someone get me a tissue.

Don’t get me wrong. I see social bookmarking as having value, but it’s value is as one of many seo tools you can use to gain link popularity and to bring new traffic to your website or blog. I’m just posting in response to several people out there that see social bookmarking as replacing SEO, when in reality it’s just another seo tool.

Another funny thing. The search term Google Adwords shows a steady rise according to google trends while there are not enough searches for yahoo sponsored search doesn’t have enough searches to even have a graph. MSN Adcenter shows beginning this year a steady rise in the number of searches though.

Although Google Adsense shows a steady climb, yahoo publisher is rising fast starting this year. Hmmm, does that mean that a lot of people are signing up to show yahoo ads on their website, but that not nearly as many advertisers are signing up to have their ads shown?

I wouldn’t jump to conclusions like that based on google trends, but at least this seo tool can help you get an idea of whether or not a particular search term is on the rise or the decline and when it’s hot and when it’s not.

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While google says these ads will be more efffective than other types of display ads, the question is, how does it have to do with seo service providers?

Well, it doesn’t really have anything to do with SEO or SEM really. It does have to do with advertising, however.

Offline ad agencies have longed for a way to be more relevant to how people need to advertise on the web. Their offline concepts and techniques had little to do with how the Internet works or how traffic is driven to websites.

They tried banner ads, popups, popunders, and display ads, none of which were as effective as organic seo or ppc.

Will google and youtube offer something that will make offline, traditional advertising agencies more effective on the web? It is certain they will understand it better. It’s tv on the web. They are buying commercials, something they have done for years.

So rather than learning new strategies, they can just rely on their old techniques, thanks to google and youtube.

Google launches first YouTube ads
By Emma Thelwell

Video website YouTube is to feature advertising for the first time, after Google revealed it is offering companies the chance to run ads on some of the site’s most popular content.

The website, which Google paid $1.65bn (£829m) for last year, has allowed 20 companies to run trial adverts on 200 videos over the last few weeks.

However, from today it is opening up the advertising model to anyone, and will allow companies to place ads on the videos of a small number of the one thousand of its content providers, or partners.

These partners are a mix of traditional broadcasters and individuals, who are awarded partnerships based on their popularity and include the BBC, Warner Music and Chelsea Football Club.

YouTube claims the new advertising method is five to ten times more effective than any other display advertising.

Yes, but will it be as effective as good seo or ppc?

Well at least google has found a way to give youtube a revenue model now.

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