Holistic Internet Marketing

Optimizing your anchor text for links within your website and for incoming links to your website is an important element to implement into your SEO strategy to get higher rankings in the search engines. The anchor text is the hyperlinked text that is hyperlinked on your page as in the following: anchor text optimization. The text that is highlighted on your link is seen by the search engines as an indicator of the content on the page that it links to. Therefore, you will want to use relevant keywords for the target page in your anchor text.

In addition to the anchor text, the text surrounding the link is also important. The more relevant keywords and key phrases you use in the surrounding text, the more relevance the page you are linking to is given. For example, if I want to get this post to rank higher, when I link to it from another post, I will use a link similar to this: “Learn more about anchor text optimization to achieve higher search engine rankings” As you see, the anchor text, as well as the rest of the sentence matches the title of this blog which solidifies the relevance of the subject of the page.

When you are working on any link building strategy, whenever you are given the opportunity to choose the text for your link, implement this strategy to maximize your link building efforts. You have the opportunity to utilize anchor text optimization when submitting to directories, commenting on blogs or forums, and in articles that may be syndicated. bottom line - every chance you get, use descriptive, relevant text for your internal links, and external links that you hae control over, and stay away from generic terms such as “Click Here” or “Learn More”.

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Tags: anchor text optimization, external links, higher search engine rankings, internal links, Rankings, relevant keywords, relevant text, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), strategy

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) analysis reports are a great starting point to starting your internet marketing initiatives. If you don’t know where you are, how do you know where you are going?

To gain insight to your SEO, and internet marketing efforts, obtaining an analysis report is an important first step to know where you need to start. These reports should include the search engine ranking positions for your targeted search terms in the major search engines, pages indexed in the major search engines, number of incoming links, Google Page Rank, Alexa rank, amongst many other on and off-page factors that affect your websites search engine rankings.

There are many do-it-yourself resources for gathering the data and creating the reports, or you can utilize an internet marketing company to do it for you. The nice thing about using a professional, is that they can provide recommendations for implementing a successful internet marketing plan based on the results of the reports. While there is typically a cost associated with getting SEO analysis reports from a professional company, it is a great way to get a solid understanding of where you need to start with your campaign. In fact, if you can obtain 2-3 professional reports and recommendations, you can end up saving money in the long run on your internet marketing and SEO campaigns, as this approach should give a well-rounded view from more than one professional’s point-of-view.

Currently, A. Reis Designs has a promotion for a free basic search engine optimization report, and has more robust reports to choose from starting at only $99. Before venturing into a costly SEO or internet marketing campaign, check into this resource, and others, and move forward armed with the information you need.

Check out A. Reis Designs FREE Search Engine Optimization Analysis Report.

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Tags: free seo reports, page rank, professional reports, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search engine rankings, SEO, seo analysis, Stats and Analytics, Uncategorized

I have just discovered a new online database software that I am going to give a try. From the description of their product, this seems like an easy-to-use, powerful solution that you can import your Excel spreadsheets into to get started.

Trackvia’s online database revolutionizes the way small businesses collect, organize and share data. Businesses are able to get up and running in minutes with Trackvia’s powerful yet easy to use database that includes features such as filtered reports, user permissions, relational fields, email campaigns, and a web form builder, just to name a few.

Read more about Trackvia online database solution at Amy’s Blogroll.

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Tags: database software, database solution, powerful solution, relational, Resources, trackvia, web based database

Whether you are running pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, other paid advertising, or relying on organic search engine rankings, these tips on optimizing your landing pages will help you to achieve higher conversion rates on your website.

Are you getting traffic to your web site, but finding that visitors are not taking any action? The following suggestions will have you on your way to optimizing your landing page(s) thus, improving your conversion rates:

1. Focus your Landing Pages

Your landing pages should have one offer that you focus on in order to achieve higher conversion rates. If your visitors land on a page where there are many options, with many calls-to-action and paths they can take through your site, you are only losing focused attention on the primary goal. Whether your conversion is completing a lead form, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter or membership, make this the main intent of your page. Give your visitors too many choices, and you run a high risk of losing them. This term is called “abandonment”. Abandonment is when your visitors initiate an action, but do not follow through. Look at your landing pages, and identify potential “abandonment points”, and remedy the situation by eliminating them.

2. Present a Clear Call-to-Action

Tell your visitors what you want them to do. If someone is looking at your page, and you have their attention, compel them to take action. Let’s say, as an example, you are an investment broker, and you are looking to attract more clients. You should have a clear call-to-action that makes the user want to proceed, such as “Start Getting Better Returns Now”. As an additional point, you should have only one call to action on the page. In some instances there may be two, such as “Download Now”, vs. “Start your Free Trial Now”. Your one, clear, concise call-to-action should stand out on the page visually. You can do this through different text treatments or better yet, a nice, clean button.

3. Summarize Your Offer

People scan web pages, and decide very quickly whether or not their interest is piqued. Keep your body copy brief - bullet points of the key benefits of your product/offer are the easiest to read. If you need to explain further, summarize as much as possible, trying to have only one to two paragraphs of text on the page. The most important content is that which solves a problem or lets the user know “what’s in it for them”. Try to stay away from sing a lot of “marketing fluff”, and make the best use of all of the words you choose to use on the page.

4. Test, Analyze, Repeat

By A/B testing, you can narrow down what works and what doesn’t with your landing pages. A/B testing is running two landing pages against each other which have minor differences, and then measuring which one converts better. The differences should be minor, and changes that you make can be one of the following: call-to-action text, heading on the page, position of the form (right side vs. left side), bulleted copy on the page, even little changes can make a difference in landing pages, such as the color of the call-to-action button. Make one change at a time, and before you know it, you will end up with great improvements in your conversion rates.

5. Keep Copy and Keywords Consistent

If you are utilizing pay-per-click, link-building, or other contextual methods of bringing traffic to your landing pages, make sure that the ad creative copy is consistent with what the user will get when they come to the landing page. The bait and switch is not a good technique, and if visitors reach your landing page thinking that they are getting one thing, and then see something different, chances are they will bounce very quickly. Try to use the same calls-to-action as in your ad creative to give more consistency to your campaign. This also will save you from spending money on clicks from a PPC campaign that will be wasted.

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Tags: abandonment, campaigns, conversion rates, Getting Quality Website Traffic, improving your conversion, Internet marketing, offer, optimizing your landing page, Pay Per Click, PPC, Search Engine Marketing, search engine rankings, testing, traffic, web pages

Exploring the strategies of bringing traffic to your website, are you looking for tons of traffic, or quality targeted traffic?

Most website owners, if not all would love to see tons of traffic pouring into their website, but one overlooked point is the quality of the traffic you are getting. There is obviously a point to trying to obtain this traffic. If you have a blog, you want to attract people who will find your blog useful, subscribe, and come back often. If you have a business website, you are probably looking to obtain leads, make sales, brand your company or some other end goal. Here are a few tips to get quality traffic vs. a large quantity of visitors.

Target the Right Audience

When you are trying to attract traffic, whether through back linking, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, or other forms of paid placement, consider how well you are targeting your strategy to the right people. It might not be to valuable to attract visitors to your site about Playstation3 games from, say a retirement community blog. It could, but chances are, this is not the right audience. Think about where your visitors are coming from, and try to adjust your efforts to bring in a more qualified audience by choosing sources that are closely related to your business, product, blog or service.

In order to help determine the quality of your traffic, utilize your website analytics and statistics, and determine what your visitors are doing once they get to your site. Here are a few things to look for when analyzing your website statistics:

1. Bounce Rate - The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that exit your site from the page they entered on. If you have a high bounce rate, obviously your visitors are not compelled enough to venture any further into your site upon entry. Even with landing pages, where there is a call-to-action such as completing a form, or making a purchase, it is not considered a “bounce” if the desired goal is converted.
2. Average Time on Site - Look at the average time people spend on your site. This is a great indicator, as, if you have thousands of people spending 3 seconds on your page, they obviously aren’t interested in continuing further. This could be due to the fact that the source where the visitor came from was not targeted correctly, through the link or ad creative.
3. Conversion Rate - If you are measuring conversion rates for lead form submissions, sales, click-throughs, sign-ups, or other goals, (which you should be), if you have very low conversion rates, it id quite likely that your traffic is not of high quality.
4. Visitors by Source - When looking at your website analytics and statistics reports, most applications will allow you to drill down to compare statistics such as time on site, bounce rate, conversion rate, etc. between your different sources of traffic. If you have horrible stats from one or more particular sources, it is probably a good idea to weed those out and concentrate on more viable sources.

When setting a goal to get a large quantity of traffic to your website, take a look at whether or not it is helping you to meet the goal of your website. Do this through analyzing your visitors’ behavior concerning bounce rate, average time on site, conversion rate, and visitors by source. If you do not currently have or are not utilizing your analytics program, this should be remedied very quickly, as you don’t know success unless you can measure it.

If you need a website statistics and analytics tool, try A. Reis Web Stats FREE for 30 Days.

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Tags: analytics, Getting Quality Website Traffic, Internet marketing, quality targeted traffic, quality web traffic, quality website traffic, Stats and Analytics, traffic, web analytics, web statistics, website, website statistics, website traffic

To gain traffic to your website through the search engines and blog readers, the ability to write great articles is essential. Although it may seem daunting to some, by following some simple guidelines and tips on writing articles, the task becomes easier than it seems.

Dave Foster wrote a great article on site-reference.com on with guidelines to follow for writing articles online, and there are a few tips that even the more experienced article writer may not have thought of, like doing your research for your articles at the library instead of online. With a scalable formula, your online writing should get better and better as well as easier to do each time. After all practice makes perfect.

read more | digg story

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Tags: article reference, article writer, blog, blog articles, dave foster, Digg, Internet, Internet marketing, Marketing, online, online writing, Search, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search engines, site, traffic, traffic website, web, website, website search, website traffic, writing articles online

It doesn’t take keyword stuffing, spamming, and other such techniques to achieve top search engine rankings in Google if you concentrate on, and implement these 2 simple steps from Mike Small in his site-reference.com article.

read more | digg story

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Tags: Google, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), search google, search rankings, SEO, simple steps, top search engine rankings

If there were official 10 commandments in Search Engine Marketing, this post by Brian Carter on the Fuel Interactive Blog would surely be close. I think this is a great foundation to officially start the SEM 10 Commandments. But really, I wholeheartedly agree with these, and find them very valuable. My personal favorites are numbers 4-6.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF SEM 2.0

1. Thou shalt test everything everywhere; test thy messages, offers, and appeals in social media, on thy site, in thy ads, and in thy search listings.
2. Thou shalt win friends and influence people via Social Media; thou shalt turn competitors into allies via networking and SM.
3. Thou shalt not beg, cajole, or threaten people to give you links for thy networking and value surely shalt bring thee more links (blessed are the poor in links who deserve more links)
4. Thou shalt create valuable content and useful tools that people will want to use, link to, and share.
5. Thou shalt use analytics to discover which keywords, placements, ads, offers, and audiences get thee the results thou needest most.
6. Thou shalt use lessons from each of these three channels: social media, SEO, and PPC to doest better in the other two.
7. Thou shalt use thy seo wisdom on landing pages to increase thy PPC quality score.
8. Thou shalt re-optimize and re-strategize based on clues provided to thee by thy analytics.
9. Thou shalt monitor what people are saying about thee, stay up to date on thy competition, and watch for new competitors.
10. Thou shalt attain wisdom from pre-internet marketing and PR books and teachers and test them in thy SEM efforts.

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Tags: 10 commandments, allies, audiences, blog, brian carter, Interactive, Internet, internet books, Internet marketing, landing pages, marketing books, marketing pr, Media, network, networking, personal favorites, placements, PPC, quality score, Search, search engine, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, search listings, SEM, SEO, site, Social, social media, useful tools, wisdom