In this installment of my “Top Ten” tips to better Search Engine Optimization, I’ll be reviewing “10 Things to Avoid When Optimizing Your Website”.

SEO isn’t easy! Let’s just call it what it is, Hard and Time Consuming. A major mistake that a lot of people make, in an attempt to make things easier, is looking for short cuts to optimize their website. Many of these shortcuts provide short-lived result, but can harm your rankings in the long run (or even get you black-listed from search engines!). This is where I like to refer to a couple of old sayings to help remind people to stay focused:

-          “If it’s worth doing… It’s worth doing right!”

-          … and, “If it’s too good to be true… then it probably is!”

Keep your eyes on the prize folks! Don’t let other people take advantage of you and your business. Avoid bad neighborhoods, link exchanges and farms, don’t keyword stuff and… well… just keep reading, and Good Luck!

1. Avoid Bad Neighborhoods

Basically, a bad neighborhood is a website that uses any unethical techniques to help increase their ranking in search engines in general. So don’t link to websites that utilize any of the tactics that I’ll be listing in this article, and don’t let them link to you.

Caveat lector: While you have control over who you link to, it is often difficult to get your site removed from a link farm if it has simply added your site on its own. If you find that your website has been added to a directory of questionable character, check to see if there is a “Remove Link” button, or try sending an email to the site owner. Beyond these options, your choices become much more expensive and time-consuming.

2. Don’t Use Link Exchanges or Farms

You may receive an e-mail from another company asking if you will provide a link to their website in “exchange” for them providing a link to yours. Nine times out of ten this is a “Link Exchange,” and it provides no purpose except to try and increase the other site’s Page Rank and Link Popularity. Unless the other site has relevancy to yours, this is deceiving and malicious in intent.

Link Farms have the same purpose only on a greater scale. Links farms target companies with relevant content (real estate agent websites are a big user of this technique), and ask them to include a list of a number of other “out of state” companies that are generally in the same field. In return all of those companies will return a link to you giving you multiple links (farm links) from a number of different websites with relevant content. There was a time when this could work, but that was long ago (in a time far, far, away). This technique is viewed as deceiving and with malicious intent.

3. Don’t Keyword Stuff

Keyword Stuffing is self explanatory, but for those of you that are new to SEO… let me explain further. Keywords are words that you will expect people to find your site with when searching with a search engine. For example, if you have a website that is selling “chocolate truffles” you don’t want “chocolate truffles” to appear in every other sentence. That is Keyword Stuffing… don’t do it!

4. Don’t Use Cloaking Techniques and Doorway Pages

Cloaking and Doorway Pages are similar, but I’ll attempt to explain, in a nutshell, what they do:

-  Doorway Pages… are “keyword stuffed” pages that are set to redirect to another page. This other page is the real page that is meant to be seen, but is poorly optimized. What happens is that the search engines end up indexing the keyword stuffed page. Before you go thinking this is a great idea let me explain that search engines are “hip” to this and have been for years now, although they may sometimes not catch it right away they eventually will and when that time comes around you can expect to be banned from their index. (Note that Doorway Pages are NOT Landing Pages.)

-  Cloaking… is when your website detects who is visiting your website (search engine bot or real person) by the IP address. If your site detects the IP to be a search engine bot then it redirects it to a keyword stuffed page. Otherwise it will take the real person to the real home page of the website. Again… once you get caught you can count on being dropped from that search engines index.

5. Don’t Use the Same “Title” and “META” tags throughout your Website

When you are developing your website hierarchy it should be obvious that each page will tackle a different topic. Therefore it should go without saying that your Title and META tags should be unique from the others across the site as well. Unfortunately this is a big oversight that a lot of people make, because they don’t want to be bothered with the tedious task of keyword research for every page, and then developing more copy for the META description tag as well as the perfect Title Tag and META keywords tag. Well I’m here to tell you folks… it’s worth the time. But don’t make the mistake of using this as a place for keyword stuffing… keep the stuffing for the turkey and use these places to lay down your targeted keywords to help search engines better index your website’s pages.

6. Don’t Use Hidden Text

Ummm… Don’t use hidden text. What’s hidden text? Hidden text is when you put text somewhere on your website that is the same (or similar) color as the background color it’s sitting on top of. For example you place white text over a white background. Why not you say? Well think about it… you won’t be able to read it because it’s white on white. So you can’t read it, but guess what… the search engines can. So what some people do is use this technique to keyword stuff thinking that because visitors can’t see it then it must be ok. Right? Wrong! Once again the search engines are well aware of this Black Hat Technique and it’s only a matter of time until they find out if you are doing it.

7. Don’t Use Frames

Yeah… Don’t use Frames! For those of you still living in the 90’s, don’t you think it’s time to update that website? There are many reasons not to use Frames, but I only need one. Search Engines have trouble indexing pages with Frames… That’s enough for me… Don’t use Frames!

8. Don’t Forget to Optimize Your Images

Make sure to optimize all of your images for your website. One of the factors that search engines take into consideration is the overall download speed of you website. One of the main contributing factors to this is the size of your photos. There was a time in web design that anything over 30k was considered suicide, but nowadays with faster internet connections it’s considered great to be under 200k (80 – 150K is optimal).

9. Don’t Forget to Check the Download Speed of Your Finished Site

Hey! Check your download speed to make sure you are within the limits that you pre-determined for yourself. There are many free tools available on the web to test this, just Google “website speed test” and pick one. This isn’t simply courtesy for your potential website visitors (which is a good enough reason to me), but search engines also penalize web pages with excessively large file sizes and slow download speeds.

10. Don’t Believe Everything You Read About SEO…Except for this of course!

No, really. Everything I have listed here are things that need to be avoided at all costs if you want your website to rank high in the SERPs. But don’t just take my word for it. Do some research and find out for yourself. What you’ll find is that there is a lot of information out there that people will claim helps you, but until you try them it’s hard to know if they’re right or wrong, “Black Hat” or “White Hat”. That’s where NetSource Technologies comes in to play.

NetSource has spent years developing “White Hat” procedures that will help your websites reach specifically targeted audiences on the internet. Audiences who are relevant to your products and services will always bring your website a higher ROI. So if you find that Search Engine Optimization is a little too much for you to grasp, let our experts at NetSource Technologies Inc., take care of it for you and sit back and watch your ROI increase.

After putting in place a well-developed marketing plan and generating traffic to your landing page or website, the next step is to turn your online prospects into customers. Improving your online conversion rate is a two-part process.

Improve targeted traffic

Before you make changes to the conversion tools on your website or landing page, it’s important to improve the quality and/or relevance of your in-bound traffic. Attracting the right people to your website is critical to increasing conversions at a lower cost. Begin by evaluating your lead sources and determine the alignment of your prospects with your product.

You can determine what traffic is best aligned with your products and services by carefully analyzing your Google Adwords campaigns. With the proper conversion tracking in place, it’s easy to determine which keywords are generating sales (as opposed to generating clicks alone). Focus on expanding your top converting keywords and driving truly interested prospects to your landing pages.

Take advantage of conversion tools

Once you’ve begun to attract the right prospects, you need to focus on converting them. The fastest way to improve conversion is through testing various landing pages. If you have the technology to rotate landing pages (a process we call “split testing”), then you can learn quickly what page has the highest conversion rate. If you are limited to testing one page at a time, run each landing page for a week and measure the results. Your data won’t be as accurate but it can certainly point you in the right direction.

Another method for improving on-site conversions is to use an automated touch program. With this technique, you can use an auto-responder that gives site visitors an opportunity to reconnect with your business.

One example would be an abandoned shopping cart campaign. If users begin the purchase process (and have given you their email) but fail to complete the process, an auto-responder can be used to send an email message within minutes or hours, inviting them back to complete the purchase – perhaps with a discount or other incentive. You can use email best practices to enhance conversion, and touch visitors numerous times to move them through the purchase decision process.

In addition to targeting visitors who have started a purchase, you can also use an auto-responder for visitors who sign up to receive valuable information from your website. Perhaps they sign up for your newsletter, free lessons, or a whitepaper. Once a person has registered, the auto responder goes to work, sending appropriate emails at set intervals. The result is a communications channel that was previously unavailable to you. Work on improving conversion of your automated touch program by testing both the content and the timing of messages.

By using the techniques of better targeting, improving landing page conversion rates, and using auto-responders you can significantly enhance the performance of your online marketing campaigns. Plan your programs carefully, measure performance and make appropriate adjustments. Over time, your results just might surprise you.

Google is running a business.  Their business depends on returning the most relevant and useful search results to web surfers, so that they’ll continue to use the Google Search Engine, click on Google ads, and generate revenues.  Because quality search results are so important, Google takes people who try to cheat the system very seriously, and they have very well-documented rules that they use to identify search engine “spammers.”

Break any of these rules, and your rankings will suffer, or even worse, your site can be black-listed… removed entirely from Google.  You may benefit from a brief boost in search engine rankings, but Google always catches up. Trust me; you do not want to fight Google in order to get your website re-listed.

Rule 1 – No Duplicate Content or Mirror Sites

We all know that copying someone else’s text and images is wrong, and we’d never do it.  But Google also penalizes you when you copy your own content.  Say for instance you have a corporate website that has been around for 10 years, but now you want to build a focused mini-site for a featured product or service.  There is a temptation to post the same information that already appears on your existing site – product information, company info, etc.  However, Google views this as duplicate content.  And since the existing site is older, your new site will be ignored as a copy and won’t be indexed.

How to avoid this issue:

• Re-word and re-organize text.  A good rule of thumb is to be at least 60% unique.
• Add exclusive content to the newer website, so that a significant portion of the site is unique.
• Consider creating images for content that is not relevant to the search engines on the new site – like charts, technical specs, testimonials, etc.
• Be sure meta tags and title tags are also unique.

Rule 2 – No Keyword Stuffing

Google knows all of the “tricks” that black hat, or disreputable, SEO practitioners try to use in order to rank for keywords and key phrases.  One of the most common techniques that people are familiar with is keyword stuffing, or adding the keyword or phrase you want to rank for over and over and over to your pages.  There are many keyword stuffing techniques (see below), and Google’s algorithms will identify and disregard these techniques.  At best, you wasted time (and money, if you paid someone else to do it for you) and your rankings will not improve in the long-run; at worst, Google might identify you as a spammer and remove your site entirely from search results.  Warning: keyword stuffing may seem to work in the short-term, but Google always catches up with you…

• Gibberish Text – Have you ever visited a website that has introductory text on the Home Page that makes no sense? Instead you find yourself wading through paragraphs of keyword-stuffed text, typically with lots of links. Not only does this kind of text turn off your website visitors and reduce the usability of your site, Google will notice that your keyword density is unreasonably high.
• Invisible, Low-Contrast or Very Small Text – Instead of filling your pages with gibberish text that might look bad to your visitors, you may be tempted to stuff some keywords onto the bottom of your pages in very small print, or written in the same or a very close color to the background of the page.  Google is on to this trick, and can easily identify it.  In fact, you need to be careful that your well-intentioned web designs don’t have any elements, like captions or legitimate small-print, that might flag Google accidentally.
• Alt-Tag Stuffing – Another shady method is to overload your images’ alt and title tags (the text that shows up when you hover over an image on a web page) with your keywords. Not only is this an easy method for Google to identify, but most search engines virtually ignore alt and title tags these days because of over-abuse of this technique.  The same holds true for some other HTML tags that can only be viewed by browsers.  Most experts agree that meta keywords and meta descriptions are not factored into Google’s rankings anymore.
• Invisible Links – One final method that some “experts” like to use, is to create invisible links in a page’s HTML code to keyword relevant pages.  They do this in the hopes of building what’s called “link juice,” or link relevance. The theory is that search engine spiders will read these links and factor them into your page’s ranking, while website visitors won’t be able to see them.  Google doesn’t take kindly to this kind of cheating though, and will penalize your page’s rank accordingly.

The methods above can sometimes show up in your page accidentally or without malice.  Knowing about these potential hazards to your page rank can help you avoid any unexpected results.  The most likely to get you blacklisted and booted from the Google index is Duplicate Content, however all of them will be detrimental to your ranking in the long run.

The “tricks” below, however, are widely recognized as one-way tickets to the Google black-list.  They are employed by disreputable, black hat SEO “experts” who make outlandish promises of #1 rankings.  They’ll use these techniques to give you a quick and dramatic boost.  Then after you’ve already paid for their services, your website will suddenly disappear from Google.  Getting yourself re-listed will be an uphill battle and can sometimes take years.  So proceed with extreme caution if a service provider is using, or proposes to use, any of the following techniques:

Rule 3 – No Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are created specifically for spamming search engine indexes, or “spamdexing”.  These pages contain keyword optimized text that attracts the search engines, but when a visitor clicks on that indexed link, they are quickly redirected to a different page entirely. These pages are also referred to as bridge pages, jump pages, or portal pages.

Rule 4 – No Link Farming

Link Farms, or Link Farm Exchanges, attempt to take advantage of the weight search engines place on in-bound links to a website when determining a site’s rank.  Generally, the more in-bound links your site has, the more “popular” your site appears, and then the higher you rank.  Google in particular easily identifies link farms, and penalizes web sites with links on those sites, typically by banning them from the Google index.

Rule 5 – No Blog Comment Spam

This technique tries to exploit the same page rank weight placed on in-bound links in the above technique. However, instead of placing your site in a link farm, this technique adds links to your site on relevant blogs by commenting on posts.  In general, becoming active on relevant blogs and commenting thoughtfully is a respected and recommended technique for improving your search engine ranking.  However, using automated posts, making nonsense and/or unrelated comments, and typically abusing the blog’s community by only posting promotional comments, are all considered spamming. Google takes a dim view on them all.

So you have decided to do your own Search Engine Optimization. Then you have most likely come to the realization that it’s nowhere near as easy as you initially anticipated. You have also found that it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to cover the gamut of SEO without the help of some sort of tool or software. So today I’m going to go over some of the free SEO tools available online, that I have found to be extremely helpful over the early years of my SEO education. Some of these tools I still use even today, so take notice… and good luck on your endeavor.

1.    Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools is a great FREE SEO tool. Use it to research how Google crawls and indexes your web pages, and identify any problems that Googlebot encountered trying to access your site. Submit Sitemaps, specify your canonical settings for your URL, set your Geographical targeting preference, check top search queries, review links to your website and much more!

2.    Google Keyword Tool

The Google Keyword Tool is a must if you are serious about SEO. Use this tool to research keywords that are important to you and then find out which keywords and keyword phrases have the highest “Search Volume”. Find “Gems in the Rough”, or keywords that you didn’t even think of, or your competition, then tap into untargeted territory and reap the traffic that your competitors overlooked.

3.    Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free online analytics tool. What I like most about this tool is that it gives me 2 things:

A. Something to compare my statistics from other stats programs to…

B. … and a firsthand look at how Google sees my website.

The best quality that Google Analytics offers you is it’s easy to understand interface. Google implements bar, pie, and line graphs so everyday people who don’t interpret statistics every day can better understand what is happening with their websites.

4.    SEOQuake (Firefox Add On)

SEOQuake offers a wealth of information at the touch of a button… or “link” I should say. This tool helps me track the progress of sites that I am monitoring. It tracks information such as Alexa Ranking, Google PR, Internal Links, External Links, DMOZ directory listings, Google, Yahoo, and Bing index listings, domain name age, Whois record, canonical listings and much more.

5.    SenSEO (Firefox Add On)

SenSEO is a great tool to use when optimizing each individual page of you website. What most people don’t realize is that you should not try and target more than one main keyword or keyword phrase per page. This tool makes it easy for you to go page by page through your website and grades you on how you optimized each page for a single keyword or phrase. Use this info to make changes and increase your grade. Track your SERPs afterwards and make changes accordingly.

6.    SpyFu (Free Version)

SpyFu has a free trial, but if you want to get the full experience then you’ll have to pay for a subscription. The good news is that they do have monthly subscriptions, so if you’re just looking to try it out… shell out a couple dollars and test drive it for a month. As for me, I find this tool extremely helpful for getting a head start when I am starting to assemble a PPC campaign for a client and I need to know what is working for their competition. I also use it during my initial keyword research for a new website client. This tool can help save hours of time researching your competitors’ websites, and helps you “hit the ground running” when you are ready to have your website visited by the public.

7.    SEMRush.com

SEMRush is another great tool for competitor research, or even to review your own website. My only real qualm with it is that it’s more expensive. They do offer some lower priced plans, but they don’t offer much more than the free trial does. Because of this I say use the free trial for what it’s worth, and when your web venture starts to make a substantial profit… then spend a few dollars and invest in the “Pro (+ Adwords)” plan (this will cost you $249.95 every 6 months… this price is correct as of the date of this article 10/30/2009).

8.    Rank Checker by SEOmoz.org

If you sign up for a free SEOmoz account, “Rank Checker” will allow you to check your rankings for 5 keywords a day. It will also keep an archive of them for you. The reason that I mention this tool here is because it will show you the power of comparing your targeted terms on a daily basis without you having to log them by hand. The problem is that you are only allowed 5 terms so if you want more you’ll have to pay for it, but at the very least you’ll be able to get a good idea of the power it gives you. Great tool if you can afford it.

9.    InSpyder SERPSpy

Same thing as Rank Checker, but it isn’t nearly as expensive. The main difference between the free and paid versions here is that you won’t be able to save your projects with the free version, and you can’t export the results. This means that every time you run a project it will be like the first time all over again, and you won’t have any previous ranking numbers to compare the new one to unless you record them by hand in Excel. I find this tool very helpful and reasonably priced if you’re ready to upgrade from the free version.

10.    XML-Sitemaps.com

Most free sitemap creators out there either limit you to the number of pages that you can include or have a confusing interface that makes it hard to execute. XML-Sitemaps.com is simple and offers up to 500 pages indexed for free. Use this tool to generate a sitemap and then submit it with Google Webmaster Tools. This ensures that Google knows about all of your pages and offers the best opportunity to have them all indexed (or at least a good number of them).

A lot of time and effort goes into setting up a website when it is first created, but once the website is launched, the work is not over! Think of your website as a constant work in progress. Every day is a new chance to make a great first (or second, or third) impression.

How often you update your website should be based on how often you expect visitors to return. If you have a blog and want people to come back every week, make sure that you have new articles every week. If you have a simple, service-based website that people don’t need to visit that often, then just check back once or twice a year to make sure the information and links are still accurate.

Here are six reasons why you should be updating your website content on a regular basis:

1. Visitor Retention

If the information on your website never changes, why would anyone visit more than once? Having fresh content on the website gives your visitors a reason to return to your website more often to see your latest news or special deals.

2. Boost User Confidence

Having fresh content on your website shows your website visitors that your information is recent and accurate. If it’s June and your homepage is still showing a banner about Fall Savings, it raises some questions: Is that sale from last year, or three years ago? Are these prices accurate? Are these products still for sale?

Showcasing recent information about your new products, services, and current sales boosts user confidence in the accuracy of your website.

3. Getting Your Money’s Worth

Implementing a content management system into your website can save you money in the long run. Instead of paying a designer for each update, you are able to change text and photos on the website yourself.

If your website already has a content management system, start taking advantage of it! This is a great tool that gives you the freedom to update your website whenever you like, and the more you use it, the more you will benefit from it.

4. Promote New Products and Services

Does your business have a new, great product or service? Are you currently having a sale or other type of promotion? Why not list that on your website! Your website is more than just a way for people to find your business online, it is a tool for you to advertise the products and services that you want to promote.

5. Get Your Webpages Indexed Faster

Search engines use web crawlers (also called bots, spiders, or robots) to browse the internet to find new and updated pages to add to their search engine index. The more often the content on your website changes, the sooner these crawlers will come back to re-index your website.

6. Catch Outdated Information

If your website hasn’t been updated in quite a while, you probably have some information that is inaccurate and/or links that are broken. Updating your content regularly will ensure that your website is presenting the most up-to-date information about your products and services.

If your business has been avoiding E-commerce because you think your target market doesn’t buy things online, you may be making an expensive mistake.

According to the report Generations Online released earlier this year by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, an amazing 71 percent of all online adults use the Internet to make purchases.

Even more interesting, older Americans are turning to the Internet in greater numbers than ever – and a large number of them are now using the Internet to research products and make purchases. Over the past few years the greatest growth (by percentage) in online users was for the age 70-74 group. In 2005, just 26 percent of this age group used the Internet. By 2008 (the survey’s end date), 45 percent of Americans age 70-74 were online.

For detailed survey results, you can check out the resources available at the links I gave above. But it’s also worth noting not just how many people are online, but also what they’re doing once they get connected.

There is plenty of good news in the report for E-commerce providers. According to the survey, 71 percent of online adults used the Internet to make a purchase. While it’s no surprise that purchasing activity is dominated by the age groups between 18 – 44, ‘Boomers’ and older Americans are no strangers to shopping online.

68 percent of younger Boomers (age 45-54) bought something online in 2008, as did 72 percent of older Boomers (age 55-63). Also note that the purchasing trend is fairly strong for the 64-and-older groups – around half of the Internet users in those age groups report buying something online.

Now, note that the report concerns percentages of the various demographic groups that use the Internet – and not the percentage of that group’s total population. It’s an important distinction, of course, because not everyone uses the Internet – especially among members of the older age groups. But the bright side to that – pointed out in the first part of the Pew study – is that the strongest growth in Internet use over the past three years has been among older Americans.

Google is huge, no doubt, but one area they have struggled is in establishing a social networking platform to connect their huge user base.  The more time users spend with Google – the more opportunities for Google to monetize off of them.  Granted, they have a lot of cool and free tools to play with, but there is a reason Google Adwords appear in your Gmail inbox.  Having a social network that users can hang out on for hours at a time is the big nut Google hopes to crack, and Google’s primary social networking nutcracker for the last few years has been Orkut.

Orkut?

Yeah Orkut.  You may have seen it if you have a Google account, maybe even quickly stopped to find out “what is this?” only to realize it is yet another social networking platform.  Everyone you know is already on Facebook, so why bother with Orkut – ever get a friend request from someone on Orkut?  I haven’t either.  Why bother – no one else is.

But Google has resources – lots of resources – and is continuing to find new ways to tap into the social networking goldmine.  The most recent big splash they made has been with Google Wave, a revolutionary new platform that has the potential to move Google into the Facebook and Twitter dominated spotlight.  However, another product has been recently released by them that taps into the social media network and at the same time could have a very drastic impact on your website.  This product is called SideWiki.  Oh, and pardon me while I giggle, as the word “wiki” always does that to me.

What is Google SideWiki?

Google SideWiki is a browser extension that you install that enhances the functionality of your Firefox or Internet Explorer browser (Chrome version coming soon).  With the SideWiki installed, you can now comment on any website that you visit and read the comments of other SideWiki users. Everything from SideWiki displays in a separate sidebar.

Is that it?

Basically, that is the gist of it.  My first thoughts were pretty underwhelming.  I mean we have tons of websites now where we can rank and review other sites.  I can bookmark a site in Delicious.com and write a review that other Delicious.com users can read.  I can put a StumbleUpon thumbs up or down review on a website I am visiting that other StumbleUpon users can see.  Seemed like more of the same.  But then it occurred to me that these comments and reviews are not happening on a third party website, they are happening on the site being visited.  This is important in that although I can moderate the comments posted on this blog, I can’t moderate the comments made on SideWiki.  I can also opt not to list comments on this blog, but I can’t opt out of having SideWiki users commenting on this blog.

But isn’t SideWiki a separate application that is part of a browser sidebar – not on the website itself?

Yes, and it can also only be seen by other SideWiki users – not visitors to the site that don’t have SideWiki or are not logged into their SideWiki account.  But it is still content that is displaying side-by-side with your website whether you want it there are not.  It would be like have an office building that Google puts up blank signs right next to and allows random people to come along and spray paint messages about your company on.  Some comments may be from satisfied customers  (great), but some may be from less than happy customers (not so great), some may be from competitors (uh-oh), some may be spam messages for Viagra (oh great) and some just may be juvenile drivel (yuck).  You paid good money for a nice website, why should it get junked up with user graffiti and framed in with content that is out of your control.  While the word “wiki” may make you giggle too, SideWiki could very well be no laughing matter for owners of business websites.

Now that I have (spray) painted a scary picture, not all is horrid.  Google SideWiki can be a nifty tool to communicate with your site visitors.  At the same time, I don’t see it becoming mainstream anytime soon, so most visitors will never see those SideWiki comments anyway.  Right now, SideWiki is just a trend to be aware of.  Google has the resources to push it hard or to repackage it into another yet-to-be-invented social networking tool that shows up a few years from now.  And what Google does, other developers will mimic and implement into their bag of tricks too.  So even if adoption of SideWiki is slow, you will see more of these types of tools in the near future.

1. Long Tail Keywords – a keyword phrase consisting of 3 or more terms that help you to more accurately describe a product or service that you are targeting on your website. For example, “Shania Twain Christmas album.”
2. Short Tail Keywords – either one or two keywords used as a broad description for a selection of products or services that you are targeting on your website. For example, “Christmas music.”

The idea of long tail and short tail keywords revolves around the actual search volume (amount of searches completed for any given term over a set amount of time) associated with that keyword or keyword phrase. The broader the keyword or keyword phrase generally means a larger search volume associated with it, and vice versa for long tail keywords. The trick is to find a number of long tail keywords that provide the most search volume and lowest competition. Together these long tails will bring you more traffic than the one or two short tails combined, and not only that, but the traffic you receive from them will produce more conversions!

How to make sense of it all…

What we have discussed so far is the difference between long tail and short tail keywords. Now, let’s review each from the perspective of numbers so we can make sense of all this information.

Below is a chart that visually demonstrates the difference in search volume between long and short tail keywords and phrases…

Search Volume

Notice that there are more searches made for single keywords (short tails) than there are for multiple keywords (long tails). This may make you wonder… “Why are we even talking about long tail keywords?” Let’s take another look at the chart.  Take notice of how there are only a few short tail keywords available for you to target, but there are many more long tails. The “Sweet Spot” is from 2-5 keyword phrases. If we target these multiple long tails, their cumulative searches will outnumber the single keyword that you are targeting. This isn’t the only benefit however.

Below I have a chart that demonstrates the difference in the “Average Position” in the search engines associated with the use of long tail and short tail keywords…

Average Keyword Position

Once again you can see that it is favorable for you to target long tail keywords as it becomes increasingly easier to rank for page 1 SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). This is mainly due to the fact that there is more competition for the short tail keywords. The more competition there is for a keyword, the more difficult it becomes to rank high in the search engines.

“More Competition = Greater Ranking Difficulty”

Next take a look at another chart below that portrays the CTR (Click Through Rate) associated with long and short tail keywords…

Keyword CTR (Click Through Rate)

CTR (Click Through Rate) – the percentage of web traffic that “clicks through” to your site after viewing your search result in any given search engine. The CTR can be calculated by dividing the total “Clicks” your website gets by the amount of “Impressions” it receives during the same time frame. Afterwards, transpose the decimal into a percent by moving the decimal two places to the right.

Once again (notice a recurring theme yet?) you can see how long tails can help generate more traffic for your website. By increasing your position in the SERPs you increase your CTR. This is accomplished solely through the use of long tail keywords. What this basically means is that the more people who see your search engine listing… the more visits your website receives.

“High Ranking SERPs = Increased CTR + Greater Unique Visitors”

Finally, let’s look at what really matters, “Conversion Rate”. Below is a chart that shows how your conversion rate increases when visitors find your website through the use of long tail keywords.

Keyword Conversion Rate

Notice how the conversion rate is highest in the 3-5 word range. This is because 3-5 word keyword phrases are more descriptive. What do we know about people who use descriptive terms? Chances are they know exactly what product or service they are looking for. This tells us that if they find your website while using descriptive keyword phrases, the chances of them converting to a buyer are greatly increased.

For example, let’s say that you are walking through the local hardware store. You need a hammer. While walking past the aisles you look at the signs hanging above them. You see a sign that says “Tools”. That’s pretty broad, so where in the “Tools” aisle can we find the hammer we are looking for? Looking down the aisle we see more signs… one says “Power Tools” and the other “Hand Tools”. We know that a hammer is a hand tool, but there are so many! In the “Hand Tools” area we see another sign that reads “Carpentry Hand Tools”, and a series of others that read “Carpentry Hand Tools – Hammers”, “Carpentry Hand Tools – Ball Peen Hammers”, “Carpentry Hand Tools – Claw Hammers”, “Carpentry Hand Tools – Framing Hammers”, “Carpentry Hand Tools – Demolition Hammers”, “Carpentry Hand Tools – Dead Blow Hammers”  and so on and so on (didn’t know there are so many different types of hammers, did you?). My point here is… Who do you think is more inclined to buy a hammer from you today? A person who stopped at the “Tools” aisle and couldn’t see what they were looking for or someone who saw the descriptive signs and saw what they were looking for without having to walk down the aisle and fumble around for it. Almost 100% of the time the answer is going to be the latter.

Conclusion…

I have witnessed companies invest their advertising dollars in many ways in hopes of increasing their SERPs and web visibility. From pretty new web designs, pay-per-click campaigns, link building campaigns and more. Truth-be-told… none of the above is the stand alone answer. In fact, there isn’t a “stand alone” answer. The answer is SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and what I have outlined and discussed in this article is only one of many factors that make up SEO. The SEO conglomerate is what, together, makes it possible to generate traffic and sales for your company through your website. Part of this group is “Search Engine Visibility”, and part of search engine visibility is targeting long and short tail keywords together. We do this in order to generate the optimal amount of traffic for your website, with the highest CTRs and Conversion Rates, to bring you the greatest ROI possible for your company.

Contrary to popular belief, SEO isn’t a one shot deal. SEO is an ongoing battle that changes every day, and in order to keep pace you need to review, record and make changes accordingly on a daily basis. It takes time and effort, but if you can’t do it yourself we can do it for you at NetSource Technologies. Call us today for a free consultation and quote (1-800-709-3240), and let us help increase your website’s ROI.

While email has been around as long the Internet and may not be as “trendy” as the new social media marketing strategies, email campaigns and email marketing are still among the most popular and effective tools in an advertiser’s arsenal.   According to a recent study by the Center for Media Research, 56.8% of marketers polled “realistically” plan to use email in their advertising next year.

But even though email may be “old”, new strategies and technologies come along every day that can help you start an effective email campaign, or improve your existing one.  Below, I present five new things to try along with five things you really should avoid when planning your next email campaign.

5 NEW THINGS TO TRY

1.  Tie-In to Social Marketing
If you’ve done anything online in the last 6 months, you’ve probably noticed the latest buzz, Social Media or Social Marketing.  Social Media is buzzworthy for a reason; it is right behind email in popularity among marketers, and it seems that everyone is on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, or some other social network.  According to a TechCrunch study, the major social networks combined attracted over 300 million visitors during September 2008.  Those numbers have skyrocketed over the past year.

Even if your company has not created its own Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter profile yet, you can still take advantage of your email subscribers’ social networking habits in a couple of easy ways.  First, be sure to always include a “Forward to a Friend” link in all of your email campaigns.  Most major email newsletter programs include this functionality and will also allow you to track which subscribers have forwarded your email and to whom.  Next, be sure to add social media “share” links to your emails, allowing email recipients to post a link to a web-version of your email on their Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or LinkedIn pages.

2. Take Advantage of Reporting & Stats
Most email newsletter programs provide you with a host of reporting and statistics.  Have you taken a look lately?  Do you take advantage of the information available in order to improve your campaign results?  Here are a few things you might want to look at.

View and Click-Thru – Take a look at how many people “viewed,” or opened, the last email you sent out.  Next take a look at how many people clicked on the links within your email.  Are you happy with the percentages?  Do some of your emails fare better than others?  Do more successful emails have different content types or better subject lines?  Less or more text and photos?  Are you more successful on a particular day of the week?  Come up with some theories regarding why, then see if you’re right by sending two different versions of your next email.  The first email can be sent to the even numbered subscribers on your list, and the second to the odd subscribers.  eNewsletters Pro allows you to do this easily.

Interested Readers – You can also take a look at which subscribers found your email interesting by looking at how many times they opened and clicked through on a message.  Perhaps you’d like to follow-up with these customers with a secondary message, or even a phone call.

3.  Segment Your Email List
Do you have a single email newsletter list that holds all of your subscriber emails?  If so, you may not be sending the most effective emails possible.  You can increase your View and Click-Thru rates simply by sending targeted information that your subscribers are most likely to be interested in.  Having a catch-all newsletter list forces you to send a one-size-fits-all email, when you could be sending emails to:

• Current Customers vs. Potential Customers
• Particular Product or Service categories that subscribers have expressed interest in
• Geographic or other demographic groups that effect your particular customer base
  (Perhaps you offer different things to local and out of state customers)

A short word of warning though: resist the urge to segment too much.  If you create too many lists, you are less likely to keep up with the multiple email campaigns.

4. Integrate Email with Your Entire Sales Cycle
Who says email campaigns can only be used for marketing to potential customers?  Have you considered adding prospects to help shorten your sales cycle, and adding existing customers to continue customer service and maintenance?

Many email newsletter programs allow you to set up a series of scheduled emails in a single campaign that will be sent to a new subscriber at set intervals.  So you can automate follow-up with potential customers, remind new customers of the special features of your product, notify customers of warranty expiration and offer extended warranty sign-up, and so much more.  Once you set up these scheduled emails, you’ve literally added a new member to your Customer Care team.

5.  Clean Up & Build Your Email List
Don’t abandon your email list once you’ve imported your customer email addresses into your new email newsletter program. To make sure you’ve got as many high-quality email addresses in your list as possible, be sure to:

• Remove email addresses from your subscriber list that have bounced too often
• Identify low- to no-click subscribers, and send a personalized message to them
• Be sure there is a benefits-based subscription offer on every page of your website, especially the Contact form, check-out pages, and Home page.  Some examples of benefits-based offers include a free gift on their birthday, a chance to win in a drawing, and exclusive offers.

5 PITFALLS TO AVOID

1.  “Email Fatigue”
One of the most critical components of your email campaign is balancing the need to send just one more message against the dangers of annoying your valuable subscribers, risking falling Views and Click-Thru’s, and prompting Un-subscribes.  Even worse, your company could be added to personal and corporate SPAM lists, risking the delivery of your email even to those customers you haven’t annoyed yet.

Respect your subscribers’ time and attention.  They did you a favor by providing you with their email address because they thought you’d send them something useful, so return the favor by delivering relevant information to them on a reasonable schedule.

2.  Information Overload
As a close partner to the point above, information overload can cripple the effectiveness of your email campaign.  Your customer’s time and attention is limited, so don’t load them down with 15 – 20 offers that they’ll need to weed through.  Instead, keep your messages short and sweet.  Send only a handful of your most attractive and relevant offers, and you’ll see your click-thru and conversion rates increase.

3.  Emailing Without Permission
It is very tempting to exhaust every available avenue in trying to secure higher sales, and that email address you got from a business card at a trade show sure looks attractive.  But you do not want your company to be identified by Yahoo, AOL, EarthLink, and other ISPs as a Spammer, or someone who sends unsolicited and unwanted email.  Send too many messages that get flagged by “subscribers” as SPAM or Junk though, and that’s exactly what will happen.  Then suddenly all of your emails will be routed directly to the Junk folder or will be blocked entirely.

4. List Purchase and/or Rental
This pitfall is related to the one above, where permission is vague at best.  As an email marketer you should be aware that when you rent or purchase an email list, most of the newly obtained “subscribers” didn’t knowingly agree to have their email addresses sold.  Your company will be exposed to all of the dangers listed above for emailing without permission.  In addition, the quality of these leads and the relevance of the message you send to them will be secondary to the email addresses you have collected legitimately.

5.  Leaping Before Looking
Now that you’ve crafted that perfect email and avoided the worse pitfalls, don’t just send it out!  Always test your email before sending it to your subscribers.  It only takes a few minutes, but you’ll consider it time well-spent when you catch a costly mistake – bad links, wrong prices or contact information, misspelled products, or outdated and inaccurate content.

Build a “Test List” that gets the first delivery on all of your emails.  Be sure to include your own email address, plus the address of your best proofreader.  Then look for volunteers within your organization with the following types of email addresses or email readers: AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, Outlook, and a mobile device.  Proofread your text for spelling, grammar, and accuracy.  Test all of your links.  Make sure readability and layout are consistent across email readers.   Did you include an Unsubscribe, or Opt-Out, link?  Are your company name, website address, and phone number prominently displayed?  Confirm that your email is perfect, then you’re ready to send.

Have some tips of your own to share? Comment below and let us know what’s worked for you… and what mistakes we can all learn from.