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Knowing the Buyer’s Intent - Free Keyword Help From Microsoft

How would you like to know if the visitor coming to your site is a buyer or just a looker? How would you like to have more buyers than lookers visit your website? Microsoft has developed a free resource to help do exactly that.

The tool has a fancy name - Detecting Online Commercial Intention - and some complex calculations behind it. Fortunately Microsoft has made it easy to use.

You probably already know that Keywords are the Critical Success Factor in getting the right visitors to your website and into your business. You want traffic that is looking for your products and services. People find those by using specific words and phrases - Keywords - on search engines - Google, Yahoo, etc. Therefore in order for people to find you the website and its content must be created around the specific keywords that people are using to find your specific market and niche.

This leaves a gapping hole for our needs however as website and business owners. People use the web to either just find information and because they are looking to buy something. We want those buyers looking to buy something - preferable in our office or store. This is where Microsoft’s “Detecting Online Commercial Intention” tool comes in.

Using the website Detecting Online Commercial Intention you can learn which keywords attract buyers and which are simply keywords used to find information. Microsoft says it this way:

“Web page searches display two levels of commercial intent: informational and transactional. This tool can detect customer intent to acquire information or to purchase products based on their search queries or recently visited URLs. For example, if a customer searches for “canon digital camera”, it is likely that they want to purchase a canon digital camera; therefore, the online commercial intent is strong, with a confidence level larger than 0.5.”

“This tool can be used to find keywords that are commercial but have low ad coverage. From a SEM point of view, it is useful to find these keywords as they have low bid density (low price), but high commercial value. Similarly, for an advertizing engine, this can help increase ad relevancy by displaying fewer ads if a keyword has low online commercial intent.”

Although the technology behind how the site determines the keyword’s effectiveness for knowing buying intent (Detecting Online Commercial Intention) is complex -see below - the site is easy to use. Simply type in the keyword or phrase and Microsoft will produce a percentage number on its value - or the likelihood that a person using this term is to buy what they find. The result is in a .00 form, so .20 would be 20% and so forth. Anything over a .50 (50%) is considered good.

Keywords are the critical success factor for getting both paid and organic traffic to your website. Knowing if they produce business is the most important question. Until now the only way to do this is to measure the conversion rate - sales - of different keywords based on the articles, advertising, and experience. Unfortunitly this information is historical data - hindsight - meaning you’ve had to use them and pay for them without knowing first their effectiveness.

Microsoft has provided the missing link of keyword research. Now you can get a better idea if the keywords used will produce visitors who are buyers or just lookers. This is very important, especially if your’e paying for advertising, such as Adwords, which are based on keywords and costs money every time someone clicks on them.

Another Free - Quick - Easy tool for you to use.

Your Website Sucks - and You’re to Blame

Before you kill the messenger let me explain just why your website sucks, why you’re responsible and how it can be fixed.

Potential customers don’t like to be annoyed, figure out your site, or have their time wasted. They also want real information not endless pitches and over hyped products.

How did I learn this about your website? Well I’ve spent hours on the web looking at your website and countless others. Just today I was searching for a solution to a simple problem: I needed the manual to a radio that I bought last month. Google gave me a million hits but everyone was a dry hole of misinformation, product pitches and fake reviews. The Internet is becoming a babble of incoherent nonsense - a circus. It’s getting to be like the carnival with barkers yelling at you to buy some of their cheap foreign goods.

Here are the most common annoyances that blow visitors right off your webpages:

• Loud audio or video messages that start up as soon as you open the page
• Navigation that takes Einstein to use
• The important information is hidden
• The site is just an excuse to get a bunch of Adsense ads and other advertisements displayed

There are many other reasons - and the fixes for them. For the sake of brevity I’ve put them in an article that you can read by Clicking Here

And by the way…if you think your website doesn’t suck or you sell quality foreign goods make a comment and post your website. I’ll check it out and let the world know that at least one website is really great. Thanks.

Is the Local Internet going to save Newspapers?

Wow! We all know that offline publications, like newspapers and magazines are hurting - some would say dieing. Now a big study comes out that says Local Internet my be the salvation for newspapers. This proves that Local Internet Marketing is a MUST for businesses - even if they only work or sell offline.
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You can read the entire article at Can Local Web Ads Save Newspapers?

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Here are some of the highlights:

“It has been a rough time for the newspaper industry in the US, with a series of layoffs against a backdrop of falling revenues. Consumers still read newspapers, but the rise of online news and opinion sites and blogs has given them additional reading choices.”

“One fresh indicator that print newspaper readers are shifting to news sites comes from the Readership Institute. Although two-thirds of Internet users surveyed in July 2008 said they still used print newspapers about as much as they did before they started visiting news sites, more than one-quarter said they were reading print less as a result, and that figure has grown during the past 5 years.”

Newspapers revenue from their online advertising is growing and perhaps will save them.

Bottom Line: the web is going local. Even local newspapers are now realizing the importance of supporting business on the Internet. Most advertising dollars are shifting to online publications and websites because that is where people are looking for the companies they want to do business with. Growing a business using the Internet is more important than ever.

Honest advice about what works to get traffic

I just found one of the best posts I’ve ever read about what really works to get traffic - and what isn’t working. Scary that it’s written by a person younger than my son. Do yourself a big favor and click over to LLia’s website for some good information on link generation and traffic techniques. SEO and Marketing

I am tired of hearing about the same old link development methods over and over again. Go to any seo forum you like and start a 2.301.991-st topic called: “What are good ways to get backlinks?”. I bet you will get told to go and submit your website to directories, write articles and exchange links. Come on! We are in 2008! You need to stand out from the rest in order to succeed at seo!

I have decided to sort this out once and for all and cover every single link development method known to man. (Probably not but if i miss something out please do leave a comment) I will keep this nice and sweet. Us seo-ers don’t usually have all day to read a blog entry From now on I will simply point everyone asking about way to get backlinks to this post. Here we go…

This post is great because it debunks a lot of the tired methods and myths about SEO and target generation. Tired of beating your brains out without any results? Try some of Llia’s ideas.

SEO and Marketing

Free Photo Editing Software - Paint.NET a Photoshop Alternative

As you post on your Blog there will come a time when you want to add graphics and pictures to your website. The most popular software for creating and editing pictures is Adobe’s Photoshop. However it costs lots of money. There are several great alternatives. Two of my favorites are Paint.NET and GIMP. The power of this program is remarkable - far beyond what most of us need or will ever use. However some image editing always does have to be done, if only to crop out an unwanted area of a picture to resize an image for putting it on the web.

I use Paint.NET because its easy to use for the graphically challenged among us. Paint.NET will accept Photoshop files. It will also edit, crop and save your images into different formats, all of which are necessary for getting pictures onto the web.

This is what the Paint.NET website says about the program:

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.

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Below is a screenshots of Paint.net in action. Another great tool that doesn’t kill your wallet, in fact it’s (can you guess what I’m going to say?) Free Quick and Easy. Cheers.

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Website Naming - Harder Than Ever

Naming your website is one of the most important decisions that you will have to make - and one of the earliest. It should reflect what you do or your niche and be as close to your offline business as possible.

The problem is that with so many existing websites finding a good name that isn’t taken can difficult. Most webhosts provide a service to check on names for you however they are time consuming and hit and miss. Here is a website that will look up a name and offer suggestions based on keywords: DomainsBot. It is free, easy to use and quick - all the things I like. Happy site naming…

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The Missing Element of Growth: Strategy

I just read a good article suggesting that the way to have a successful website is by buying (taking over) an existing website that has a lot of traffic.

Here are some of its key ideas that I agree with:

Looking at many online small business owners, always so busy with current operational issues, I have noticed that they are often missing the bigger picture. The majority are lacking any strategy on how to successfully grow their online presence/visibility.

Cost. We all know that small business budgets are limited, however investing in buying a website can reward you and your business greatly. Not only are you gaining an extra base of potential costumers, but you’re adding an important asset to your business, which will increase in value over time.

You can read the entire article at Small Business Growth Strategy

I suspect that buying a website is more useful for a company that wants to do business on the web instead of growing their local business. However the author makes some great points:

First, all success starts with a clear focused purpose - A STRATEGY. The ready, fire, aim approach works in the movies but in real life ends up costing a businessperson a lot of money. That’s the main idea of providing a clear strategy in the article I wrote called Profit by Using the Internet.

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If you can purchase a website that works with the strategy of

• Improving
• Growing
• Expanding

your business great. However whatever action you take make sure that it fits into the goals and purpose of the business. Have a clear strategy with the metrics to measure success and failure. Don’t use cost alone. The soft benefits of reputation, credibility, and customer service improvement are difficult to measure but those are the very things that develop customer loyality and sustain a business in hard times.

Buying a website is a good tactic, but is a tactic, not a strategy. It is a powerful weapon in your growth arsenal but like traffic building, search engine optimization (SEO), Google Adwords, and alll tactics it is not the place to start.

Having a clear goals, a time line, and a budget are the places to start.

Perhaps just as important is to keep in mind that those goals and plans need to integrate into the overall business strategy - with one supporting the other. Otherwise your customers will be confused, you’ll spend money needlessly and you won’t get the powerful results possible by leveraging both offline and online mediums.

Relationship Marketing

If you’re a successful business owner, you already know that the success of your business depends on the relationships built with customers. This is twice as true when doing business online.

Yet there are millions of websites out there that do nothing to cultivate customer relationships. Time after time, this is what you’ll find:

• Ego - All about the company: We have this, we did that, we said, we, we, we… The truth is that nobody cares. If a visitor doesn’t see something that’ they value they’ll be reaching for the back button.
• Brochure - A replica of the company brochure, with product and service information, photos, driving directions, and contact information. Just like millions of other websites.
• Buy Me! – There’s no shortage of websites selling products and services. The problem is most of them don’t offer anything else - no useful information, no free trial, no coupons, nothing. Just an opportunity to separate the visitor from their cash.

Just as in real-life, online relationships take time to develop. The constant barrage of sales pitches and hype has made many web surfers hold on tightly to their wallets. Until they get to know the person behind the website, you are tarred with the same brush as every other greedy marketer trying to pick their pocket.

So how do you begin to develop customer relationships? Two words: relationship marketing. But what is “Relationship Marketing”?

As an independent professional, a freelancer or a small business owner one of the most challenging tasks is marketing. Michael Gerber’s book “the e-Myth” points out that most individuals know their trade or profession well. They know what their customers value and what to offer them. However they just don’t know how to locate people (prospects) and convince them to use their services or products (become customers).

One of the most powerful techniques in marketing is to step into the shoes of your ideal client and brainstorm how they would find your business. This helps to refine the exact target market looking for your product or service. It also helps figure out what would be the best marketing methods and the messages to communicate your message to them.

Relationship marketing is about having a dialog with your customers over a period of time. It can also include gathering customer information and analyzing their behavior. You may not have the financial resources of Best Buy or WalMart, but as a local business owner you can do something they can’t - have real person-to-person relationship with your customers.

You do that by providing value to your customers, usually good information and value packed offers. Remember, people don’t go online looking for something to buy. They’re usually seeking information. So your strategy should be to use the information your customers need to build and maintain relationships with them.

There are 2 critical components to making this strategy work: a value-packed website and the consistent use of email to stay in touch.

To continue this article click on the page links below…

Pages: 1 2

Keyword Brainstorming

Keywords are the work horses of the Internet. Keywords are the critical success factor of any business that wants to get business from the Web - offline or online businesses. Local Businesses especially must have the right keywords in their content and on their site to attract new customers.

Sometimes however we get stumped trying to brainstorm the effective keywords for our niche and our business. Kwmap in a free resource that will help brainstorm and link different keywords in an attractive and intuitive display.

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As you can see from the website picture Kwmap will not only graph the keyword you search on but provide an entire list of associated keywords and relevent sites. You can drill down on the differnt keywords by clicking on them. Kwmap also allows you to link your site and url directy - in other words free publicity and networking for your business’ website.

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Another Free - Quick - and Easy resource for those wanting to take the Business Web Step.

Remarkable find: SocialMarker does the work for you

Every now and then you find a gem on the internet, a tool or website that makes your life so much easier that you don’t know how you lived without it. Recently I found such a treasure in SocialMarker. What makes this site so remarkable is that it is not only FREE but easy to use and a huge huge time saver.

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Growth requires new business. New business requires people seeing our offer - prospects - traffic in the online world. Everysite wants more traffic, including the websites of a local business.

To build traffic you need to network in at least 3 ways:

• Article Directories
• Website Directories
• Social Newtworks

Social Networks are increasing becoming the most important element for driving traffic (organic, that is unpaid traffic) on the web. Propeller, Digg, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Technorati, Del.icio.us, to mention only a few are becoming critical success factors for websites.

What is it?

Social bookmarking is a powerful tool in promoting a website. But going through all of those social bookmarking sites is very time-consuming and downloading all toolbars is madness! That’s where SocialMarker.com comes in, the free service designed to reduce the time and effort needed to socially bookmark a website.

How Do You Use It?

All you need to do is simply drag this button to your bookmarks toolbar, in order to create a submission bookmarklet. When you are on a website that you want to socially mark, simply select the text and click the SocialMarker button to pre-populate the submission form with the selected information.

Why SocialMarker?

It can help you spread a link on 47 of the best social bookmarking sites in under 15 minutes!

• It helps you get a lot of backlinks.
• It helps you increase your traffic.
• Your link gets indexed by Google in a matter of minutes.
• Best of all, it’s free!

Of course the problem is who has time to enter information and link to all of these sites? No-one - or at least no-one who has to work for a living. Social Marker has taken the work out of the process. Here are the steps:

1. Sign up and get an account at the socai networking

2. Find interesting information and highlight what you want posted on the networking sites

3. Hit the link or bookmark that takes you back to SocialMarker

4. The information is automatically populated and the site takes you through each social network you’ve checked off to post the links.

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One of the great features of the site is that if you’re not registered with one of the social networks it allows registering without leaving the process of posting the information or loosing your place. Once you’ve registered and told your computer to keep you logged in then the entire process is automatic. Unbelievably fast, easy, and effective. Just take a look at the popular social networks SocialMarker works with:

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If you’re reading this and you want to build traffic - which I hope is everyone - check out SocialMarker. It’s free, quick, and easy. My signature theme - free quick, and easy. Cheers…Russ