On Wednesday, February 23, 2011, a category 5 hurricane named “Panda” swept through the Gulf of Google devastating businesses large and small alike. The hurricane was reportedly named after one of Google’s engineers.

So what was the reason for this catastrophic and “game-changing” update? Well, according to Google:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites – sites which are low-value, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites – sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. It is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.” (Source: Google Blog)

Mission accomplished. Anyway, in the aftermath of the Panda update, there are 11 important SEO facts I’ve learned based on my own personal experiences, the experiences of my clients, and from listening to top SEO professionals across the Internet.

The above passages are from an article I wrote last July titled, Google Panda Update: 11 Important SEO Facts You Should Know.

In item #7 of the 11 SEO facts I wrote:

7. Avoid Excessive Advertisements or Images

“Be mindful of having too many advertisements on any of your pages, in relation to “meaningful” content. There seems to be a direct correlation between the number of advertisements on a page (especially above the fold advertising), and the overall ranking of a page. Make sure you have plenty of quality, relevant content to balance out your web pages.”

Well, now it’s official. On January 19, 2012, Google announced that it will penalize sites with pages that are top-heavy with ads.

The change – called the “page layout algorithm” – takes direct aim at any site with pages where content is buried under tons of ads.

From Google’s post on its Inside Search blog today:

“We’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.

So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience.

Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”

Google also posted the same information to its Google Webmaster Central blog.

Sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlay ads are not impacted by this. It only applies to static ads in fixed positions on pages themselves. (Source: SearchEngineLand.com)

Google’s Hypocrisy

Danny Sullivan (SearchEngineLand.com) said on the same day that Google’s web search team announced this change, he received a message from Google’s AdSense team encouraging him to put more ads on his site.

Can you believe that?

Think about the hypocrisy for a moment. When you perform a search on Google, the first thing you see when they return your search results are above-the-fold ads. But yet, they want to penalize you for the above-the-fold ads on your site.

That’s typical Google…Do what we say, not what we do. Hey, Google! What about our user experience when we do a search?

Quality Content Matters

So what does all of this mean? It means play by the rules or suffer the consequences. It also means the content on your website matters more than ever before. Not to be redundant, but I have to go back to what Google said when explaining Panda:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites-sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites- sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on. It is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”

So what constitutes high-quality content?

Like everything else in life, when it comes to quality, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, what constitutes quality to one person, might not necessarily be quality to the next person. You know the old saying…

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

What does that mean? It simply means, what is useless to one person might be valuable to another.

For example, my idea of “quality” content is to write useful “how-to” articles, (minimum 800 words) or blog posts that explain how to market your website better. I strive to create the type of content that not only helps people – but also content that other quality websites will want to link to and share with their visitors. My experience and results has taught me this standard satisfies Google.

Your idea of quality website content might be to write sales copy promoting your products and services. And while there’s nothing wrong with doing that, it’s not exactly the type of content that quality websites will want to link to. While it may do a fine job of promoting your products – (which is what it’s designed to do), it doesn’t necessarily build a relationship with visitors – the type of relationship that will compel them to return to your website over and over again.

And while I prefer to write articles, quality content can take many forms including, videos, e-books, newsletters, press releases, podcasts, seminars, or a variety of other formats. But whatever form it takes, make sure it’s the type of quality other websites will want to link to and share with others.

Google And Relevancy

But it’s not enough to just publish quality content. Your content also needs to be relevant to the overall theme of your site. Google places a tremendous amount of value on relevancy. So do everything you can to make sure your pages are as relevant as possible and accurately reflect your site’s actual content.

Why am I making such a big deal out of relevancy? Because Google does, that’s why. This is what it says on Google’s Technology page:

“Co-founder Larry Page once described the “perfect search engine” as something that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want.” We can’t claim that Google delivers on that vision 100 percent today, but we’re always working on new technologies aimed at bringing all of Google closer to that ideal.

When you type a query into the Google search box, your query is sent to Google machines and compared with all the documents stored in our index to identify the most relevant matches. In a split second, our system prepares a list of the most relevant pages and also determines the relevant sections and bits of text, images, videos and more. What you get is a list of search results with relevant information excerpted in “snippets” (short text summary) beneath each result.”

Did you notice how many times Google used the word “relevant” in the above paragraph? And while Google may not always return the most relevant search results 100 percent of the time, make no mistake, relevancy does matter when it comes to website rankings.

Conclusion

Consistently getting back relevant search results is often an exercise in futility. Think about how many times you have searched for something, only to click on the link to find out the website’s description didn’t come close to matching up with the actual content on the page.

Maybe you landed on a web page that was nothing but one long sales letter trying to sell you an e-book of some sort. Or perhaps, you landed on a page that tried to force you to give up your name and e-mail address in order to receive some free report that had absolutely nothing to do with what you were searching for in the first place.

Like I said, consistently getting back relevant search results is often an exercise in futility. But nowadays, you can benefit by NOT being part of the problem – but rather, the solution.

When you think about online visibility for your local business it’s so easy to get wrapped up and overloaded with what you should be doing on the internet to promote your website. Yet, small changes to your every day business routine can make a big difference.

Often, business owners think about being visible online as a way of reaching people whom you have had no contact with at all. That’s true in many cases. Sometimes, online visibility is as simple as making sure that people you interact with (even briefly) as part of your usual business routines are aware of your online presence.

Not everyone wants to pick up the phone or call in to your premises to find out basic information like your opening hours or who to contact. Sometimes people just want to find out a bit more about you and your company.

In this day and age of always being plugged in to the Internet, your website is the first point of call. That is especially true outside of usual business hours. Make it easy for those brief contacts to find you, don’t make them search when they don’t need to!

5 Simple Offline to Online Visibility Tips

1. Your Business Card

Obvious isn’t it? Well maybe not. I have a mountain of business cards that have little more than an address, phone and email on them. Why force people’s hands and make them search for more information about you? Give them your online details upfront and include:

* Your website address.
* Your active social media profiles such as LinkedIn, FaceBook page and Twitter.
* Why not try a QR Code?

QR Codes can be as simple as a vCard with all your contact details, including your address, phone, email and website to store directly on the phone. You can also redirect to your website, Facebook Page or even Google Places review page. The possibilities are almost endless.

2. Your Business Stationery

Invoices, receipts, compliment slips, info leaflets, headed notepaper… How many of these have your online details displayed? Again, do not just include your email address, but also your website and active social profiles too.

3. Your Vehicle

You may not have the budget for a full designed vehicle wrap, but you can put your details on a decal or sunscreen strip.

4. Print Ads

Whether it’s the local paper or Yellow Pages, always include your online details when you advertise. Make it effective by giving people a reason to visit your website – and capture their email address in return for your offer!

5. Promotional Gifts

We’ve all done it at some point – trade shows, seminars, demonstration or open days give out what seems to be a ton of pens, badges, balloons, key rings, mugs – the whole she-bang all nicely printed with a business name. Make them work harder for you and at least include your website address too.

The great thing about directing people back to your website is it can be easily tracked when you implement it correctly. You’ll get a good picture of where people have come from, what works and what doesn’t.

Before you place the order to re-print your stationery or ads, think “online visibility” – your website is open 24/7 waiting for that 2am inspirational or emergency visit.

Jan Kearney specializes in helping local businesses take advantage of the worldwide web to grow their business. You are invited to read Jan’s blog at http://www.mylocalbusinessonline.co.uk

When I wrote the article “10 Proven Benefits of Converting Your Articles into Videos” the first comment I received from one of my followers was “How do you turn your articles into videos?” This prompted me to come up with this simple explanation on how to go about it.

There are several options of converting your articles into videos. For instance you can use PowerPoint to create animated slides and convert them into a video format. You can use a flash program to create your videos. But these options really require technical know-how and most people may find it a little bit difficult.

The easiest way to convert your articles into videos is by using an article-to-video-converter software that turns them into videos in the shortest time possible. It is user friendly and it doesn’t require much technical know-how. But you need to select a good program that allows you to edit your article in any way you want. Secondly, you need to spend some money to use the service.

Normally a good program will have a variety of free images you can choose from to use as a background for your videos, with an option to upload your own images. A good program should also have a variety of free background music and a provision to distribute your videos to major video sharing websites like YouTube, MySpace, Yahoo Video, Daily Motion, Metacafe, Revver, Sclipo and many others at no extra cost to save you time and money.

Converting your articles into videos, using an article-to-video converter program, is a three-step process that involves copying and pasting your article into the program, converting it to video and uploading it for distribution to video sharing websites. It’s as simple as that.

Copying and pasting your article into the program takes just a second. After pasting it into the program, the software automatically separates the paragraphs, which then become your video screen descriptions. Each screen description corresponds to a specific paragraph.

To effectively convert your articles into videos, you need to edit the article. Editing entails making changes on your video descriptions. When you add so many words, you risk having very small words on the screen. It entails transforming your text into audio, using the voice-over tool. The program already has prerecorded voices of varying tones for both men and women. You just have to pick the voices that best meet your needs and use them. You also have the option of uploading your own voices.

The process of converting your articles into videos also entails adding background images and music that you consider to be good for your videos. After inserting the background image and music, make sure you preview your video to see whether it’s showing properly and is as you want it to be. If there are any changes to make, you can always go back on specific paragraphs to make your changes.

After converting your articles into videos, you are left with the task of uploading and distributing them to video sharing sites. There is an option of uploading them to your blog and to your Twitter and Facebook pages. If you have a website, you can still copy and paste the HTML code to your website. You can also adjust the settings to resize the width and length of your video on your site.

While turning your articles into videos, you need to optimize your keyword phrases in your video titles and high to enjoy the benefit of getting organic traffic. Secondly, you need to be creative enough to spice up your videos and to make them unique. When you do that then you are assured of getting a steady flow of traffic to your website. Does that help you?

Blog traffic has always slowed down during the Holiday Season for me (you know, everyone gorging on turkey and watching all that damn football) You’re either cooking for turkey day (you know, that ten hours of hard work that gets devoured in under five minutes flat), traveling to family and friends (could be one family or two, three or four when you throw in the in-laws, cousins, grown kids, etc., etc., etc). But I’m getting off track here. I’m starting to have flashbacks of the Christmas I spent almost an entire day driving from Virginia to North Carolina and back half way through Virginia and back to North Carolina again. That was the day I learned to say HELL NO to every single family member who just had to see my family on every holiday.

Normally advertising on this blog is $30 for three months. If you guys are anything like me you don’t have a lot of time to mess around with your blogs. I always buy a few ads on EC, Adgitize and Adwords and a couple of blogs I know get constant traffic. This way my numbers don’t drop too far while I’m out doing my familial holiday duties. Through the first of the year, for $30 you will get advertising not only on this blog but on 3 of my blogs that see about 22638 page views a month. (of course there is still the $15 for one month advertising) Go to this page to buy advertising and make sure you send an email to the address given with all of your info.

The Ad Master

Slightly Sarcastic

Teen Suicide Talk

Only Through 1/12

3 Blogs/3 Months $30.00 USD 3 Blogs/1 Month $15.00 USD 1 Blog/1 Month $10.00 USD

Affiliate marketing is one of the fastest and most affordable ways to get started making money online. In essence, what you are doing is selling other companies’ products for a commission. You can make money without developing your own product or building your own sales site. All you do is promote the product and send the customers to the company’s site to make the purchase.

Of course, I don’t want to make this sound too easy. It does take work, commitment, persistence and time like any other business. By following the ten tips below, your affiliate sales should increase and thereby increasing your monthly income.

1. Personal Recommendation – You always want to try the product before you start promoting it so you can give it a personal recommendation. A personal recommendation can be very powerful in persuading people the product is “real”. This is especially true if you are already established online and have a good clean reputation. If you are not well-known a personal recommendation will still carry a lot of weight.

2. Quality Products – Be sure to only represent quality products that you would actually use yourself. People might ask you if you do or would use the product yourself. This is another reason for trying the product before you sell it or at least do extensive research on the product.

3. Know the Product – This is another reason you need to do extensive research on the product. People will ask you questions about the product and you need to know what you are selling.

4. Know Your Target Market – What type of people come to your site/blog? What are your readers’ needs and wants? If you have a health and fitness blog, you probably won’t want to promote a dessert cookbook or movies because these things will not benefit your readers. Be sure to match the products to your target market.

5. Reliable Company – Be sure to also check out the company before you sign up with them. Research any reviews, complaints, awards, etc. this company might have. Contact other affiliates and ask how the company manages their affiliate program and payouts.

6. Product Updates – Keep abreast of all product updates so you can keep your readers and visitors updated as well. Check out the company’s product info frequently. Always know the latest about the product you are representing!

7. Sales Material – Most companies will provide professionally written sales materials for their affiliates to use. They will have ezine ads, solo ads, email signatures, graphics, etc. Take advantage of these sales materials instead of trying to create your own.

8. Be Selective – Find just a few quality products to promote rather than signing up for every affiliate program you can find. Choose a few good products that complement your site and each other. This will enable you to focus more on the products and promote them more effectively.

9. Spread the Word – Don’t make the mistake of just slapping one of the company’s ads on your site and think the sales will start rolling in. Promote them on your social networking sites. Add a blurb in your email signature. Post them on forums, groups, etc. Add them to your article resource box. Mention them to your mailing list on a regular basis. You need to promote them heavily and consistently to make a good amount of sales. Keep abreast of new and innovative marketing strategies.

10. Test and Track – As with any online business you should test and track your marketing and sales strategies. Find out what is working and what is not. Concentrate more on what is bringing in sales to raise your income.

Affiliate marketing can be an effective way to make money online by itself and it can also be a supplement to your main business. Unfortunately, many people will sign up with an affiliate program, paste an ad on their site and think that is all they have to do. When I first started online, I too signed up for any program I could find and just threw up a bunch of ads on my site. This is a common mistake that can be overcome.

Affiliate marketing will not work for you unless you make it work. It is a business like any other and needs to be given the same attention and commitment!

What is geolocation as applied to SEO? It’s when a search engine identifies your whereabouts (by your IP or GSM) and serves you the search results relevant to that particular territory. Some folks find it limiting, while others are quite happy with the feature.

However, when it comes to checking rankings, geolocation is mostly bad for SEO’s, since many of them work on websites that target multiple countries, in which case it becomes rather tricky to collect SEO data (rankings and other metrics) for a particular country when you yourself are in a different location. So, how does one manage to do it? Let’s see what possibilities there are.

1. Use a Proxy Server

Proxy servers are INTERMEDIARIES between the searcher and the remote server he/she is addressing. And, being intermediaries, they can disguise a search and make it appear as if coming from a different location. Say, you are browsing from Argentina using a proxy server that’s located in Australia. So, your search will appear as if being performed from Australia.

How do you find a respective proxy server and begin to use it? Well, there are free and paid proxies available on the Web – just search for “proxy list”, “free proxy list”, “free proxies” or similar. It’s best to use the lists that also specify the country each proxy server belongs to, unless you can easily tell by the IP address. Here (http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/) is an example of a proxy server list.

Then you need to configure your browser to work behind a certain proxy from the list (you’ll basically need to enter the IP address of the proxy server and the port number it uses). For example, here is how you set it up in Firefox:

- Go to Tools >> Options >> Advanced >> Network >> Settings
- Check Manual proxy configuration
- Enter the proxy’s IP and port
- I also normally choose No Proxy for: localhost, so that no proxy is used when I connect to the local network.

For other browsers, just search for “how to configure Chrome/Opera/Internet Explorer/any other browser proxy settings”. For instance, here (http://googlechrometutorial.com/google-chrome-advanced-settings/Google-chrome-proxy-settings.html) is a tutorial that teaches how to configure Google Chrome.

Pros and Cons

- Along with giving you a certain degree of anonymity, proxy servers also help you avoid CAPTCHAs and IP blocks, which is good.

- However, free proxies are sometimes not safe to use and quickly become overloaded, while paid proxies cost money. Plus, it’s not always the case that the proxy from the country you are targeting is available when you need it.

2. Use a Proxy Management Tool

Another option is to use a proxy management tool, which spares you configuring the browser each time you need to change the proxy server (because your free proxy server is down or you need to collect data from “a different location”).

Proxy management apps are good for those who run lots of checks targeting lots of locales on a daily basis. One such tool that I recommend is FoxyProxy. Originally, this was a proxy management browser plugin for Firefox, and now it’s also available for Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.

FoxyProxy allows you to store all the info regarding the proxies you are using in one place and right at hand, and rotate proxies easily. It also allows you to assign URLs specific proxies, so that, whenever you visit those URLs, you access them via the assigned proxy servers.

FoxyProxy also offers “reliable, high-bandwidth proxy servers in 35 different countries”.

Pros and Cons

- What’s good about proxy management tools is that they save you time and effort and allow you to switch between proxies with almost no effort at all.

- The setting-up process is probably quite difficult. Besides, the proxies need to be checked upon regularly to make sure they are alive and working.

3. Use Google’s Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool

The Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool was designed for Google AdWords advertisers to let them see where their ads show up for different keywords in different countries. However, it can also be used to track rankings in non-paid search results as well.

Pros and Cons

- A huge advantage is that the tool allows you to choose the language you are pretend-searching in, as well as specify the exact area you are targeting (region and city).

- The tool does not let you click on the results it displays. Actually, there is a warning, saying that “This page is a tool for AdWords advertisers to test their ads. For full Google functionality return to the Google homepage.”

4. Add the gl Parameter to the Query URL

Apart from working behind a proxy or using a special tool to see the results visible in different locations, one can use another trick that quite a few SEO’s are familiar with. I’m talking about Google’s gl parameter that, technically, marks the country the search is being performed from.

Where does this parameter go? It goes into the query URL that appears when you do a search on Google. You simply add gl=US (if you’d like your results to be relevant for the United States) or, say, gl=BR (for Brazil) and hit “Search” once again. Here is a full list of country codes.

5. Use SEO Rank Checking Software that Supports the “gl” Parameter

Some possibilities to overcome geolocation are hidden right inside SEO tools that help one monitor rankings. Thus, if you use SEO software to keep track of website positions in the SERPs, see if the particular tool you are using allows you to use proxies or offers other geo targeting-related options.

For example, Rank Tracker (the keyword tracker and keyword suggestion tool
we built at Link-Assistant.Com) allows one to check rankings from behind a proxy as well as manage different proxy servers.

Besides, as of late, Rank Tracker also enables you to specify what gl parameters (multiple options are available) you’d like to add to your queries while checking website rankings for different keywords. You enter them while choosing your target search engines, PRIOR to the rankings check. The results for queries made with various gl parameters (as if performed from different locations) will then be displayed side by side:

So, these were 5 quite no-brainer tricks one can use to substantially diminish Google’s geo-targeting. In fact, you can hardly eliminate it completely, since Google uses other signals to associate you with a specific country (such as your browser’s languages, etc.). But using the 5 methods described above will help you largely beat it.

When you think about online visibility for your local business it’s so easy to get wrapped up and overloaded with what you should be doing on the internet to promote your website. Yet, small changes to your every day business routine can make a big difference.

Often, business owners think about being visible online as a way of reaching people whom you have had no contact with at all. That’s true in many cases. Sometimes, online visibility is as simple as making sure that people you interact with (even briefly) as part of your usual business routines are aware of your online presence.

Not everyone wants to pick up the phone or call in to your premises to find out basic information like your opening hours or who to contact. Sometimes people just want to find out a bit more about you and your company.

In this day and age of always being plugged in to the Internet, your website is the first point of call. That is especially true outside of usual business hours. Make it easy for those brief contacts to find you, don’t make them search when they don’t need to!

5 Simple Offline to Online Visibility Tips

1. Your Business Card

Obvious isn’t it? Well maybe not. I have a mountain of business cards that have little more than an address, phone and email on them. Why force people’s hands and make them search for more information about you? Give them your online details upfront and include:

* Your website address.
* Your active social media profiles such as LinkedIn, FaceBook page and Twitter.
* Why not try a QR Code?

QR Codes can be as simple as a vCard with all your contact details, including your address, phone, email and website to store directly on the phone. You can also redirect to your website, Facebook Page or even Google Places review page. The possibilities are almost endless.

2. Your Business Stationery

Invoices, receipts, compliment slips, info leaflets, headed notepaper… How many of these have your online details displayed? Again, do not just include your email address, but also your website and active social profiles too.

3. Your Vehicle

You may not have the budget for a full designed vehicle wrap, but you can put your details on a decal or sunscreen strip.

4. Print Ads

Whether it’s the local paper or Yellow Pages, always include your online details when you advertise. Make it effective by giving people a reason to visit your website – and capture their email address in return for your offer!

5. Promotional Gifts

We’ve all done it at some point – trade shows, seminars, demonstration or open days give out what seems to be a ton of pens, badges, balloons, key rings, mugs – the whole she-bang all nicely printed with a business name. Make them work harder for you and at least include your website address too.

The great thing about directing people back to your website is it can be easily tracked when you implement it correctly. You’ll get a good picture of where people have come from, what works and what doesn’t.

Before you place the order to re-print your stationery or ads, think “online visibility” – your website is open 24/7 waiting for that 2am inspirational or emergency visit.

Jan Kearney specializes in helping local businesses take advantage of the worldwide web to grow their business. You are invited to read Jan’s blog at http://www.mylocalbusinessonline.co.uk

Learning to turn your website visitors into buyers is a skill that every internet marketer should acquire. Do you have a website or a blog you are promoting? Are you satisfied with the behavior of the people who visit your website? Do they come and disappear without accomplishing the desired actions you expect them to perform such as filling in a form, buying a product or signing up for the program you promote? How much time do they spend when they visit your site?

If your responses to the above questions are in line with your expectations, then you are probably one of the lucky few website owners or marketers with the skill and ability to turn your website visitors into buyers. But if you still find hardships in this, like many other marketers, it’s high time you tested the following tips for improvement.

How do you then turn your website visitors into buyers? Before going into the details, bear in mind that your success in making a sale online will largely depend on your ability to create a reason for your visitors to hang around your website, to keep visiting your site frequently and to perform the actions you expect them to do. There are many ways of doing this, but let me share with you 11 proven ways. When you apply them properly, I believe you will be able to turn your website visitors into buyers slowly but consistently.

1. Having the right product for your targeted visitors. Review your product. Does the product you provide, meet the individual needs of your targeted traffic? If it doesn’t, consider coming up with an alternative way of meeting your customers’ needs and satisfaction.

2. How is your website in terms of loading time, appearance, content organization and easiness to navigate? Are your visitors put off just because your website loads slowly and its appearance does not give them a positive first-hand impression? Is it because of the poor navigational and broken links? Find out and do something to it as soon as possible.

3. Credibility: Do visitors to your website have trust in your products and in you the business owner? How have you built your credibility? Probably it’s one of the reasons stopping your visitors from taking any further action. Trust protects you and can easily turn your website visitors into buyers.

4. Your sales copy, how is it designed? Does it target your visitors’ goals, dreams and desires? Does it bring out the major benefits of your products and services? It’s important for your sales copy to attract both the emotional and physical needs of your visitors, or else they click away and never come back.

5. Provision of useful content: How is the content on your website? Is it good content that compels people to hang around your site? Does it make your website become a site of regular reference for most of your visitors? Does it help in building your credibility and believability for your customers to buy from you?

6. Provide a free promotional product that relates to your targeted audience. People love free things and the moment you provide something, you prompt them to take the actions you want them to perform. You can provide products like a free ebook, free software or any other product. You never know, it can turn your website visitors into buyers.

7. Give a discount offer on your products. Your visitors, like any other people, will enjoy good deals. Try it out, you can easily make a sale and turn many of your website visitors into buyers.

8. Giving your visitors a free trial or a sample offer is one of the best tricks to turn your website visitors into buyers. For instance, if you deal in software, you can provide a free trial to your potential customers for a short period. When they use the product and find it useful they are compelled to buy it. I first tried out all the software I use for at least 15 days and when I felt satisfied, I finally bought them.

9. Make your ad banners and text adverts as attractive as possible. Use power words that can hardly be resisted by your visitors. It can easily attract your visitors to buy your products.

10. Remove the risk by offering a money back guarantee on your product. Mention it on your sales copy or messages, on your ad banners and on your order pages. It will build your potential customers’ assurance and change their mindset.

11. Have an online customer support system. Guide your potential customers to fully understand your products, programs and services. Probably they are not buying just because they lack support and more knowledge about your products. Remember that most people do not want to venture into doing things about which they have scanty knowledge.

Finally, I would like to appeal to you to review your site to find out whether there are any issues that need to be resolved and take some steps to proactively turn your website visitors into buyers, based on the 11 tips given above.

When you first get your website up and running, your first thought may be to implement some article marketing strategies to get the traffic pouring into your site. Your sole thought may be to do something “out there” in order to produce the results that you want on your site.

There is one step that should happen prior to that though, and it’s one that a lot of site owners overlook. Before anything, you need to develop the content on your website. You see, in order to attract readers, you need to have some reason for them to be at your website.

What sort of information are you providing?

What problems are you solving?

How are you helping your readers?

You may attract readers when you submit articles, but if you don’t have any “stickiness” on your site, then the increased viewers don’t do you much good. They just show up at your site and immediately click away because they haven’t found the information that they’re looking for.

Before starting to market your site, go to the effort of adding content that will make readers want to stick around. Here are some ideas for you:

1 – Create a Blog That is on Your Website

With a blog, you will be creating a regular stream of content that is fresh and helpful to readers. New content gives readers a reason to keep on returning. Sites with regularly updated content tend to rank better in search engines as well.

You can do this by simply setting up a WordPress blog. After your blog posts are published for the month, then you can rewrite them and submit them as free reprint articles. Making the content you create do double duty is a great time saver and helps you maximize your time.

2 – Create a Page on Your Site That Addresses “Frequently Asked Questions”

Now, it depends on what type of business you have as to the appropriateness of this idea, but if you have a service based business, a list of FAQs can be a really helpful bit of info to offer. This also saves you time, because potential customers can find answers to their questions immediately and there’s no need for you to answer the same question repeatedly for each individual person.

3 – Create a List of Helpful Sites and Link to Them

It may seem counterintuitive to link to other sites (won’t that make people leave your site?), but actually the opposite is true. Your job as the site owner is to provide information that is helpful to your readers. Many times there are websites that provide complementary services to your own that people would benefit from (let’s say you’re a real estate agent, and you provide a link to a mortgage calculator). When you compile these resources for your readers, you are creating a more valuable website.

4 – Add a Web Page That Tells About Your Niche

Some people arriving at your website may have very little information about what you do or what your niche has to offer them. It is worth your while to compile some basic information that will act as an introduction to your field.

5 – Create a Web Page That Catalogs Your Articles

When you start publishing articles, they will be very helpful to your readers. Why not let the readers of your website know about the articles you’ve written and give them an easy way to find them?

You can separate your articles into sub-categories to help your readers find the information they need. This “library” of your articles can be a web page containing the title of the article, a short description and a link to the article.

If you want to create a site that your readers love, anticipate their needs and put content on your site to satisfy them. Really, the more you create a website that your readers appreciate, the more you’ll be pleasing Google as well. Google just wants to send their search customers to websites that offer the information that they’re looking for. You can put your website in position to satisfy that need by creating a website full of helpful information.

Video is arguably the most powerful way to send your message across to an audience, yet it is surprising that such a small percentage of people use it both for their web content and marketing materials. This is perhaps due to a number of misconceptions that people have when it comes to creating video content, which are clarified below:

1. You Need To Spend A Lot: You may have seen or at least heard about companies that will produce your video for you, but charge an absolute fortune to do it (well, what the average person would consider a fortune). It’s not a necessity to get it professionally done – just take a look at the majority of videos on YouTube. Use your friend’s camera, or just record straight into the computer with a webcam.

2. It Needs To Be High Quality: The content of your video is what matters most – as long as this is helpful to somebody then there’s no reason it should look like it cost a million dollars. Don’t worry so much about your poor acting ability (or your friend’s poor acting ability), or whether the picture is too grainy – as long as the sound is okay then just about everything else is pretty trivial. People complain about unclear or low audio more than anything else when it comes to web videos, so keep that in mind. And also, it’s much easier to get away with a poorly produced video than it is a poorly written article – so don’t be afraid of turning your loyal visitors off, since they’ll usually commend you for at least having a go.

3. You Need A Camera: Even if you don’t have a camera or webcam you can still make a video. There are several programs like Camtasia that allow you to record a video from your computer screen, or you could even go much simpler than that and create a slideshow in PowerPoint and export it as a video. I tend not to waste too much time on YouTube anymore, but back in the day a high percentage of videos that went viral were nothing more than slideshows of funny photos chopped together with music.

4. It Takes Too Long: In the time it takes me to finish writing this post, I could probably have recorded a video to tell you the same thing about five times (and had several different takes at it, just to satisfy the perfectionist in me). Shooting a video is much quicker than writing an article. The only thing that could make it take longer is if you do any extensive editing or effects on it, but for most web videos this won’t be the case.

5. They Slow Down My Website: If you’re worried about bandwidth and issues like that, remember that if you store your videos on an external site like YouTube, they won’t have any negative effect on your own website. The other advantage to doing this is you do get some traffic floating in from wherever you post it, and if you use keywords in the titles or tags of your videos, this can add up to be quite a lot. While it is a reality that people in less-developed areas will have to wait a while for your video to load and so forth, most other people should be equipped with a decent enough web connection that this won’t be an issue. If it still concerns you, then you can accompany each video with a brief text description to satisfy the needs of everyone.

Some of the concerns that people do have with creating video are, of course, also valid. The primary one is that search engines will not be as fond of video as they are of text – they have no real way spidering the actual content of your video and will rely instead on the title and other text on the page.

Having worked in video for most of my professional career (yes, I am a man of many talents) I can definitely say first-hand it is a powerful and entertaining way to send your message. It will give you a break from writing, and give your visitors a break from reading (assuming they need it) – and everyone will almost certainly enjoy the experience.

Today’s technology allows us to connect with and form relationships with people all over the world right from our home or office. A webinar is a great way to do this because of all the tools and technology available to us. A webinar is just like a seminar only it is done online via your computer. Webinar is short for web-based seminar and they can be very instrumental in building your business.

Webinars can help your business by allowing you to train your recruits and/or sales team. They can also be useful in building relationships and generating sales leads.

Producing a successful webinar does take some work and you need to know what you are getting into. There are several styles of webinars including a single speaker, guest speakers, interviews, panel discussions and also interaction from the audience.

A successful webinar must be efficiently planned out. You need to determine what tools you will be using, what style you will be producing, arranging schedules, deciding whether you will be charging for your webinar, etc.

If you plan on having people from all over the world attend pick out a time that is most convenient for all time zones. If you are having guest speakers, confer with them on their schedules. Mid-week and midday seem to be the best times to schedule a webinar.

Deciding what tools and or visuals you will be using in your webinar. Visuals such as flash presentations, charts, graphs, slides, etc., are always effective in helping people focus on what you are saying and keeping their attention. Because you are not there, face-to-face with your audience, you should have other visuals available for them. Also, have a photo of yourself available so people can visualize you while you are talking.

Compare webinar software so you can get the features you will need. I’ve heard good things about (although I have not yet tried them) Microsoft Live Meeting, GoToMeeting, and Adobe Connect.

Do not turn your webinar into a sleep inducing lecture. Encouraging audience participation is a good idea as it gets people more interested and excited about what you are teaching them or explaining to them. Use a chat function to take questions and comments from your audience and/or trainees. You can also think of some activities to engage your audience. Get your participants to share via discussions, polls, feedback, questions, storytelling and more.

Contact participants before the event. This can be important because it can help you to assess what topics and points of interest to cover in your webinar thus getting better results.

Once you have the style, tools, pricing, schedule and everything else decided be sure to “rehearse” your webinar. This can be crucial in the success of your event. You want everything to flow smoothly and all activities, speeches, presentations, etc., to fall into place so be sure to do a few practice runs to make sure all is well.

Now that you have your webinar all planned out and ready to go, you have to promote it. You want to give yourself several weeks to get the word out about your webinar. And of course you will want to take advantage of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. to let everyone know about your webinar. Send an announcement to your mailing list/subscribers. Announce the webinar on your site. Use online event calendars such as Full Calendar, Events Setter and webinar announcement services such as Seminar Announcer. You can also promote it via print newspaper event calendars, TV network event calendars and other event calendars online and offline. Don’t forget about your email signature and your article resource box.

Webinars are very effective when done professionally and effectively so put the time, work and practice in to make yours one of the best ever!

Webcasting, also known as live video streaming, is one of the fastest growing video production services. Companies are increasingly using webcasting as a means of communicating that is more engaging than a conference call. The reason that webcasting is so much more effective as a communication tool, as compared to a phone call, is that part of all messages is delivered in non-verbal communication that isn’t transmitted using audio alone.

Webcasting also has the benefit of connecting groups that aren’t in the same physical location at the same time to the same presenter and is often used at conferences, both for incoming and outgoing video communications. Live video streaming saves both the time and expense of flying a speaker to several locations and is an effective way for companies to lower their carbon footprint.

Single camera webcasts can be very simple to produce but multi-camera webcasts require professional equipment and a technical director to perform the live switching. For the most basic webcast, a single camera transmits both the audio and video feeds to a computer that is connected to the Internet and the video is uploaded to a streaming server. The video is then embedded on a webpage for viewers to watch.

Adding additional camera angles requires much more planning, communication, and equipment. Each camera operator requires directions and the technical director communicates with them using intercommunication headsets. Tally lights are also helpful for the camera operators to know which camera is live but the technical director can also communicate this verbally.

The technical director operates a video switcher, which allows her to view each of the video inputs, and switch the output video back and forth between the different input signals. The video switcher is then connected to a specialized computer that encodes the video (and audio that is generally mastered on a sound board, independent of the video) and streams it to a streaming server. A streaming server is a server that is fast enough to deliver live video feeds – a standard server that is used for website hosting is not fast enough.

Many video production companies use streaming service providers instead of running their own servers. There are even some companies like Ustream and Livestream that offer free video streaming, but they interrupt the video stream with commercials so paid services are a better fit in the corporate market.

Top 5 tips for Producing Webcast Videos on the Internet

1) Don’t forget about the audio: Proper microphone placement is important and on-camera microphones are only useful for webcam-style presentations.

2) Avoid free streaming services: They interrupt the video stream regularly with commercials so your viewers will miss portions of your webcast.

3) Multiple camera angles are more engaging for your audience: Shot variety is one of the keys to retaining viewers and having multiple cameras means you can anticipate the next shot and not subject your viewer to pans back and forth searching for the next speaker.

4) Webcasting requires fast upload speed: Internet service providers brag about their download speed but don’t often advertise the upload speed, which is often a fraction of the download speed, but a fast upload speed is what is required to stream the video to the streaming server.

5) Plan your pre-roll: You should start your webcast well before the scheduled start time and provide a holding slide with audio so the viewer knows they are getting both an audio and video signal in advance of the start time.

With the advent of the Internet and the worldwide dominance and prominence of Google, Facebook and Twitter, one could reasonably assume the whole world revolves around the Internet. It doesn’t. There’s a great big offline universe out there with nearly 6 billion people in it that was here long before the Internet. And if you don’t have an offline marketing strategy to reach those billions of people, and complement your online marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a significant amount of traffic and income.

Following are 19 affordable and effective offline advertising methods that generate traffic to your website:

1. Bookmarks

Everyone has books in their home – some more than others. But I think that you’ll agree, just about everyone owns books. And what better way to get your marketing message in front of readers, than with a bookmark with your company name and website address printed on it? And distribution couldn’t be more easy! Simply get a bunch of bookmarks printed up and hand them out to everyone you meet. You can purchase bookmarks imprinted with your company name from Branders.com.

2. College Newspapers

Why market to college students? Because the college market consists of about 15 million people who spend over 120 billion annually. In addition, more than 79% of college students go online at least once a day and over 95% of college students have access to the Internet. (Source: NationwideAdvertising.com)

You can put your marketing message in front of tens of thousands of college students at an affordable price. You can get started by contacting NationwideAdvertising.com.

3. Postcards

Postcards are inexpensive to mail and are very effective. When people sort through their mail, they will often read postcards before they read anything else. You can take advantage of that fact, by starting a postcard marketing campaign. Lelli.com has been in the printing and direct mail business since 1977.

4. Business Cards

No, I’m not talking about your everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill business cards. I’m talking about business cards that stand out – that get people’s attention. For example, business cards that look like folded money. They’re called drop cards or sizzle cards. Like the forementioned bookmarks, simply get a bunch of these unique, attention-grabbers printed up and hand them out to everyone you meet. You can also pin them up on public bulletin boards. You can order drop cards from DollarCardMarketing.com.

5. Flyers

Yes, businesses still use flyers and yes, they still work quite effectively. You can get a bunch of flyers printed up at a very reasonable price and post them all over town. Your local printer can print them up for you, or you can go online and order from Lelli.com.

6. Local Business Journals

The Business Journals are part of a group of local business newspapers with a national readership of 4 million. For example, in Albany, New York where I live, the local business journal is called The Business Review. Boston, Massachusetts has a similar publication called Boston Business Journal. And in Dallas, Texas the publication is called Dallas Business Journal.

In addition to exposure for your business and website, The Business Journals are an absolute goldmine for leads. Unfortunately, The Business Journals aren’t available in every city, but they are in many of the largest U.S. cities. Go to BizJournals.com, to see if The Business Journals are available where you live.

7. Refrigerator Magnets

Consumers are in and out of their refrigerator several times a day. In addition, refrigerators are generally located in the kitchen, where many families eat their meals, pay the bills and do a whole host of different activities. A refrigerator magnet is an ideal way to reach consumers. You can order refrigerator magnets from Magnets.com.

8. T-shirts

If you walked around in public in a T-shirt with the name of your company and website address printed on it, you’d be surprised how many people would see it – especially if you work in a high-traffic environment like a supermarket or fast-food restaurant. You can have some T-shirts printed up and distribute them among friends and/or family members. You can order promotional T-shirts from Zazzle.com.

9. Community Shopper Newspaper Classifieds

Nearly every community, regardless of size, has a community shopper newspaper like Pennysaver. You’ve probably noticed the brightly colored “free” shopper newspaper dispensers outside of supermarkets, which is where they’re usually located. Some shoppers are mailed directly to people’s homes and while these shopper newspapers are free, their classified ads are read by millions of people nationwide. You can advertise in shopper newspapers by contacting NationwideAdvertising.com.

10. Community Bulletin Boards

You can find community bulletin boards in laundromats, gas stations, supermarkets, office buildings, schools, libraries, community centers, fitness clubs, etc. You can post your business cards and flyers on community bulletin boards for free. I have to admit, I didn’t think people really paid any attention to community bulletin boards. Then one day, I decided to make a handwritten flyer to sell my car, and posted it on the bulletin board in an office building that was located just a few minutes from where I lived at the time. An hour after I posted the flyer, I got a call about my car. I sold it that evening to that same caller.

11. Luggage Tags

If you know people who travel a lot, or you travel a great deal yourself, you can take advantage of all those frequent flyer miles by exposing the name of your business and website address to travelers worldwide with promotional luggage tags. Yes, luggage tags! Just contact Branders.com.

12. Car Magnets

Car magnets have always been a highly-effective way to promote a business. Just driving around town normally, without doing anything out of the ordinary, you’d be surprised how many eyeballs are exposed to your company name and website address. If you’ve never used car magnets to promote your business, better late than never. You can order custom car magnets from Signazon.com.

13. Coffee Mugs

While I personally don’t drink coffee, just about everyone I know does. Why not gift the coffee drinkers you know with a coffee mug with your company name and website address printed on it? After all, if people are going to drink coffee, they might as well drink out of one of your mugs, right? You can order promotional coffee mugs from PromoLogoMugs.com.

14. Rear Window Decals

Imagine, every car on the road that is driving behind you being exposed to your company name and website address. Well, you don’t have to imagine it, you can actually make it happen with rear window decals. And guess what happens when you stop at a red light or stop sign? That’s right, the people driving the cars directly behind you are a captive audience. You can order rear window decals from Signazon.com.

15. Car Air Fresheners

As long as I can remember, I’ve always had an air freshener dangling from my rearview mirror. I like my car to smell nice. Well, guess what…so do millions of other drivers! And since so many drivers like their cars to smell nice, why not hand out custom air fresheners with your company name and website address to everyone you meet? You can order custom air fresheners from AirTrendsInternational.com.

16. Desk Calendars

One of the most useful items you can give someone is a desk calendar. After all, everyone needs a calendar, right? Yes, calendars are useful, but they’re also highly-effective promotional items, because people use them constantly to write down appointments, remember important dates, events and occasions, jot down notes, etc. Why not give people something useful, and promote your business at the same time? You can order desktop calendars from PricelessImprinters.com.

17. Mousepads

Even with the advent of laptops and smartphones, millions of people still prefer to use a traditional desktop computer with a mouse. And every mouse needs a mouspad, right? Hand out mousepads with your company name and website address to people you meet. You can order custom mousepads from Branders.com.

18. Promotional Caps

Just like with the aforementioned T-shirts, if you walked around in public in a cap with the name of your company and website address printed on it, you’d be surprised how many people would see it – especially if you work in a high-traffic environment like a supermarket or fast-food restaurant. You can have some caps printed up and distribute them among friends and/or family members. You can order promotional caps from Branders.com.

19. Disposable Cigarette Lighters

While smoking is no longer in vogue or cool like it was in the fifties, sixties or seventies, millions of individuals still light up on a daily basis. And more often than not, they use a cigarette lighter to light their cigarettes. You can put the name of your business and website address in the hands of smokers by advertising on disposable cigarette lighters. You can order promotional cigarette lighters from Branders.com.