Information about Google

Article Navigation

Click Here for more articles

Are You Ready for a Plain English Guide to Internet Marketing?

by: Gordon Goodfellow

Have you ever been horrified and intimidated at the convoluted, jargon-reliant information about Internet marketing available on the Net?

Often it results in many companies becoming confused and therefore reluctant to put
into practice what would be a valuable and simple business resource when understood
and applied correctly.

Market Research consultant for Inteltab, Gordon Goodfellow, who is also an English
literature graduate, decided it was time for a change. Part of this desire to make
Internet marketing more accessible may be due to his past experience as a teacher.

"I was sick of all the gobbledegook that surrounds the Internet, even today," he
explains. "Marketing on the Net isn't rocket science and should not be presented as such.

Everyone should have access to it. That's the beauty of it."

Having spent four years researching and assessing the best way of getting an effective message across on the Internet, he began to design a basic introduction to Internet marketing. The result of this hard work is Applied Web Marketing. AWM is a comprehensive beginner�s guide to marketing on the Internet, covering everything from
domain names to e-commerce and merchant accounts, and written in plain English. This is designed for the small business user and the home business user who does not want to spend a fortune on outside "experts".

The key to most of Internet marketing is search engine optimisation. The key to good
search engine optimisation is keyword research. In other words, knowing which keywords or search terms people are using to find what they�re looking for on the Internet. If keyword research is done properly then there is no doubt that you will get highly targeted visitors to your website. This is obviously the professional way of going about things. It is the antithesis to the "spam" approach (unsolicited commercial emails) which achieves extremely poor results and simply annoys anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

But which search engine should you optimise for? The search engine of choice at the
moment is Google. There are two good reasons for this. Firstly, Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet today. It is known for the quality and relevance of its search results, and so people trust it. Secondly, over the last couple of years Google has joined alliances with other search engines and directories. Yahoo, the world�s most popular directory, uses Google�s database, so if you have a first page listing on Google you are likely to have a first page listing on Yahoo as well.

AOL and Netscape also share Google�s search findings, so you�ll have similar search
results on the AOL and Netscape databases. Other lesser databases also rely on Google,
so that if you are well represented on Google, then you�ll be well represented on over sixty per cent of Internet search facilities.

You should also obtain a listing on the Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) which is not much known about but very well respected in the search engine optimisation industry. The Open Directory does not use the normal search engine "spiders" or robot searchers; instead it uses over thirty thousand volunteer human editors who are ostensibly experts in their own fields. The theory behind this is that it ensures relevancy, accuracy and quality of all listings. A listing in DMOZ will therefore ensure a listing on Google and probably earn you an enhanced ranking there. Then all the others, like Yahoo, AOL, Netscape and the rest are bound to follow.

Optimisation is everything. The Applied Web Marketing website itself has the number
one position on Google out of 1.47 million search results for the search term "applied
web marketing".

After optimisation is the submission process. Perceived wisdom of the moment says it is best to submit manually. Manual submissions to dozens of search engines and
directories can be very time-consuming, however. There are some good automated and
semi-automated software packages available out there to do the submissions for you.
But for the major players do find the time for manual submissions. Some search
engines, for example Alta Vista, make it impossible for automated submission by
software programs, because of individualised text codes that must be entered by hand at the start of the submission process, so you have to submit to Alta Vista manually as well. But that just takes about three minutes.

Don�t bother with ads that say that they can "blast your web site to 500,000 search
engines". There aren�t that many search engines; there�s only a few hundred in total, and only about a dozen of any major importance. You�ll just pay your money and be very disappointed. Most of these so-called search engines are link farms, FFA or free-for-all sites, which nobody every looks at, and which are responsible chiefly for sending out spam. If you link to such web sites you risk being penalised by the bona fide search engines.

The next thing to have lots of is patience. A listing on Google should probably appear
within a couple of weeks if you have optimised your pages properly (incidentally, if you have multiple pages on your web site, as is mostly the case, it is important only to submit the index or home page, and let Google�s spider "Googlebot" to find and index the other pages itself using the links that you should have set up on your site.

The Applied Web Marketing guide has useful links to many resources, lots of them completely free, and to the submission pages of the major search engines and
directories, making it a perfect site to begin your journey into the world of Internet marketing.

About the author:
Gordon Goodfellow is a market research consultant and practising Internet marketer and teacher.

www.appliedwebmarketing.com
gordon@apppliedwebmarketing.com

Circulated by Article Emporium

Read Articles:

Search Isn't All About Google Anymore

Before You Register a Domain Name for Your New ...

Getting Approved by Adsense in a Jiffy�

Four Sure-Fire Ways to Generate Targeted Traffi...

Blogging for Dollars

Traffic Arbitrage- The new kid on the block

The Life Blood of Internet-Based Home Businesse...

"If an RSS feed is the Yahoo backdoor, is a Blo...

How to Find an Affiliate Program For Any Niche ...

Are You Ready for a Plain English Guide to Inte...

Adsense � The Powerful Passive Income Generator

Understanding what Reciprocal Linking means

Google Page Rank - important or just another nu...

Free Web Traffic Through Page Rank

Of Spam and Sandboxes

How to Get Targeted Search Engine Traffic Quickly

Winning the (r) Google AdSense War

A Smart Trick for Attracting Higher Paying AdSe...

Monitor and Increase Your Search Engine Visibil...

Understanding the Game of Search Engines.

Online Home-Based Businesses Can Give You Searc...

Why Google Blog Search Matters to Your Business

Your Online Home-Based Business Can Lead To Sea...

The Search Engine Optimization Game Is Getting ...

Tips for maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenues

The secret of how I got GoogleCash for free wit...

A Home Based Business Modeled After Google

Google's own AdSense Tips

A five minute task that is saving me $750 A MONTH!

The Ultimate Free Google Ranking Tool

Google Adsense Page Positioning

Introducing PageRank - shattering the myth

Meet Adwords, AdSense�s Fraternal Twin

6 more free steps to making money online

Press Release + PRWeb = Top Google Rank... True...

Grow your Internet Business with Pay Per Click ...

Keywords: They Unlock All The Right Doors

Is Click Fraud Really a Problem?

4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing�

AdSense is Stupid When...

More Article Pages 1 - 2 - 3

5 Ways Google Will Help You With Your Traffic
by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

If you�ve ever had a severe drop in your Google rankings in search results, you may think of Google more of an enemy than an ally.

But if you knew what I do, you�d realize that there are tools provided by the search engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may even help drive visitors to your site.

Here are five ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.

#1 - Google will Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Google Sitemaps is a program that gives you the opportunity to present your site�s pages to Google in XML or text. Google will then come by and spider the pages, getting you indexed faster.

Take note that this doesn�t necessarily mean that your pages will be listed for your favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a lot faster than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you some basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords for discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents at your site.

If you find compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format difficult, try the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It�s my favorite Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.

#2 - Google Will Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native Tongue or Plain English with the Webmaster Section
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The Google Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop when you want to know more about anything that has to do with your site and its relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such as Froogle. Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this page first has saved many from needless anxiety.

Most of the basic information is in straightforward language, with links to details for geeks like me.

#3 - Google will Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information

If you type info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a page that has your link at the top of the page, with a short description, and the following phrase �Google can show you the following information for this URL�.

This special page compiles several queries about your site including pages that contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked to you).

#4 - Google will Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

After a recent purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been made available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views per visit.

With the ability to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the holes in your site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer periods of time, as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a specific action, such as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the executive and the search marketer alike.

There�s currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular demand.

#5 - Google Will Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with Conversion University
http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html

Google Analytics also has two content sections that are available to all, called Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly slanted towards AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can be applied to preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search discovery. One reference area is called �Driving Traffic�, the other �Converting Visitors.�

At the end of the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in Google search engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm, which means Google - the search engine - really isn�t capable of being your best friend or your worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Google - the company - also provides access to resources that will help give your site a fighting chance.

This Static Spot is open for sponsor

This Static Spot is open for sponsor