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Steps To Increasing Google AdSense Click-through Rate

The purpose of this article to is to help you increase your revenue from CTR using Google AdSense. Following the steps outlines will help you optimize your websites to give you the best possible moneymaking strategies.

Step 1 – Apply and Comply Having a website can generate revenue for you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Google AdSense is a free program that has an advertising revenue especially designed to help websites like yours to increase their revenue simply by displaying AdWords ads.

Each page on your website must be content rich on various topics. These pages should all be centered around a theme which Google will use to target relevant ads to your website. Once you have applied Google will set up an account for you and provide you with the code you need for displaying ads. Insert the code into the pages on your websites and you can start displaying ads immediately. Google search and page-ranking technology will search for ads that are relevant to your content pages. This technology matches the primary language of your pages and ads are targeted to your specific geographic location. This means that ads that serve users from Canada, for example, will not be the same ads that appear on your website for users in Australia. This ‘geotargeting’ by Google akes the ads relevant to all the visitors to your website and it also means that you may not see all of the ads that are targeted to your website. You do not have to be technologically literate to display AdSense ads on your web pages. Google does it all for you. All you have to do is insert the code and maintain the website. At first, you may see public service ads appearing and you do not get paid for these.

Step 2 - Create More Content Pages For Your Website Content pages are the pages in your web site that Google will use to target ads to your website. These pages should be content-rich. In other words, you should have lots of content that the user will be interested in. Each page of your website should be centered around one keyword that is related to the whole theme of your website. A keyword is the focal point of the article. When you decide on a theme, brainstorm list of suitable keywords for which you can write articles. For example, keywords for a website dealing with lawn care could include the following keywords: Seeding your lawn Hedges Mowing the lawn Preventing insect infestation Flowers Flowering shrubs

Then you proceed to write articles for each keyword which can be anywhere from 150 to 500 words. Each keyword article will have its own page where you can display ads. The more content pages you have, the more ads you can display and this, of course, leads to more revenue for you. Keyword articles can be of several kinds – keyword rich and informative. Keyword rich articles contain the keyword in virtually every sentence. The rate is typically 4 – 8 % of the total word count. Informative keyword articles have a more conversational style and are easier to read. If the content pages are clearly focused, Google will be able to serve highly relevant ads to your pages. This means your visitors will be interested in the ads, resulting in more click-thrus and more money for you.

Step 3 – Use higher paying keywords whenever possible You will earn more if the average AdWord that Google displays pays more per click. You should not create pages on unrelated keywords just because they pay more. Some of the high paying keywords that users query on search engines are: Vacations Education Investing Money Medicine However, don’t create a page on vacations on a lawn care page, just because the ads pay more. It takes away from the legitimacy of your website. If you are an AdWords advertiser, you can log into your account and Experiment. As you will be sharing the revenue with Google, you will receive a percentage of the amount each advertiser pays per click. For example you may find that if you type in “ladders”, the maximum price per click is 15 cents. A percentage of this will not get generate a very high revenue. However, if you type in “valium”, you may find that the price per click is $5.00. The bottom line is the keywords you use can increase the amount of money you earn.

Step 4 – Create new pages with higher paying keywords and at the same time maintain relevance to the theme of your website. Selecting keywords related to the same topic, can make a difference in how much money you earn by users clicking on relevant ads on your pages. Check the theme of your website for higher paying keywords and create articles related to these words. The terminology you use can determine how effective your website will be in attracting visitors. For example if you are selling teeth bleaching products a query for toothpaste may or may not select your website in the search. If you are selling products on your website, ensure that you have keyword articles related to the competition as well as your own products. This does not mean that you will advertise for the competition. The article can be a comparison of your product with another demonstrating why the user should purchase your product.

Step 5 – Create a brand new website with higher paying keywords You can create a brand new website to take advantage of Google’s AdSense program. Therefore, you will need to select a topic with high paying keywords. Then provide great information about that topic. Now that you have the content pages and keywords you want, you need to place the ads where they can be seen, and clicked, by the visitors to your website. Most Internet users are so bombarded byads that they automatically tune out the ads that appear on a website. Your goal is to make your ads more appealing to the users and less like ads. Any time that users click on an ad, they have an actual interest in what that ad is selling. To maximize the number of click-thru ads on your site receive, you have to make them less like traditional advertising.

Step 6 - Create different kinds of web pages Different pages on your website serve different purposes. If the object of your website is to sell a particular product or service, create web pages specifically for that purpose. Then have other pages on your website that are geared towards high search engine traffic. Once you realize which pages you are creating for AdSense, select appropriate keywords. Try to select keywords that are the highest paying keywords on the topic.

Step 7 – Create high quality information pages Give the visitors to your website the answers they need. The keyword articles should give information about the topic and not ramble on with a disjointed list of sentences. When writing keyword articles, do not copy and paste from other websites. This is illegal. It’s much better to write something new and unique. The writing in the articles should be of a conversational tone using language that the ordinary person will understand. For example, it would be of no point to write this ebook in completely technical language that only a computer programmer would understand. You would not be able to understand it and therefore not apply the techniques. The same is true of keyword articles. If the user does not like the first few sentences, he/she will not continue reading and will move on. Do not create a page about a topic and save it with another to try to generate high paying ads to your page. If your page is relevant to the topic, visitors will click-thru to other pages and ads.

Step 8 - Use the Best Ad Format For Your Web Page Research has shown the best format for ads to maximize click-thrus are 336 x 280 rectangles. The next best size is 300 x 250. Banner are the worst ads to show on a site and the tall thin ads don’t fit well on a page because they are usually on the left or the right. The best placement of ads on a page is in the center – right in the users line of vision. You have to put the ads in their face to maximize the effect of click-thrus by users. The best size ad to use is the 336 x 280 rectangle or if space ia at a premium use the 300 x 250 rectangle.

Step 9 - Make Sure That the Ad Block is Positioned Properly Where you have the ad located on your web page affects how often users will click on it. Ads should be as close to the top and the middle as possible. Internet users look to the center of the page to find information. If your ad is placed down the sides, it will often be overlooked. People who use your web page because of a keyword search are generally looking for specific information. Having the ad placed front and center will get their attention, whereas ads on the side will not. Place the large rectangle ads just above the content, not in the right or left hand columns.

Step 10 - Choose the Best Colors for Your Ads Google AdSense offers advice for publishers as to the color of the ads on their web pages. They allow you to customize your ad colors. The recommendation from Google for using custom palettes is to:

• Have the background of the ads the same color or a color similar to the background color of the page.

• Have the border of the ad a color that is predominant on the page.

• Have the title of the ad a color that is similar to the color of the text on the page.

• Have the URL of the ad a color similar to other links on the page. Statistics show that navy blue color works best as a link. The color of the URL should not stand out on the page. The top ranking color for URL’s is dark gray. It does not mask the advertiser URL even though light grays do the same thing. Avoid unconventional colors for URLs. Blue is actually considered a non-stimulating color, and some publishers say it can actually have a negative effect on purchasing or deciding to click-thru. Blue is considered by many to be sleep inducing, and is the worst choice if you are interested in a call to action. Sometimes if the effect you want is calming, blue can be integrated effectively. When starting out with placing ads on your web pages, the best advice is to experiment until you find a combination that works for you. Research and statistics have shown the default layout provided by Google AdSense is not the best option.

Step 11 – Don’t try to cheat your way to a higher revenue Many publishers have tried to increase their revenue from Google AdSense by clicking on ads on their own website or using software which automatically repeats clicks. Such attempts to gain more money from the ads displayed on your web pages is fraudulent and will result in the automatic cancellation of your account. Google has engineers who can detect this type of fraud. By trying to spam your way to extra money won’t work out. You will get kicked out of the program and you won’t make any money at all. Prohibited methods of clicking include:

• Repeated manual clicks

• Use of robots

• Automated clicking tools

• Deceptive software

• Clicking on your own ads Legitimate clicks are those that are generated as the result of a user to your site clicking on one or more ads on various pages.

Find High Paying Adsense Keywords

Facebook: The Changing Face of Branding Impressions

Facebook is revolutionizing the way humans connect with each other. At a pace of more than 3 million new members a day and a total membership of around 200 million this social networking site is becoming a magnificent and seemingly unstoppable force.

Computer gurus are creating ‘applications’ specifically for this site that allow creative connections. They could be special gifts given among a group of friends of those having similar ideologies; they could be games or even pictures of a specific town that ties multiple users together. Photo albums can be shared with each other and classmates are discovering one another through this free-to-use site.

Users can share audio and video. They can also access multiple applications and invite others to join them. The site is often thought of as safer than MySpace. This site was once a haven for college age students, but no more. The largest group of new users is over the age of 30.

Does your online business have a Facebook account? If not, why not?

From my perspective one of the problems some business owners have when using Facebook is they treat it like a monopoly on the time of the individual user. They make it all about their business. This thinking can turn users off quicker than almost anything. Because the hallmark of this site is community you will be better served by creating a place of actual connections. Encourage interaction from users. Allow them to feel as much at home on your Facebook page as they might on one of their friend’s pages.

Updates are available by cell phone and social media consumers are checking updates almost as frequently as they are texting each other. Facebook is online, it’s mobile and often the first thing many users will check when going online.

It reacts with the immediacy many want in a world dominated by instant gratification. In a single day an individual can connect with a high school friend they haven’t seen in more than a decade, they can connect with a family member who lives in another state, they can make comments on the new picture posted by a family friend and they can read and comment about your latest message.

So many customizable tools all placed together in one location allowing you to send Twitter posts to your Facebook page and point visitors to links you believe would be worth their while.

Consider a Facebook account part of your corporate branding strategy. This is a powerful way to increase the branding impressions making every point of contact meaningful. In the end the accumulated connections may provide the emotional impact needed to establish long-term customer relationships that value the sense of community you have developed through social media.

You do your business a disservice by dismissing social media as an insignificant add on. I understand the prevailing belief that there is already too much work to be done to add something new to the equation, but what if this is the primary means needed to establish your brand for the foreseeable future? Social media is an exciting element that can consume mass quantities of time. Ask any teenager about this site and their responses may sound like an audible encyclopedia. These are your future customers and they’ve already converted their parents (and in many instances grandparents) into social media enthusiasts. If you want to sell – go to where the people are. Most of them are on Facebook.

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How to Achieve Top Search Engine Placement Only With White Hat SEO Techniques

The goal of all webmasters is to ensure that their websites will be popular with the top search engines, continue to remain popular and secure top Search Engine Placement. To achieve this some of them instead of adopting White Hat SEO Techniques resort to adopting certain Black Hat SEO Techniques. Some of the Black Hat SEO Techniques adopted by certain website owners are, having hidden texts, stuffing keywords, cloaking, having doorway pages and duplicate sites.

These are illegal and unethical techniques. Their sites might achieve great short term success but once detected, the consequences can be drastic such as the search engines penalizing their websites or even banning them.

Website owners who play the game according to the guidelines and do not attempt to deceive the visitors and the search engines are said to employ White Hat SEO techniques. They adopt these techniques to give real value to their visitors first, while at the same time satisfying the search engines by some of the important techniques indicated below.

Quality Content:

It is a well known fact that Content is King. Hence creating quality content should be the prime concern. It should be related to the theme or category of your website and useful to your visitors. The more unique and rich the content is, the more it will be appreciated by your visitors. Unique quality content websites with authoritative articles always attract the search engines.

Webmasters too are often attracted by such content and they will be keen to link to your website to give their website visitors a great experience. This linking will provide you with one way inbound links which are greatly appreciated by the search engines and will have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. In addition you can expect a regular stream of visitors from these websites too.

Site Optimization:

Site optimization is of prime importance and should be done in the most effective manner to achieve high search engine placement. While providing useful and valuable theme related content to the visitor, the content should be optimized to attract the search engines. This is what site optimization is all about. The technique adopted here is to position your keywords or keyword phrases in the title, headlines, meta tags and also in the content so as to appear quite natural in the flow of the content. Avoid placing excessive keywords in the content. This is known as keyword stuffing and your site could be penalized for it.

Reciprocal Links:

Obtaining reciprocal links is one of the popular SEO techniques adopted by webmasters. Though reciprocal links are not very much in favor with the search engines these days because of certain unethical practices by certain webmasters, nevertheless they are very much appreciated if they are from quality theme related websites.

You should at all costs avoid Bad Neighborhoods. These are websites that have been penalized or banned by search engines. Similarly avoid Link Farms too. These sites have an assorted collection of hundreds of links in every page without any categorization and linked to each other. By linking to these sites you take the risk of being penalized by the search engines.

Conclusion:

All these White Hat methods are no doubt a slow and painstaking process but if done systematically and patiently they will collectively help you achieve high search engine placement.

Copyright ? 2009 Kanaga Siva. For more Tips and Advice, visit Strategic Role of the Keyword in Successful On Page Search Engine Optimization and Affiliate Marketing Blog

Writing Daily Goals- 60 Second Online Success Strategy

If you work from home or aspire to work from home then you know the challenge of keeping yourself motivated every day. There is no boss looking over your shoulder or structured office atmosphere to keep you on task. If you are working part time to supplement your income or to get your online business off the ground then your time is even more limited. You may get distracted and watch some youtube or play some video games. Try this 60 second Success Strategy that will help you stay on task all day and make some money.

Get Ready..

Go to your work spaced and clear out all the distractions. Turn off the music, shut the door, throw out the trash. Remove anything from your work space that is apt to become a distraction during your work time. Then pull out a blank piece of paper.

Get Set..

Take your watch, clock, hourglass or anything that buzzes and set it for 60 seconds. I learned this method from my kids. When I wanted them to get something done we would set the timer and make it a fun game. They would race against the clock to complete the task. It is a lot of fun!

Go!

Now take 60 seconds and write all the tasks that you would like to complete today. Start with the big ones like finish that big report and work your way toward the non-urgent items. You can also include things that are challenging to complete like doing research or completing some reading or a training. At the end of 60 seconds you should have a full page of items to get done.

Get Ready.. Get Set.. Go!

How Did You Do?

If you completed your list then congratulate yourself with a victory lap around your desk. Once you have caught your breath take a look at your list. You can write little notes next to the items on the list that indicate their importance. Which ones do you need to complete first?

I suggest starting with a couple of the easy items such as send an email to Victoria about the marketing launch. If you do a couple of easy items first and check them off then you will be inspired to complete more items. I like the rush of having checked something off the list.

Once you have checked off a couple of the little items you should be inspired to work on some of the more challenging projects. It helps me to set a time limit. For instance, I will complete the writing of the new web page before lunch. By giving yourself a time to complete something by you will be motivated to get started.

As you are doing work today you can put items on your list for tomorrow. You may not be inspired to do them today but if they are on your list for tomorrow then you will be motivated to do them that day.

Even if you don’t complete all the items in the time you had planed at least you got started. Practice this method every day. Remember that you always get less done in a day then you plan but you can accomplish more in a year then you can imagine.

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How to Optimize Videos for the Search Engines

One question that looms in the mind of many is how to optimize videos for the search engines. Unlike with articles or blog posts on your site, videos cannot be seen by the search engines so you can’t expect to just utter a few keywords on camera to get your videos ranked.

Tips for Getting a Video Ranked for Target Keywords

Since the search engines cannot see anything in your videos, there are only a few things you can do to inform search engines of what your videos contain. The title of the video, the comments, and the meta information are all seen by the search engines so you can add target keywords to these areas to optimize your video. It’s also recommended to use a transcription service and have all of your videos transcribed. This will make it easier for people because they can read the transcript if they are too busy to watch the video and the target keywords within the transcript can be picked up by the search engines.

Putting Your Video on a Third Party Site vs. on Your Own Site

When uploading your videos to the web, you have the choice between uploading them to third party sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Meta Caf? and to your own website. You can also do both if you wish. If you are looking to create a viral video and want it to be seen by as many people as possible, you will be able to get the maximum number of viewers at a site like YouTube. If your primary aim is to get visitors to visit your website, you should put your video on your own website.

How to Optimize Your Video Title

A title that contains your target keywords is of course great for SEO but you’re better off using such a title only for the videos you upload to your site. This will help your site get ranked for the target keywords. If you use your target keywords in the titles of the videos you upload to third party video sites, the videos on your own site are far less likely to rank highly on the search engines because popular sites like You Tube will always end up coming first. When you upload videos to third party video sites use catchy, compelling titles to increase the chance of them becoming viral but do not use titles that contain the target keywords. Save those target keywords for video titles on your own site to attract targeted traffic and build your site’s search engine ranking.

Another factor you’ll want to consider is the length of your video. Optimal videos are always under ten minutes. People are short on time and they will turn off your video if it is too long or too boring. Make sure your video is short and sweet and remember to keep things exciting.

So there you have it. Keep these tips in mind in order to optimize the videos you create for both search engines and humans. While it’s not possible for search engines to know exactly what is in your videos, you can help them rank well by providing the search engines with information through your video titles and transcripts.

This Article was written by the head copy writer of SEOSapien.com SEO Company. You can find all our SEO services and prices at http://www.seosapien.com

PLR Content: Beginners Guide And 5 Easy Strategies

With the advancement of internet, websites are mushrooming at a large scale. Every Tom, Dick and Harry dreams to get higher Page Rank (PR) in the famous search engines like Google, MSN or Yahoo. But the question is how you can get a higher PR. You may have heard the notion that content is the king! However what happens if you don’t know how to write well? Nevertheless there are fairly easy ways to get the content. Don’t start off by copying the content from your neighbour’s web site. Not only is it not going to get you anywhere, but it may just be plain illegal, not to mention that your site may be deindexed from the very search engines you are trying to please. You may be wondering then what the solution is? Get the PLR Content!

PLR stands for Private Label Rights, which comes in the form of different niche articles, websites, video presentations, eBooks etc. You simply take ownership of a product by purchasing PLR rights and putting your company’s name or logo on top. PLR Content is a great way to get the quality and fresh content for your site. The good part is that you don’t need to be a writer to get the PLR Content. Good quality PLR Content may make hiring a ghost writer unnecessary thus saving you a lot of money. Moreover, you are at a piece of mind when you get this content as your search engine ranking and credibility of the page is boosted. You are admired as your site is providing a professional content.

If you are planning a site within a couple of days you need not wait for the D day. Purchase PLR articles and just launch your site the same day. No hassles involved. Here are 5 easy strategies which will help you get quality PLR Content.

1. First and foremost step finding the topic. There are two ways to go about it: a.) simply find the niche based on what you know, what your life experience is, hobby, etc. and then look for a related PLR Content. b.) This may sound counter-intuitive to some, but sometimes, especially if you are a Niche Blogger, you may want to purchase PLR Content based on well-researched red-hot niches and only then build a blog with the purchased content. There are a number of companies, such as Expert Content, that offer PLR Articles from very narrow cash-generating niches specifically for Niche Bloggers.

2. Once your blog or website is getting the amount of traffic you consider adequate, continue building on the success of PLR Articles by adding additional material of your own if the niche proves to be profitable.

3. Even if you are purchasing the PLR articles as your Blog Content, it is always a good idea to check the authenticity of the articles. Make sure that the content does not feature outdated material and most importantly that it is not plagiarized.

4. Easy and fun way to make a profit is creating an eBook by purchasing a number of PLR articles on a specific topic and combining them together. Compile your eBook and sell it as your product!

5. Boost your business by starting your own ezine. Get a series of PLR Content and start sending it to your clients every week.

Why not spring into action right now and try out 50 FREE Quality PLR Articles? Visit Expert Content and download your PLR Content absolutely FREE, no strings attached!

3 Simple Steps to Building Online Credibility

Have you ever heard the phrase “reputation is everything in Internet marketing,” or something like that? It’s true, and for obvious reasons. Since prospective customers can’t see you face to face and you may be located hundreds or thousands of miles away. So, how do you start selling via the Internet when you haven’t had time to build a reputation yet? You must be credible and build credibility in everything you do. Below are some key ways to build credibility starting from scratch.

1. The power of a name.

In marketing a name is a brand. Specific to your situation it’s more to the point to say YOUR name is a brand. In other words, as you build a history, your name (or business name) will conjure up memories that people have about you and your business. So, you want those memories to be good ones and you want those memories to be brought out often. How do you do that? Put your name on everything you create including your website, articles, newsletters, reports, e-books, even blog and forum posts. Let’s not forget to take precautions to make sure you’re highly thought of as well. That means taking care to give thoughtful forum and blog posts and use proper grammar and spelling. Also, check your facts when you write articles and never claim to know something that you don’t or just guess about something. These types of mistakes can severely sabotage your credibility for a long time and in turn, damage your business.

2. Make yourself available to answer questions and answer them in a timely manner.

This goes not just for questions your customers may have about a product, but also to questions from prospective customers about your niche or sub-niche. The more you communicate with people, the greater your chance to show off your expertise and thereby build your credibility and strengthen your relationship with your prospective customer. Also, make sure any visitor to your website can easily find your contact information. She can’t even ask a question of you if she can’t find your email address in the first place, so make sure it’s either at a link at the top or side of the page labeled ‘contact,’ or right smack in the body of your home page text, or in both of those places. If she can’t find it she’ll be frustrated and that’s not what you want is it?

3. Have a return policy, display it prominently and stick to it.

This step alone will do a lot for increasing sales conversions. Think about it for a minute. Would you rather buy something you can return if you’re not happy with it, or something in which there’s no stated satisfaction guarantee and you’re just left shouldering all the risk of the buying decision yourself? If you’re afraid you’ll get too many returns, then I suggest you don’t sell any product that causes you to feel this way. Take the time to create quality products and always try to over-deliver on your sales promises.

It has been said that we buy from people and businesses that we know, like and trust. I believe if you follow the three above points that you’ll be well on your way to accomplishing that and building a vital aspect of your online business: credibility. These three points are so important that I suggest you reread these points right now and save this article to your hard drive future reference.

Jeffrey Paul Harper gives away 200 free product downloads and other free resources to help Internet marketers save time and make more money. Get your free stuff at his website: http://www.webofmoney101.com Internet marketing free gifts

Link Building Service or Build Your Own?

It’s not a surprise anymore that any online promotion needs a lot of time to be spent on link building campaign in order to get a site ranked on the top of search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN, they all have somewhat the same policy when it comes to allowing certain ranking to a site based on a given term. Even though there are few other methods and techniques factored in, link building is deemed to be the single most important element in search engine rankings. What we need to ask ourselves is whether we should spend countless number of hours on driving backlinks to our sites or whether we should hire a link building service provider who can do the job for us more efficiently?

There are few factors to consider before coming to a conclusion to this question. First, we need to understand the process of various different methods of link building even before we can start out an online promotion. No one can even think of starting an important marketing campaign without being totally familiar about what exactly needs to be done. Few wrong steps with your link building campaign can do more harm to your site than any good. Outsoaring to an SEO Company for their link building service can eliminate the risk of using these wrong methods.

Link building takes up a lot of time depending on how many backlinks one is building and which method is being used. If you are marketing a low competitive site, you can you can work ob building the needed backlinks yourself. But if you have a moderate to highly competitive industry where you play, you will notice that some of your competitors will have 10, 20, or even 100 times more backlinks than you do. Setting that much time aside and continuing with the promotional campaign can be a nightmare in this case and this is when you can consider a link building service provider to take some stress off your shoulder.

If you are considering hiring a link building service provider, then making sure you do a little bit of research about the company you are planning on before you hand over your critical promotional campaign to them. It is well known that you get the service that you pay for. If you pay low and search for cheap directory submission online, cheap link building service is what you are getting. Not all cheap link building service will be bad or worthless, but it is the common conception that SEO companies who are into SEO and SEM business for a while and know what they are doing, they will not be providing cheap services. Highly skilled people will need to get paid according to their knowledge, experience, and time.

Now here’s the million dollar question: how to identify a link building service provider that will provide you’re the value your online business deserves? Google the company you are considering on hiring and see if you can find some positive reviews on them. If the SEO company in question is reputable and has been around for some time, then there must be some client testimonial posted somewhere on the web. You might find some forum discussion or review posts by some clients or partners which will give you an idea about their link building service. Read the review and make an intelligent decision on selecting your SEO Company.

To learn more about how an SEO Company can help you with your site promotion, browse through the link building service that are available.

Are You Guilty of This Directory Listing Mistake?

In today’s world of connectivity, a person looking for a service or a product will search for that particular interest on internet first. Often many potential customers like to go to a directory or many business directories because they can have a look at many businesses in one place.

In a directory it is easy to go to a category and look for location of businesses and the details provided.

Potential customers in search for a product or service will always shop around. This is not a big secret really. When they reach a directory, they are doing just that, they are shopping around and looking at the product or service provider, meaning looking at your listing.

Many internet savvy searchers will then go to the website of the service or product provider to learn more about you and see if they want to do business with you. This is where of course you must know that your website should be very helpful to people searching for your services or products. But that is another subject all together.

However, the most important thing to note; is that most people searching will actually check out your website if it is listed in the directory.

This means that most people who list their business in a business directory by default should have a website listed. Anyone searching on the net, is most likely to be at least savvy enough to follow a website URL and check the service or product provider.

For this reason businesses that list their websites in serious directories and do not list their website but only their contact details and email, make a big mistake. They literarily give away business to the competition.

By the time the potential customer is browsing, he or she is likely to leave the directory and maybe not even turn back to see your listing. For this reason, one of the most common mistakes businesses make when they list their businesses in serious directories is to leave out their website, for whatever reason. Often directories charge some price for listing a website, while leave the regular listing for free. This is for a good reason, because they know very well that the value of the website url listing is one of the most important on a business directory. That is how you get potential customers to your website. Without this you are losing out on most of the potential of that listing.

Surprisingly enough you will see many businesses that basically save money not to place a full listing on a real business directory. They take what is free and move on. This could be a mistake that can cost a business all the potential customers that click to visit your competitions website.

Though this is perfectly fine, it is often called “penny wise and pound foolish”, because if potential customers reach your listing and you have no link to your website the potential customer basically is left at a disadvantage not being able to further investigate your offerings in detail on your website.

Very rarely, it does happen when customers may not look particularly for a website or may not consider that as a major issue if they are looking for a service that is location related.

If the directory listing includes only your business in your area and that is exactly what the potential customer is looking for, then of course the rest of the listings are not a competition to your listing. That said, it is rare when potential customer is looking only for a business with a specific location and it is even rarer when only one business is listed on one location, which again creates a massive disadvantage to the business that has no website link on the listing.

In summary, it is very important, when you list your business in a directory to ensure that you give all the details of your business and the most important thing is your WEBSITE.

Now you also know exactly why almost all serious directories that cater for serious businesses will charge for the placement of a link; because it is one of the most valuable pieces of information on that listing.

Potential customers searching on a business directory, are doing just that “searching” and “researching”, often they are not likely to immediately call your business without knowing more about your business and where would that find that on the internet? On your website of course.

So are you guilty of this directory listing mistake? If yes, you know how to fix this quickly. Most serious business directories do not charge that much to add your website link, but the benefit outweighs the options of having your competition get your potential customer instead of you.

Sean Wheller is the founder of www.1Directory.co.za, a Business Directory an online Business Directory in South Africa providing quality listings for local businesses.

How to Reduce Your Web Design and Development Costs

Many companies would love to reduced costs for their web design, web development, web maintenance and SEO.

Here is a list of things you can do to reduce these costs without compromising on vendor quality:

1. Have a clear brief of what you want for your website.

To clarify this further, you need to make an outline of exactly what you want in your website (pages, functions, forms, anything you can think of). Otherwise you will end up with things you thought you wanted, that the developer will include then you want removed. This will cost you to build and sometimes will cost you to remove, because the integrity of the site has to remain both activities will cost in time hence you will be charged for these. In addition to this, the outline will guide you through what is most important to what is least important, this will help with budget and you don’t have to build everything all at once.

2. Write your own text

You may not be able to SEO your own text (depending on your current SEO knowledge), but if you ask a web design company with copywriting services to do the text for you it will cost you more. Truth be told, for a good copywriting job the person doing your copywriting will have to do research, not only write. This takes time and for a good writing job you will pay quite a bit.

If the website is extensive the price can be high. When I mean high, this can run into thousands of dollar. Writing copy for a website is not only words on a page, it requires research of competitors, industry, your products and company to write compelling copy, not just some sentences put together. It stands to reason that if you provide the text it will be far cheaper than adding writing services to the price tag.

3. Get a website based on a content management system like Joomla

Get a content management system based website like “joomla”. This will enable you to load your own content, format your own content, add sections, delete content and manage your website while helping with content loading from the very beginning of the development. This will further reduce cost of development and also maintenance. In the future you won’t be dependent on the web design and development company to make the updates for you. With a content management system you have full control of the entire website content.

It stands to reason that hard coded websites (those sites that you need a programmer to keep changing stuff), are not only out of fashion but very expensive in the long run. Eventually, one would have to “rip and replace” with a content management system or live with the costs. The only time when such sites are justified is when a company wants to develop their own software type of back end. Though this is done, it is not common nor cost effective in the small to medium size business arena.

4. Perform some SEO tasks yourself

Get SEO consultation and audit, then get training and try to do as much SEO tasks as you can. Some SEO tasks such as related to the architecture of the site might be too much for a-none technical person. That said “off site SEO” and some “on site SEO” if directed by consultations from an expert can be done in house. You can reduce costs by doing some of the SEO tasks yourself.

If you have the money, it make sense to outsource, experts get it done faster and it saves you time to do what you need to grow your business, but if you don’t have the budget a consultation and site audit with recommendation on what to do will take you further than just doing nothing and losing out of organic traffic, potential customers and leads.

These are just some main things to consider if you want to reduce costs of development and maintenance of your own website. That said make sure you don’t try to reduce costs by choosing the cheapest vendor. Remember you get what you pay for. Rather reduce costs by doing some tasks yourself, reduce the amount of functionality you want with your first version of the site, but try never to compromise on quality it will cost you in the long run, sometimes as much as rebuilding your website all together.

Experts respect their work and know the value of their work this also means they charge for it accordingly, rather get a good service and build slowly than have to redo later.

If you have your entire brief and outline you discuss with your service provider, you can discuss with them steps to build your website at a rate that you can afford. A good website design and development company will consult you along the way and help you get there step by step according to your budget.

Sean Wheller is the founder of www.TheWebDesignCompany.co.za, a web design and SEO company specializing in developing search friendly websites with focus on e-commerce websites and online shops.

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