You may have heard that having a web community is a great way to increase sales, customer loyalty and word of mouth for your web business. In fact a web community itself, if large enough and targeting an affluent demographic (or one that advertisers like to target), has the potential to bring in revenue. Commonly people use a web forum as the centre point for a web community. However building a popular forum is no easy task and requires patience and dedication.
Start at the beginning: Which forum software should I use?
Perhaps the least important variable, but certainly a vital aspect, is the forum software you choose. I came to settle on Invision Board as my favourite forum of choice. Over the years I became very familiar with Invison Board functions so it would take a lot for me to switch to different forum software. Unfortunately the team at Invision recently stopped offering a fully functional free version and the most current free version has limitations on numbers of users. I'm a strong supporter of Invision so I still recommend using the free service and then paying to upgrade once your board is large enough to warrant it. Chances are with your forum being that popular means you can justify the fee anyway.
The other top quality free forum out there is phpBB which is the open source offering. I haven't used this myself but with Invision no longer being free I can see this being the main player for all small business forums. I see this forum everywhere so I think you can take that as a strong endorsement.
Another popular choice, especially for large companies that can afford the fee is vBulletin. This seems to the professional forum of choice for those with the moolah to afford it. I only played with this forum many years ago when they had a limited use free version (in fact it was the first forum I ever installed). It's definitely a top forum with a great design, but you pay for it.
As I said which forum software you choose is not too important. You are going to have to learn to use at least one, so choose the one that satisfies your criteria and then get playing. If the idea of installing forum software is daunting to you then I suggest you look at the installation services most forum businesses offer. You can pay a small fee and one of the staff or community members will install the software for you. There are also remotely hosted forums where you don't install any software at all on your server but instead use one hosted by the forum company. Note this often either costs money or is advertiser supported so you might have some icky banners or other ads streamed across your forum. I recommend you host the forum on your own server because you get control, ownership and better search engine benefits.
How to attract and keep members
Regardless of which forum software you choose the hardest part of building a community is getting members, and members that stick around. Obviously your forum should be targeted to your business niche or target market if it's not a business site.
Picking the niche area you target is vital for success, and the individual forums you create for your community must clearly represent the purpose of your community. However this is where some lessons can be learnt. At first when you start building categories and individual forums you might get carried away with all the interesting forums you can create. You dream of your users lapping it up and talking away about every little area of interest you can come up with. This is the first major mistake you can make. You end up creating way too many forums that have no topics in them. Even if you do manage to bring some quality visitors to your site, they hit your forum and see an empty place and then move on. No one feels compelled to join an empty forum.
But you may ask then, how can you go from having an empty forum to one filled with topics when no one wants to get things started? It's a catch 22 isn't it! The number one concept to remember is that people bring in people. If visitors see topics and posts and discussions they are interested in they are more likely to contribute. It's hardest early on when you first launch but there are some tricks you can do. Here are the key pointers I've learnt to get passed this early stage of a ghost-town forum.
1. Think minimalist when building categories and forums
Look to about four forums maximum to start with, even less if possible. If you find yourself coming up with many different forum subjects, try and group them together under one forum. Then in that forum you can create individual topic posts to cater to each area. That way you are creating conversation starters and making the place look a little busier. As the forums grow and you have enough individual entries to start breaking down forums you can justify creating new ones. You can then move the existing topics into the appropriate categories and the forum doesn't start off empty.
2. As the owner you must keep contributing
This might seem obvious, but it's hard to keep motivated when week after week you create new topics and try to stimulate conversation and you seem to be talking to yourself. Personally I get the most excited when I first build the forum, thinking of all the great topics that can be discussed. Unfortunately once everything is done it does take some effort to keep writing fresh content. The only rule I can give is stick to it. Get into a routine of making a few posts everyday.
Expanding on this idea...
3. Create some fake personalities
This may seem a little dishonest, but a little trick you can use to stimulate conversation is to create a few different member accounts each with their own personality. Basically you create some fictional members and get posting. You can even have full forum conversations between your characters (just don't go insane!). Only you know which characters are fake. To everyone else it appears as if your forum is getting popular.
I had a friend take this idea so seriously that he kept profile notes on each character such as age, sex, personality type, occupation etc so whenever he made posts he made sure to get into character first. It's like forum acting.
This method again takes dedication because you need to keep logging in with each character and making new posts. However it can be MUCH more effective than if it was just you making all the posts as your own identity. It looks sad when the webmaster is chatting away to no one, but not quite as sad when Jim, Katie, Chris and Jane are having conversations even if they really are all controlled by the webmaster.
4. Publish content
There are sites available such as Ezine Articles that have articles you are allowed to publish on your site provided you follow their terms of use policy (which usually means you publish the articles exactly as they are and keep all links intact). The authors of these articles make them free because they get good promotion if their article is widely published. Note that because these are free articles you will most likely find that you are not the only site out there with the content.
If you want unique content you may have to pay for it and consider hiring columnists. With MTGParadise.com we had such a good community that many of our members were happy to write articles and reports for free. They enjoyed writing and seeing their article published. It's not easy to generate free unique articles this way especially early on before you have a community running, so it might be necessary to throw around a little cash and buy some articles.
If you can find content relevant to your market and distribute it to your community you have a good way to stimulate conversation and make your forum look a little busier.
5. Recruit your mates and spread the word
This is harder than you'd think. If you are like me, most of my closest friends are too busy or not really the forum community types so they won't help out much. Generally though you should have a few friends that are interested in the topic of your forum and they might help out with a post every now and then. Don't put to much pressure on them and be thankful for anything they contribute. You don't want to get carried away trying to get your forum off the ground that you lose your friends because you constantly pester them to make posts or join up.
As a general rule, don't be shy; tell everyone you know about your forum. But only do it once in a polite manner. Say you are inviting them to check out something you have created and that you want their valuable opinion before you officially launch. This "sneak peek" will make your friends and family feel special because you are demonstrating that you value their opinion so they will be more inclined to check out your site.
You can put a note in your signature file in your email about your new community, make a few posts at newsgroups that focus on your target market and hit some other complimentary (not competitor) forums to advertise your new forum. Remember always be courteous, follow rules and don't come across too desperate whenever you promote your forum. All this will come across negatively and harm your chances of new members signing up.
Don't give up
The most important tip I can give you to grow your community is to not give up. Even though YoungActivist.com is sitting out there all alone with no members and very old content I still value the site. While I didn't achieve the success I wanted off the bat, I haven't given up and hope that one day can I can get the site growing again.
Sometime after months, maybe even years of making new posts, adding content and spreading the word, you will find that your forum has grown to have a few hundred members, a handful of devoted regulars and no longer requires daily injections of posts from you. You reach a critical mass and your community moves forward without too much intervention from you. This is the holy grail of forum building because your members became the best advertising tool you could ever have. Word of mouth helps the site to continue to grow and attract new members. You can start creating new forums with confidence that they won't be empty for long. Best of all, you now have an audience that you can either leverage around your own products or services or start to derive revenue from through advertising, premium services or subscriptions etc.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Online Community
How do we define a bad website design? And why are there a lot of bad we design techniques being used today? For a regular internet-user, this could create a degree of annoyance. In my personal experience, bad web designs drive me crazy! How on earth could they create such a low-class site considering that there are tons of good web design information available at their disposal? Here is a list of the worst web design techniques that could drive anyone to the edge of sanity.
1. Pop-ups and Broken Back Buttons
· Don't you just hate websites that has broken your browser back button? Ugh. This can drive you crazy! But what can drive you crazier is when they start hurling pop-ups you way before you could even read the website's headline. Did they really think that bombarding us with pop ups and locking us down on their page could convince us to buy from them? I don't think so. I won't think twice in adding them to my blacklist, that's what I'm going to do!
2. A Gigantic Flash Intro Screen
· First and foremost, visitors visited your site to see what it is about-review products and services that you sell and not feast their eyes on your flash effects. This is just annoying, to the nth power, especially for someone who has a slow dial-up connection. No way are they going to wait for 5 to 10 minutes for your site to load. The easiest solution is close the browser and move to the next prospect.
3. Horizontal Scrolling
· Everybody hates horizontal scrolling. Period! It's a lot of hand work and it can drive people nuts. There's no reason for horizontal scrolling to be present in your website.
4. Snail-like loading Time
· Internet users are impatient. They want to navigate through a website and find what they want as fast as possible. A slow loading site is instantaneously banished from our "good website lists". Slow loading time is usually caused by cheap web hosting, poor coding, un-optimized and too much graphics.
5. Too Many Banner Ads
· If you want your website to be likened to a classified ads, then bombarding it with 50 banners ads is not a problem. Otherwise, you have to be careful with what you put in there. If you're selling cellphones, placing banner ads for shoes and batteries doesn't make sense at all. This could leave potential customers confused.
1. Pop-ups and Broken Back Buttons
· Don't you just hate websites that has broken your browser back button? Ugh. This can drive you crazy! But what can drive you crazier is when they start hurling pop-ups you way before you could even read the website's headline. Did they really think that bombarding us with pop ups and locking us down on their page could convince us to buy from them? I don't think so. I won't think twice in adding them to my blacklist, that's what I'm going to do!
2. A Gigantic Flash Intro Screen
· First and foremost, visitors visited your site to see what it is about-review products and services that you sell and not feast their eyes on your flash effects. This is just annoying, to the nth power, especially for someone who has a slow dial-up connection. No way are they going to wait for 5 to 10 minutes for your site to load. The easiest solution is close the browser and move to the next prospect.
3. Horizontal Scrolling
· Everybody hates horizontal scrolling. Period! It's a lot of hand work and it can drive people nuts. There's no reason for horizontal scrolling to be present in your website.
4. Snail-like loading Time
· Internet users are impatient. They want to navigate through a website and find what they want as fast as possible. A slow loading site is instantaneously banished from our "good website lists". Slow loading time is usually caused by cheap web hosting, poor coding, un-optimized and too much graphics.
5. Too Many Banner Ads
· If you want your website to be likened to a classified ads, then bombarding it with 50 banners ads is not a problem. Otherwise, you have to be careful with what you put in there. If you're selling cellphones, placing banner ads for shoes and batteries doesn't make sense at all. This could leave potential customers confused.
Local Service Providers
Don't think that because you are not a retailer or have a strong presence in your community that you do not need to develop an online presence. It is a fact that most people begin any search for an organization, a service, or a product by conducting online research. You will be invisible to this audience and may be missing out on significant business opportunity by not capitalizing on this comparatively inexpensive marketing opportunity. People simply do not use print phone directories anymore; they turn to search engines like Google®, Bing®, and Yahoo!®
Things to Consider
Get online or evaluate your current website. If you're not online yet, there is a multitude of free website builder tools available online, and typically, they offer templates that are easy to use and will help you at least have a one-page site that can explain to potential customers who you are, what you do, and instruct them on how to get in touch with you.
Compare web hosting packages to find one that fits your needs and budget now and offers flexibility for future growth.
Basic website elements:
A logo unique to your business or organization
Colors, fonts, images coordinated to unify your brand
Contact information
Clear outline of your services and service areas
A brief outline of the company or organization, including a mission statement or vision if relevant
For search engine optimization purposes, you will want the page or pages have a sufficient amount of content, at least 200 words per page.
Use your company name a few times, as well as identify the key terms that customers may use when looking for your company: This will make it easier to find your company locally.
Your website can also serve as a marketing tool. Once you cut your teeth on getting the site up or revising it and using your regular marketing outlets to advertise its existence, you'll be ready to accelerate your online efforts.
Marketing your Online Presence
Online marketing doesn't have to be intense or daunting. You can do a few simple things to get the ball rolling, then proceed as time, budget and skills develop.
Submit the site to directories
Register your site with Google. This will allow your site to appear when a searcher enters keywords related to your company in the search engine.
Look for directories that are industry related or locally collected. Many users may turn to these lists to find area providers of certain services. Typically, if a customer is using this method of finding service companies, they just want to get a phone number to call and speak with someone, set up an appointment, or drive to the local storefront. This plays right into your hands.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a search engine optimization (SEO) term. It uses geographic keywords in your site content and in the behind the scenes coding of your website to make sure your site is more likely to be found by the right audience. As you add pages to your site, add content, or undertake online marketing, you'll want to make sure you target your service region with location-rich keywords (e.g., Oskaloosa Baptist ministry or Italian cultural organizations Chicago).
Geo-targeting offers two distinct advantages:
Better targeting of the right customers
Maximize your SEO dollars
SEO efforts are aimed at gaining rankings and PPC campaigns provide a way to attract people to your site. But any effort is only as good as the amount of actual business that closes. Geo-targeting to get the right customers to your site is a critical step for a small, local business. You can look at some Web hosting companies for tips to get started.
And Beyond
Once you have a website up and have begun online marketing, targeting a local audience, you can do a few other things to expand your presence, such as:
Adding pages and articles to your site regularly
Hosting a blog on your site
Contributing to other industry blogs and linking to your site
Offering online scheduling or form downloads
Things to Consider
Get online or evaluate your current website. If you're not online yet, there is a multitude of free website builder tools available online, and typically, they offer templates that are easy to use and will help you at least have a one-page site that can explain to potential customers who you are, what you do, and instruct them on how to get in touch with you.
Compare web hosting packages to find one that fits your needs and budget now and offers flexibility for future growth.
Basic website elements:
A logo unique to your business or organization
Colors, fonts, images coordinated to unify your brand
Contact information
Clear outline of your services and service areas
A brief outline of the company or organization, including a mission statement or vision if relevant
For search engine optimization purposes, you will want the page or pages have a sufficient amount of content, at least 200 words per page.
Use your company name a few times, as well as identify the key terms that customers may use when looking for your company: This will make it easier to find your company locally.
Your website can also serve as a marketing tool. Once you cut your teeth on getting the site up or revising it and using your regular marketing outlets to advertise its existence, you'll be ready to accelerate your online efforts.
Marketing your Online Presence
Online marketing doesn't have to be intense or daunting. You can do a few simple things to get the ball rolling, then proceed as time, budget and skills develop.
Submit the site to directories
Register your site with Google. This will allow your site to appear when a searcher enters keywords related to your company in the search engine.
Look for directories that are industry related or locally collected. Many users may turn to these lists to find area providers of certain services. Typically, if a customer is using this method of finding service companies, they just want to get a phone number to call and speak with someone, set up an appointment, or drive to the local storefront. This plays right into your hands.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a search engine optimization (SEO) term. It uses geographic keywords in your site content and in the behind the scenes coding of your website to make sure your site is more likely to be found by the right audience. As you add pages to your site, add content, or undertake online marketing, you'll want to make sure you target your service region with location-rich keywords (e.g., Oskaloosa Baptist ministry or Italian cultural organizations Chicago).
Geo-targeting offers two distinct advantages:
Better targeting of the right customers
Maximize your SEO dollars
SEO efforts are aimed at gaining rankings and PPC campaigns provide a way to attract people to your site. But any effort is only as good as the amount of actual business that closes. Geo-targeting to get the right customers to your site is a critical step for a small, local business. You can look at some Web hosting companies for tips to get started.
And Beyond
Once you have a website up and have begun online marketing, targeting a local audience, you can do a few other things to expand your presence, such as:
Adding pages and articles to your site regularly
Hosting a blog on your site
Contributing to other industry blogs and linking to your site
Offering online scheduling or form downloads
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Most Popular Web
With its very inception in the web development arena, PHP has transformed the tradition in which dynamic websites were developed earlier. When a user thinks to go further with the idea of creating a dynamic website, a number of things come in his mind. These aspects include its flexibility, usability, scalability and its user friendly nature. Thanks to this widely acclaimed open source programming language that stormed the web development floor to make the web developers able enough to accomplish all above mentioned criterion with deep impact. Let's discuss the factors that make this language highly adaptable with critical web development environment.
An open source programming language: Being an open source server side programming language, PHP is available free of cost and quite easy in coding. PHP is very efficient on multi-platforms like Windows, Linux, and UNIX and recognized by the web developer community as the most suitable language for developing dynamic web pages. Due to its availability as the open source programming language, user's systems do not required much of the processor space and thus doesn't impact the system speed.
A dynamic programing language: PHP works in the close correlation of HTML in order to display dynamic contents and other related elements on the page. Only code that's written inside the its delimiters is parsed by the PHP. Anything written outside its delimiters is sent to the output directly and PHP doesn't parse it.
Less Resource utilization: Using PHP and its procedures in during the web development process doesn't require huge chunk of system resources. It loads and executes functions and processes very quickly as it uses Apache module written in C language. Working compatibility of PHP with other software is also very commanding and swift.
Dynamic Content Management:
Gone are the days when managing content was the biggest headache for the web developers. With very advent of the PHP in the web development arena, creation of the dynamic content is became very simple. All one have to do is to put the entire content at a central database server. Web developers write code for fetching the contents from the database as need arise.
Below listed are some of the basic points one need to know about PHP:
Easily available coding libraries
An open source programming language
Numerous Several HTTP server interfaces
Database support with MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Informix, and PostgreSQL etc.
Very similar with C and java
Platform compatibility
An open source programming language: Being an open source server side programming language, PHP is available free of cost and quite easy in coding. PHP is very efficient on multi-platforms like Windows, Linux, and UNIX and recognized by the web developer community as the most suitable language for developing dynamic web pages. Due to its availability as the open source programming language, user's systems do not required much of the processor space and thus doesn't impact the system speed.
A dynamic programing language: PHP works in the close correlation of HTML in order to display dynamic contents and other related elements on the page. Only code that's written inside the its delimiters is parsed by the PHP. Anything written outside its delimiters is sent to the output directly and PHP doesn't parse it.
Less Resource utilization: Using PHP and its procedures in during the web development process doesn't require huge chunk of system resources. It loads and executes functions and processes very quickly as it uses Apache module written in C language. Working compatibility of PHP with other software is also very commanding and swift.
Dynamic Content Management:
Gone are the days when managing content was the biggest headache for the web developers. With very advent of the PHP in the web development arena, creation of the dynamic content is became very simple. All one have to do is to put the entire content at a central database server. Web developers write code for fetching the contents from the database as need arise.
Below listed are some of the basic points one need to know about PHP:
Easily available coding libraries
An open source programming language
Numerous Several HTTP server interfaces
Database support with MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Informix, and PostgreSQL etc.
Very similar with C and java
Platform compatibility
Money Online
Web 2.0 is a modern platform that allows people to connect, interact with the websites and with each other and share information online. So, Web 2.0 encompasses blogs, social network sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and also the social bookmarking sites like Digg, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, etc. What affiliate marketers need to do to assist their quest to make money online is to harness all of this Web 2.0 traffic to their advantage in affiliate sales.
Every single affiliate marketer loves nothing more than free traffic and Web 2.0 has enabled this to be a huge possibility. In fact Social networking has become a fundamental part of any affiliate marketers Arsenal.
The idea is to promote your products and not pay once cent for advertising by getting your squeeze page URL around the most popular of the Web 2.0 community. As you do this it gets passed around by the community and creates highly target traffic back links to your website.
There are still many thousands of marketers who do no use this method and prefer to pay for their traffic and they are really loosing out on the power of Web 2.0. To start you need to sign up to most popular of the free account sites and start to build your Web 2.0 community with links for your website, where hopefully you will then collect subscribers. In addition you can create multiple user profiles and link them to one another through the URL links. By creating multiple user profiles for related topics, you drive your website ranking upwards.
These sites are also great place to place videos. Where millions of people will share the ones that appeal to them, which spreads your message around the community, which should drive traffic to your website.
Every single affiliate marketer loves nothing more than free traffic and Web 2.0 has enabled this to be a huge possibility. In fact Social networking has become a fundamental part of any affiliate marketers Arsenal.
The idea is to promote your products and not pay once cent for advertising by getting your squeeze page URL around the most popular of the Web 2.0 community. As you do this it gets passed around by the community and creates highly target traffic back links to your website.
There are still many thousands of marketers who do no use this method and prefer to pay for their traffic and they are really loosing out on the power of Web 2.0. To start you need to sign up to most popular of the free account sites and start to build your Web 2.0 community with links for your website, where hopefully you will then collect subscribers. In addition you can create multiple user profiles and link them to one another through the URL links. By creating multiple user profiles for related topics, you drive your website ranking upwards.
These sites are also great place to place videos. Where millions of people will share the ones that appeal to them, which spreads your message around the community, which should drive traffic to your website.
Local Service Providers
Don't think that because you are not a retailer or have a strong presence in your community that you do not need to develop an online presence. It is a fact that most people begin any search for an organization, a service, or a product by conducting online research. You will be invisible to this audience and may be missing out on significant business opportunity by not capitalizing on this comparatively inexpensive marketing opportunity. People simply do not use print phone directories anymore; they turn to search engines like Google®, Bing®, and Yahoo!®
Things to Consider
Get online or evaluate your current website. If you're not online yet, there is a multitude of free website builder tools available online, and typically, they offer templates that are easy to use and will help you at least have a one-page site that can explain to potential customers who you are, what you do, and instruct them on how to get in touch with you.
Compare web hosting packages to find one that fits your needs and budget now and offers flexibility for future growth.
Basic website elements:
A logo unique to your business or organization
Colors, fonts, images coordinated to unify your brand
Contact information
Clear outline of your services and service areas
A brief outline of the company or organization, including a mission statement or vision if relevant
For search engine optimization purposes, you will want the page or pages have a sufficient amount of content, at least 200 words per page.
Use your company name a few times, as well as identify the key terms that customers may use when looking for your company: This will make it easier to find your company locally.
Your website can also serve as a marketing tool. Once you cut your teeth on getting the site up or revising it and using your regular marketing outlets to advertise its existence, you'll be ready to accelerate your online efforts.
Marketing your Online Presence
Online marketing doesn't have to be intense or daunting. You can do a few simple things to get the ball rolling, then proceed as time, budget and skills develop.
Submit the site to directories
Register your site with Google. This will allow your site to appear when a searcher enters keywords related to your company in the search engine.
Look for directories that are industry related or locally collected. Many users may turn to these lists to find area providers of certain services. Typically, if a customer is using this method of finding service companies, they just want to get a phone number to call and speak with someone, set up an appointment, or drive to the local storefront. This plays right into your hands.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a search engine optimization (SEO) term. It uses geographic keywords in your site content and in the behind the scenes coding of your website to make sure your site is more likely to be found by the right audience. As you add pages to your site, add content, or undertake online marketing, you'll want to make sure you target your service region with location-rich keywords (e.g., Oskaloosa Baptist ministry or Italian cultural organizations Chicago).
Geo-targeting offers two distinct advantages:
Better targeting of the right customers
Maximize your SEO dollars
SEO efforts are aimed at gaining rankings and PPC campaigns provide a way to attract people to your site. But any effort is only as good as the amount of actual business that closes. Geo-targeting to get the right customers to your site is a critical step for a small, local business. You can look at some Web hosting companies for tips to get started.
And Beyond
Once you have a website up and have begun online marketing, targeting a local audience, you can do a few other things to expand your presence, such as:
Adding pages and articles to your site regularly
Hosting a blog on your site
Contributing to other industry blogs and linking to your site
Offering online scheduling or form downloads
Things to Consider
Get online or evaluate your current website. If you're not online yet, there is a multitude of free website builder tools available online, and typically, they offer templates that are easy to use and will help you at least have a one-page site that can explain to potential customers who you are, what you do, and instruct them on how to get in touch with you.
Compare web hosting packages to find one that fits your needs and budget now and offers flexibility for future growth.
Basic website elements:
A logo unique to your business or organization
Colors, fonts, images coordinated to unify your brand
Contact information
Clear outline of your services and service areas
A brief outline of the company or organization, including a mission statement or vision if relevant
For search engine optimization purposes, you will want the page or pages have a sufficient amount of content, at least 200 words per page.
Use your company name a few times, as well as identify the key terms that customers may use when looking for your company: This will make it easier to find your company locally.
Your website can also serve as a marketing tool. Once you cut your teeth on getting the site up or revising it and using your regular marketing outlets to advertise its existence, you'll be ready to accelerate your online efforts.
Marketing your Online Presence
Online marketing doesn't have to be intense or daunting. You can do a few simple things to get the ball rolling, then proceed as time, budget and skills develop.
Submit the site to directories
Register your site with Google. This will allow your site to appear when a searcher enters keywords related to your company in the search engine.
Look for directories that are industry related or locally collected. Many users may turn to these lists to find area providers of certain services. Typically, if a customer is using this method of finding service companies, they just want to get a phone number to call and speak with someone, set up an appointment, or drive to the local storefront. This plays right into your hands.
Geo-Targeting
Geo-targeting is a search engine optimization (SEO) term. It uses geographic keywords in your site content and in the behind the scenes coding of your website to make sure your site is more likely to be found by the right audience. As you add pages to your site, add content, or undertake online marketing, you'll want to make sure you target your service region with location-rich keywords (e.g., Oskaloosa Baptist ministry or Italian cultural organizations Chicago).
Geo-targeting offers two distinct advantages:
Better targeting of the right customers
Maximize your SEO dollars
SEO efforts are aimed at gaining rankings and PPC campaigns provide a way to attract people to your site. But any effort is only as good as the amount of actual business that closes. Geo-targeting to get the right customers to your site is a critical step for a small, local business. You can look at some Web hosting companies for tips to get started.
And Beyond
Once you have a website up and have begun online marketing, targeting a local audience, you can do a few other things to expand your presence, such as:
Adding pages and articles to your site regularly
Hosting a blog on your site
Contributing to other industry blogs and linking to your site
Offering online scheduling or form downloads
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Community Websites
In this article I will discuss how important is it to build community websites rather than straight forward sales pitches. Selling online is about bringing people together, not about stuffing products down your visitors throwts and expecting them to buy from you.
We have conditioned our minds all of our lives to accept advertising billboards, radio ads, newspaper ads, commercials, and all sorts of other advertising materials wherever we go. The same applies on the internet. This "conditioning" has enabled us to see past all the ads and look directly for the pertinant information that we are seeking.
People who are new to the internet are more likely to click on your ads for no apparent reason but to simply search and keep searching. Others that have beed online for years now, tend not to pay attention to as many ads on a daily basis like they used to.
If you are serious about making money online without having to spend too much of your budget, create a "community online". It is in our nature as human beings to want to belong, or to be involved within a community setting. Communities come in all shapes & sizes and are not limited to gender, race, nationality, or religion. A community can cater to whatever topic you wish and welcome whomever you desire.
Same concept applies to your website!
Building a community within your website is the key to increasing your business, keeping visitors coming back, and keeping your advertising budget in the bank. Show your visitors that you aren't just here on the internet to sell them something. For example, we (Smartads), we are here to teach what we know about internet marketing. By teaching, we too learn more, gain more business, and attract new visitors.
RESIDUAL TRAFFIC IS THE KEY!
As i've always mentioned to my clients & readers, getting people to your website is the easy part. Anyone with a $500 credit card can get traffic to their website, it's keeping them there and getting your visitors to come back on their own time is what makes owning a website a dificult proposition.
Visitors always come back to communities they can relate to!
I always to go back to internet marketing communities online like:
www.webpronews.com
www.sitepronews.com
www.searchenginewatch.com
and so on... There are many internet marketing resources available for business owners. We are fortunate to have access to the vast amount of resources that we do, in order to increase our business & to increase our knowledge.
More resources online also increases competition. There are literally millions of websites out there and many of them might possibly be your competitors. Without building a community, people won't remember who you are, or what it is that you do. Infact, if you are spending all of your money on banner ads, pay per click advertising, affiliates, and other marketing areas online, and at the same time you aren't paying attention to increasing your home base, when your advertising budget runs out so too will the bulk of your traffic.
If your website isn't good enough, your sales won't be good enough. Granted; building a website can be very time consuming but just remember that you don't need to create an empire over night. Just a little here, a little there, and before you know it, it all adds up to something you can be proud of. Over time, your website traffic will constantly be increasing.
PLEASE NOTE: If you stop advertising, your traffic won't grow. Growing your website is all part of the whole plan.
What do we need to create a community website?
You always want to add extras to your site that interest you. By doing so, you will also attract people with similar interests and help to bridge the credibility gap online.
You can always add these to your website:
Personal blog
Helpful tips
Mini-ebook courses (on how to be a better client for you)
Other people's articles
Chat forum (requires a lot of maintenance & promotion)
Free business directory listings
Family albums for users
Fun online questionnaires
Mind benders
Games
Contests (with actual prizes)
"How to" articles
Government resources
Local community resources
Support local companies & vice versa
I think we can now get a sense of what building a "community" website means. The key is to take your industry (even if it is boring), and teach someone about what it is that you do. The internet allows us to take in more information than we could ever imagine. There is always someone out there who wants to learn about your industry.
The key is to add on a little at a time. Talk to your web designer. Try and find unique little ways to build a community website online. Ask people what they look for within your industry. After time, you will know what it takes to keep creating more for your company online, and your wallet will love you for it.
Just remember the more you build, the less your advertising budget will be when you get there. Just keep it up until you get there, don't give up on yourself, your company, or your future.
We have conditioned our minds all of our lives to accept advertising billboards, radio ads, newspaper ads, commercials, and all sorts of other advertising materials wherever we go. The same applies on the internet. This "conditioning" has enabled us to see past all the ads and look directly for the pertinant information that we are seeking.
People who are new to the internet are more likely to click on your ads for no apparent reason but to simply search and keep searching. Others that have beed online for years now, tend not to pay attention to as many ads on a daily basis like they used to.
If you are serious about making money online without having to spend too much of your budget, create a "community online". It is in our nature as human beings to want to belong, or to be involved within a community setting. Communities come in all shapes & sizes and are not limited to gender, race, nationality, or religion. A community can cater to whatever topic you wish and welcome whomever you desire.
Same concept applies to your website!
Building a community within your website is the key to increasing your business, keeping visitors coming back, and keeping your advertising budget in the bank. Show your visitors that you aren't just here on the internet to sell them something. For example, we (Smartads), we are here to teach what we know about internet marketing. By teaching, we too learn more, gain more business, and attract new visitors.
RESIDUAL TRAFFIC IS THE KEY!
As i've always mentioned to my clients & readers, getting people to your website is the easy part. Anyone with a $500 credit card can get traffic to their website, it's keeping them there and getting your visitors to come back on their own time is what makes owning a website a dificult proposition.
Visitors always come back to communities they can relate to!
I always to go back to internet marketing communities online like:
www.webpronews.com
www.sitepronews.com
www.searchenginewatch.com
and so on... There are many internet marketing resources available for business owners. We are fortunate to have access to the vast amount of resources that we do, in order to increase our business & to increase our knowledge.
More resources online also increases competition. There are literally millions of websites out there and many of them might possibly be your competitors. Without building a community, people won't remember who you are, or what it is that you do. Infact, if you are spending all of your money on banner ads, pay per click advertising, affiliates, and other marketing areas online, and at the same time you aren't paying attention to increasing your home base, when your advertising budget runs out so too will the bulk of your traffic.
If your website isn't good enough, your sales won't be good enough. Granted; building a website can be very time consuming but just remember that you don't need to create an empire over night. Just a little here, a little there, and before you know it, it all adds up to something you can be proud of. Over time, your website traffic will constantly be increasing.
PLEASE NOTE: If you stop advertising, your traffic won't grow. Growing your website is all part of the whole plan.
What do we need to create a community website?
You always want to add extras to your site that interest you. By doing so, you will also attract people with similar interests and help to bridge the credibility gap online.
You can always add these to your website:
Personal blog
Helpful tips
Mini-ebook courses (on how to be a better client for you)
Other people's articles
Chat forum (requires a lot of maintenance & promotion)
Free business directory listings
Family albums for users
Fun online questionnaires
Mind benders
Games
Contests (with actual prizes)
"How to" articles
Government resources
Local community resources
Support local companies & vice versa
I think we can now get a sense of what building a "community" website means. The key is to take your industry (even if it is boring), and teach someone about what it is that you do. The internet allows us to take in more information than we could ever imagine. There is always someone out there who wants to learn about your industry.
The key is to add on a little at a time. Talk to your web designer. Try and find unique little ways to build a community website online. Ask people what they look for within your industry. After time, you will know what it takes to keep creating more for your company online, and your wallet will love you for it.
Just remember the more you build, the less your advertising budget will be when you get there. Just keep it up until you get there, don't give up on yourself, your company, or your future.
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