2 Tips On Selecting The Perfect Wholesale Website Domain Name

By Rob Swanson

One of the most important things you can do to help optimize your wholesale real estate site for good placement in the search engines is choose a good domain name.  But, you might be asking “What makes a domain name good?”  And let me just say for the record, it is not the name of your company in most cases.  No one knows the name of your company and frankly, no one cares.
When it comes to domain name selection, it’s all about branding and understanding your potential customer.  And, the answer is pretty easy.  You need to think like your potential customer, you know the person typing a search into Google that you hope sees your website.

In the case of a wholesale real estate site building a buyers list, it is important to recognize that your potential customer is searching for good real estate deals, wholesale property, cash flow houses, real estate wholesalers and so on.  If someone that is buying in your area is typing one of these searches, you want your domain name to hit as the first line of optimization.  Because, when a search engine receives a search there is a lot that happens, but one of the first things the search engine does is look for domain names that are relevant to the search keyword or phrase.

Here are two tips that should help:

1. First, your domain name should identify “what you have”.  For example, wholesale real estate, investor properties, rehab houses, etc., etc.  This is what people are searching for and should be a part of your domain name.

1. Second, your domain name should identify “where you have it”.  For example, Denver or Colorado or Adams County or SW Florida, etc., etc.  This is where people are searching.

Because people search for what they are looking for generally by location choosing an easy to remember domain name that covers both is a great place to start.  Combine an easy to remember mix of “what” and “where” into your domain name and you will be taking a big step forward in helping cash buyers find your wholesale website online.

For fast, organic search engine ranking there are 3 additional techniques you can use to crush your competition and dominate your online presence.  I’ll address these other techniques in upcoming issues but for starters, get your domain name right first.

About The Author

Rob Swanson is a full time real estate investor and is the publisher of the 100% FREE, content rich http://www.WholesalingNewsletter.com.  Claim your copy today and learn how you can find wholesale real estate deals in your backyard in less than 3 hours.

As an internet marketing gal, one of my many roles with Larry has been to grow our presence on the internet.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Seeing as how I’ve been driving targeted, quality traffic to people’s websites for nearly 13 years you’d think I could just sort of wave a magic wand and Larry would have more traffic to his many real estate investing web sites than he could shake a stick at.

Over the last couple of months we have really made serious leaps and bounds into our social networking presence online.  Larry has become a Master Tweeter.  He has blogs, and The Coaching Club, and is active in Yahoo Groups and web 2.0 real estate communities.  What we hope to do in this column is to help you, Larry’s student, grow your internet presence in the same way that we have grown ours.   We will talk about things that have worked and things that haven’t worked.  We will share some stories of our successes and failures to help you be more successful.  So read on!  And welcome to another great column of The Ultimate Investor Report!

One humorous look at how a lack of communication can muddy the waters in your marketing efforts follows.

Larry has a Twitter presence of http://www.Twitter.com/larrygoins.  Larry joined Twitter again, and found that his name was already taken.  So he joined as http://www.Twitter.com/larrygoins1.  Now you might think Twitter would be smart enough to alert us that we now had multiple Twitter accounts but no, they don’t do that.  Therefore we’ve both been working on building a stronger Twitter persona for Larry but with two different and unique Larry Goins accounts.  The really funny part is that neither one realized what the other one was doing!

The lesson here is that as we’ve both worked on building a Twitter experience for Larry’s students, we’ve actually been competing against each other.  The good news for you, is that we are going to let you learn from our experience AND we are going to give one lucky student a prize each month for learning from us.

Hopefully by now as a Web 2.0 student you realize that being a valued member of Twitter means having followers, following others, and posting useful or informative or humorous Tweets.  Since here at The Goins Group we have inadvertently created an internal competition between the two Larry Goins Twitter accounts, we are going to make it an all out competition.  Right now, larrygoins1 has more followers than larrygoins.  Go figure.  I hate to lose.  So, we are going to compete to see which one of the accounts can get the most followers before the September issue of the Ultimate Investor Report goes to print next month.  One lucky follower of both Twitter accounts will win some really cool stuff from Larry.  Could be a book.  Could be a digital download of a full length course or boot camp.  Could be a cruise.  Could be an Inner Circle or could even be a free membership to TheCoachingClub.com.  The more followers we get, the more we will give away.  So go right now to http://www.Twitter.com and follow larrygoins.  Tell your friends.  Tell your fellow real estate investors.  Retweet our coolest tweets.  But tweet away!

Oh yeah, Larry would want you to give him a fighting chance to keep his extra Twitter account alive and well by following larrygoins1, too.  But let’s face it, I’m cuter.  So you will want to follow larrygoins first!  Larry and I will see you on the Twitter world – and don’t forget next month we will be giving away something really cool to a lucky Twitter follower.  But even if you aren’t the big Twitter Winner, you will benefit all month long from the great Twitter content Larry will be sharing!

How To Perform a Domain Name Search

When you decide to create a website, you are deciding on more
than just what to put on your pages and how to make them look
pretty. You need to find a home for your site, also known as its
domain. For that, you’ll have to create a domain name and then
find out whether it’s available for your use. This is called a
domain search or domain check.
 
To start your search, first start by making a list of domains
you would like to register. Consider choosing names that relate
in some meaningful way to the products and services your
business provides, and one that is easy to remember and spell.
You want people to be able to find you!
 
Once you have your list of potential domains, hop online and
start searching. Enter the name you want into the Address field
of a web browser. If you are taken to a website, that domain is
already owned. If you get an error message, you’re in luck: The
site is probably not registered.
 
Another way is to go online and look for one of the myriad
sites that allow you to search for domain names. This
one-stop-shopping approach may save you some time.
 
When you find a domain that isn’t registered, don’t rush to
register the first available one. Check out several combinations
before making up your mind. And don’t automatically run for the
.com version of your domain. Although the most popular option, a
.com suffix may not be necessary for your business. If you can’t
find an available domain name that you want with a .com
extension, consider trying one that is particular for your own
country, such as co.uk for the U.K. If your business isn’t
necessarily international, there may be no good reason to give
up the name you want just because the .com version is taken.
 
That being said, if your business is based in the U.S. or if
you plan on doing international business, stick with a .com
version rather than a .biz, .net, .tv or any other suffix
available if at all possible. Otherwise, you will potentially
lose business to the more popular .com site.
 
Don’t get your heart set on one particular domain name; that’s
a recipe for disappointment. Make sure each domain name on your
list is one you could happily live with, because chances are
good that at least one of them will be available. If you go into
your domain check with the intention of only being satisfied if
one of your top three is available, you are almost sure to be
disappointed.
 
If you start to get discouraged during your domain check, keep
this in mind: In some industries, there are domain names for
every two dictionary words. That is near impossible competition!
But with a little patience you can find a great domain name. Try
using synonyms for the keywords you want to use, or try an
alternate (but still memorable) spelling. For example, if your
business is called Cut n Paste but www.cutnpaste.com is already
taken, consider www.cutpaste.com instead. It’s still easily
associated with your business and easily remembered!
 
Finally, another way to perform a domain name check is to use
software. There is a variety of software choices out there that
can quickly and effortlessly generate thousands of potential
domain names based on the criteria you specify.
 
No matter how you perform your domain check, it is important to
approach the process with an open mind and a measure of
patience. You may not be able to snag your first, second or even
third domain name choice, but that doesn’t mean you can’t end up
with a memorable domain name that will help drive traffic to
your site and make your business a booming success!

About The Author: More information on how to search for a
domain name is available at
http://www.domainnamehostingblog.com/

5 Best Strategies to Develop a Responsive Email List
Copyright (c) 2009 OnlineBizU.com

I see the well-known Internet marketing gurus do this all
the time — they begin to try and sell to me when I first
opt into their list.  This has worked quite well for them
over the years, but I think the tide is turning and people
are generally becoming more marketing-savvy.  Your list
members don’t mind being sold to, provided that they have a
relationship with you and have completed the like, know and
trust journey (or are at least on the path of this journey)
of getting to know you before they decide to buy something
from you.

Whether you have a 500-person list or a 5000-person list,
the rate at which they respond to your offers ties directly
in with how well they know, like and trust you and see you
as the expert providing answers to the problems keeping
them awake at night.

Here are the 5 strategies you can employ to develop a
responsive email list.

1. Get personal.  Discovering the inner workings of
people’s lives makes reality television shows popular. In
the same vein, your readers want to know more about you as
a person.  Don’t be afraid to share what’s going on in your
life, be that good, bad, or ugly.  I receive the greatest
number of comments to my ezine and blog when I post
articles about very happy or very sad occasions in my life.
 I was overwhelmed with the responses of sympathy, care and
concern I received from around the globe to an article I
wrote for my ezine when my mom passed away.  As a matter of
fact, some folks still check in on me occasionally to see
how I’m doing.

2. Talk about your business in first person. Many marketing
books and training courses tell you that you need to appear
to be a large company to encourage others to do business
with you.  For many of us, this means referring to
ourselves and our companies in third person or by our
company name, even though we’re really a one-person shop.
In reality, people want to do business with other people,
not some nameless and faceless corporate entity.

I dread calling my ISP for tech support because invariably
I get a nameless, faceless drone who acts as though I’m a
bother and that I’m interrupting his productive goofing off
during work time. All he wants to do is make me jump
through the hoops outlined by his script rather than really
listening to what my problem is. Instead, when I need
technical assistance, I call a friend who has a tech
support business and pay him to solve my problems (instead
of using the free tech support provided by my ISP) because
I know that my friend will get my problem fixed — the
first time.

3. Show up as the business owner. Part of the process of
having your list get to know you is sharing images and
audio of yourself.  You can do that by using your headshot
in your blog or ezine header or by posting an audio or
video intro on your web site.  Make sure the images that
you share are recent and are reflective of how you look
today.  I was a guest speaker a conference several years
ago and had many of the participants tell me with some
amount of surprise that I actually looked like my photo in
the program guide.  I’ve had the experience of going to
someone’s workshop and thinking, “Wow, that headshot on his
web site must’ve been taken 10 (or more) years ago!  Man,
has he aged/gained weight/fill in the blank here….”  Be
accurate in the images you share online — that’s very
important in the relationship-building process.

4. Contact consistently.  One of the questions that I’m
asked all the time is about the best day of the week to
send out ezines or email broadcasts.  Usually I can recite
the results of a recent survey that some marketing company
has conducted and rattle off the stats that support certain
days for B2B (business-to-business) broadcasts and other
days for B2C (business-to-consumer) broadcasts.
Ultimately, for the most part, the day of the week that you
send a broadcast doesn’t matter.  What’s more important is
training your list to come to expect your ezine to arrive
every Thursday morning, for example.  Tell your list when
you’ll be in contact with them, and do what you say you’re
going to do.  It is really that simple.

5. Contact frequently.  Most of my clients make the big
mistake of not emailing their list often enough.  Many are
concerned that too many emails will cause list members to
unsubscribe.  You need to develop a thick skin in this
business because reality dictates the following: You will
lose subscribers with every email you send.  Perhaps you’re
no longer relevant to them or they’re overwhelmed with
email or they never really had an interest in what you
offer in the first place.  Who knows the reason?  You need
to get used to it.  Send them away happily knowing that
they would probably have never purchased from you anyway,
and their departure makes room for a more perfect list
member to join your list through one of your many
list-building strategies.  (You are practicing good
list-building, aren’t you?)

For best results, you need to email your list weekly.  Any
less and it takes a much longer time to build a
relationship with your list because they don’t hear from
you as often.  If you’re frustrated with not getting the
results you want from your list, touch base with them more
often.

Email marketing works well when you have a well-established
relationship with your contact list.  Follow these 5
strategies to strengthen the responsiveness of your list
today.

About the Author:

Online Business Coach and Internet Marketing Strategist
Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online
businesses that they love.  Would you like to learn the
specific Internet marketing strategies that get results?
Discover how to increase your visibility and get found
online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online
Marketing Toolkit, at ==>
http://www.TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

Twitter Marketing Explored
Copyright (c) 2009 Trey Pennewell
the Phantom Writers
http://www.thePhantomWriters.com

Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds as people begin to
appreciate its clean and easy-to-use interface. Twitter, at this
point, does not look like one of the many flash-in-the-pan
Internet applications that we have seen in times’ past.

Twitter’s 140 character micro-blogging platform has gained a lot
of traction, as individuals and business people have learned to
bring together their friends, family and customers under a
communications platform that all users find useful.

Mom and dad find it easier to keep up with the lives of their
grown children through Twitter. The fact that Twitter allows
people to link to other web pages makes Twitter a simple platform
to share thoughts, ideas, and links to stories and pictures.
Grandma and granddad find it easy to check in on the kids’
Twitter account and to maintain daily contact with those across
town and around the world.

Friends can make plans and share common interests through the
Twitter world. One can reply to a message publicly, or if the
message is a bit more private, one can send a Direct Message
(known as a DM) to anyone who has agreed to follow you also.
Through the DM system, lovers can share flirts that no one else
can see, but the persons intended to receive the message.

If you let your kids use Twitter, it may be best to set up their
Twitter Account Settings to “Protect The Tweets”. In the
description of this feature, Twitter says, “Only let people whom
I approve follow my tweets. If this is checked, you WILL NOT be
on the public timeline.”

The Public Timeline is the messages/tweets that everyone can see.
Anything not on the Public Timeline is private, with restricted
access.

Business People Are Working To Tap Into Twitter Marketplace

Twitter was born in March of 2006. But most of us never really
heard of it or even understood it, until this last year
(2008-2009). A few of the Internet gurus started talking about
Twitter in 2008, and as 2009 got underway, more online marketers
started talking about the Twitter community on a nearly daily
basis.

We have accounts in Twitter that are a couple of years old, but
we never got involved with Twitter really until about April of
2009. In April of 2009, we had 12 Twitter Followers.

In May 2009, there was not a single online business in the Top
100 of Twitter, but those numbers are starting to change. Through
May of 2009, the Top 100 accounts on Twitter were dominated by TV
and Movie celebrities, a few media companies such as @cnnbrk,
politicians and sports figures.

Most online marketers had never given Twitter much thought until
“The Great Ashton Kutcher vs CNN Twitter Race” that ended on
April 17, 2009 with Ashton (@aplusk) getting the privilege to
declare victory. (http://bit.ly/8Nx55) Even now, three months
after the end of the race, Ashton is still the champion – #1 in
the Twitter Follower counts with 2,975,032 Followers. Ashton is
followed by @TheEllenShow – 2,610,357; @britneyspears -
2,553,668; @cnnbrk – 2,431,783; and @twitter – 1,930,821.

When the Great Twitter Race was concluded, I did a backlink check
on Ashton’s @aplusk account. Literally, Ashton had bought a ton
of advertising on websites, blogs, forums, etc. Ashton was also
getting tons of free press in print and online in the Great
Twitter Race.

Of course, we marketers should not feel bad if we are getting on
this bandwagon a little late in the game, because @google has
only had their account since Jan 09. Google is currently the 23rd
biggest Twitter account with 1,244,976 Followers.

A surprise for me was seeing @WholeFoods, an Austin Texas based
grocery store, sitting at #38 with 1,094,093 Followers. According
to TwitterCounter (http://twittercounter.com/WholeFoods/all),
Whole Foods had only 322,820 Followers on April 4, 2009. A quick
look at the Whole Foods profile (http://twitter.com/WholeFoods)
indicates that they are using the account to share with their
customers: company news, customer support, and available
specials.

An honorable mention goes to @kevinrose, celebrity and founder of
http://Digg.com. Kevin Rose is the 40th most popular person on
Twitter, with 1,092,920 Followers.

Once you get into the Top 100 List below #40, you finally start
to see a few online businesses in the mix. @zappos CEO is #45.
@woot is #46. @TechCrunch is a web media site at #55. @dooce is
at #60. To see the full Top 100 List, go here:
http://twittercounter.com/pages/100

Who Is In Your Target Market and What Do They Want To Know?

As you look around at those people who are successful building
their own little communities on Twitter, you will notice that
each one gives people what their Followers want.

For example, @cussy is an online marketer, and he has nearly
10,000 Followers. His secret to growth: quotes. He gives his
followers some of the best quotes about business and reaching
goals of anyone on Twitter. I follow him and Retweet him often.

@dave_carpenter advertises himself as a Success Partner For High
Achievers. Dave shares quotes and tips, and he retweets others
who give good advice also. More importantly, Dave encourages the
people he follows. He has nearly 9,000 Followers at this time.

@MattLevenhagen is a professional marketer. His 13,000 Followers
follow because he runs a mix of marketing tips, links to great
articles, and retweets for great advice. He even uses his Twitter
account to give his customer’s support.

@SocialMedia411 is a Social Media expert who offers social media
tips, links to social media articles and news. With more than
56,000 Followers, you can bet that the advice given here is
worthwhile to its audience.

When you learn to talk to the people most likely to buy from you,
you have completed the first and most important step to enable
you to develop strong Twitter Marketing habits.

Learn How Others Are Successful With Twitter

As always, when you want to learn to be successful, you should
look to those who are already successful and try to
reverse-engineer the steps that they used to become successful.
Once you have taken the time to study many who have been
successful in the way that you want to be successful, you may
note that success comes from giving people what they want and
doing it in such a way that you offer good value to your
customers.

Those who have been successful with Twitter have done so, because
they put the needs of their Followers ahead of a personal desire
to be boring or silly.

The good news is that other business people have started to find
success on Twitter and you can too. When you learn to provide the
people in your target market with the information that they need
and want, you will have started down the path to building a
Twitter Follower list to envy.

———————————————————-
Trey Pennewell works for http://www.thePhantomWriters.com
article marketing service. If you write articles and need
to distribute your articles to higher value audiences, you
owe it to yourself to try The Phantom Writers’ services.
If you want to learn more about how to develop a large
list of Twitter Followers, buy the ebook (under $10) at:
http://twitusers.com/autopilot/index.php
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/contentmanager

How Companies Can Tweet Their Way To Success

Written by Erick Mott  

Twitter, the micro-blogging phenomenon, is shaking up the messaging world with its ability to carry short, punchy blurbs to thousands of people. It’s also an excellent way to listen in on what customers, prospects and influencers are saying about your brand. Are you leveraging these insights to help drive your company’s success?

Twitter creates a viral, two-way marketing environment
Twitter’s free Web-based service allows users to “follow” friends, celebrities, average Joes, companies, products and even blogs. From every feed they’re following, users receive messages and updates of 140 characters or less.

Companies of all sizes are increasingly catching the buzz, launching their own Twitter sites and initiatives. These early adopters understand that this highly viral environment is ripe to share information and learn. They use it to gain and maintain competitive edge, build brand, provide product updates and introduce special offers. Some even establish multiple channels for individual product lines or geographic regions.

Twitter’s reach and increasing popularity is unmistakable, with 17 million U.S. visitors in April, according to comScore. Since one tweet can swiftly reach thousands of Twitter followers, companies can very quickly generate a fair amount of interest and demand for their latest products or services.

Lyris’ Twitter feed, for example, includes our recent tweet about new Twitter-monitoring functionality in Lyris HQ. This prompted close to 200 tweets from followers who, in some cases, rebroadcast (also known as “re-tweeted”) the news on their own Twitter feeds, spreading the message to potentially many more thousands.

But Twitter isn’t all sweetness and light. Consumers are equally apt to vent freely about what they don’t like and to praise what they do in this essentially public forum. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, where a lot of the conversations take place behind the closed doors of private profiles or nonpublic groups of friends, most tweets are out in the open and easily searchable. When users bash your brand, the bad reviews can spread like fire. Similarly, a couple of good recommendations from customers and key followers can spur prospects to knock on your door in no time.

That is why the savviest companies realize that Twitter is more than a one-way marketing channel. This new era of 21st-century marketing requires us to move beyond a “push” mentality with audiences and adopt a more interactive and engaging mindset that places a higher premium on relationship-building and market sensing.

Harnessing Twitter’s marketing intelligence
That’s one reason we wholeheartedly encourage companies to adopt an intelligent, committed Twitter strategy that’s all about learning what your customers, prospects and influencers are saying about you, your competitors and your industry – and to then respond appropriately.

It can be unfamiliar territory for marketers to spend time reading and thinking about what people are saying in real-time – but we believe it’s now a competitive requirement to build community in our connected world. It shows your customers that you are listening and care about their feedback.

Twitter makes it exceptionally easy to tap into conversations that matter, simply by typing in your company name or other keywords in the search box. You’ll instantly see the most recent tweets and related links about your company, product and people, as well as the interesting and relevant market trends that impact your business.

Lyris HQ makes it easy, too. When users log-in to our integrated marketing suite, there’s a running Twitter feed with a built-in search box that lets you actively track and respond to Twitter discussions in real time. Users can quickly monitor relevant conversations and, if appropriate, take action on issues and engage as needed.

Five ways to get the most out of Twitter

1. Monitor what people are saying.
Your company likely gets mentioned frequently within Twitter posts. Eavesdropping on the conversations between customers, prospects and influencers can provide valuable insights. Who is chattering about your brand and what are they saying? What are analysts and other key stakeholders vocalizing about your industry? The list of tweets may surprise you. Commit to monitoring this feedback stream each day, or at least regularly. You’ll know more quickly when people are happy – and when they’re not.

2. Establish a process to route actionable tweets to relevant departments.
As part of your Twitter strategy, you should put predetermined guidelines in place for how you’ll respond to the information you find. For example, you might forward constructive comments or complaints to customer service, marketing, product management, or even the executive team for appropriate follow-up. The process might require initial routing to a specific person or team that’s responsible for escalating insightful tweets to the appropriate department heads.

3. Make the most of positive or constructive tweets.
Once the tweet is correctly routed, commit to action. Companies can obviously benefit from knowing how they can better engage and serve customers, prospects and influencers. They can also prosper by using constructive criticism to make the right changes in products or services. To encourage constructive comments, you can thank or acknowledge these users publicly on your Twitter feed or privately through a function called “direct messaging.”

Also, don’t forget to listen to what people say about your competitors and partners. For example, users may love another company’s product and discuss a new feature they would like to see. That might encourage you, as a competitor, to include this feature in your product.

4. Follow both happy and unhappy tweeters.
Unfavorable tweets can do immediate damage to your bottom line. When these serious rants threaten your brand, consider following these detractors on Twitter. This tactic demonstrates to users that you’re receptive and listening, and in some cases, this simple act alone can help minimize dissatisfaction.

Users who accept your request to follow their Twitter feeds often open themselves up to receiving private messages, which can help you learn more about their specific issues or needs. If they reject your request and continue to bash your brand, try to reach them through some other channels to discuss their issues or needs. Every company will have a different tolerance level and response plan for dealing with negative tweets. Sometimes, after considerable effort to communicate, tough skin is the only response.

5. Head off the unexpected – ASAP.
Recently, a much-publicized video of employees defiling a pizza chain’s food was seen by millions of viewers over several days, hurting the company’s brand, share price, and presumably, sales. With closer monitoring, the company could have known that thousands of people were tweeting about the video and initiated damage control a day or two sooner. By the time the CEO responded, much harm had been done. However, the company was shrewd to post its response video on YouTube and its Twitter site to bolster public confidence. This is an extreme example, but certainly proof that social-media networking has become a force in modern society to monitor, share and measure conversations and content online that can help and hurt your brand.

Blog Your Way to New Customers and Repeat Business

By: Corey Perlman

I already know something very unique about every single person who is reading this article. No, I’m not channeling David Blaine or spending too much time watching reruns of Mind Freak, I just know each and every one of you is an expert on at least one topic in his or her field. I also know that you have a massive audience via the World Wide Web that is eager to hear what you have to say. Regardless of your profession, you have information that we need and that’s what makes it valuable. Let’s use a dentist or dental hygienist as an example. They know how to keep our teeth healthy and pearly white. If they provided that information free of charge, wouldn’t you read it? I know I would – especially with that candy jar sitting outside of my office. What if you were in the market for a new home and a real estate agent gave you free tips on how to negotiate when buying a new home?  I bet many new home buyers would be first in line to gobble that information up. And I could go on and on with other examples.

The point is everyone has valuable information to share with the public and the Internet has provided a vehicle to get your message out to the masses quickly and effectively. That vehicle is called a blog (or web log or online journal for us non-techies out there) and it is a web page where you can publish content for others to read and comment on. Blogs are easy to use and you can set one up absolutely free. Isn’t the Internet great! My blogging site of choice is www.blogger.com and I like them for two reasons. First, it’s very user friendly and perfect for the beginner blogger. And most importantly, it’s owned by a company you may have heard of called Google!

Chorus of Readers: Why do we care that it’s owned by Google?

Corey: Great question readers!

As I touched on earlier, a blog is a Web page and a Web page can be ranked in search engines such as Google. In fact, blogs are very popular with the search engines because they like content heavy web pages and blogs are simply loaded with content. So if you are looking to increase your overall presence on the largest search engine in the world, why not use the blogging tool that they own.

Chorus of Readers: I like it! But I’m still not sure what I should write about.

“If you provide value, they will come.” Ok, so Kevin Costner I am not, but the message is still the same. Give high value content in your blog posts and you will begin to gain a following. And the exciting part is people will come back again and again as they will have become addicted to your content.

Chorus of Readers: Ok, but where’s the new customers and repeat business come from?

I thought you’d never ask. Once you have people reading your blog and gaining value, you can softly sell your products or services without offending your audience. So my philosophy is provide value first, sell second. My world is Internet marketing, so I might write a post in my blog about how to rank high in Google and then my next post might be an invitation to one of my workshops. And they won’t be put off by my self promotion because I sell rarely and provide value often.

Chorus of Readers: Ok, we have work to do, any final words?

I will leave you with the two most important things to remember when creating content in blogs. First, what words are people searching for on Google that you’d love to have your Blog appear at the top of the page? Use those words over and over again when writing in your blog. Search engines evaluate frequency when determining where to rank web pages on their site. Finally, always remember to Hurl Your URL! That simple means to provide a link on your blog to your main Website so people can easily go there for more information about you or your company.

 Chorus of Readers: This is great! By the way, who are you?

Corey Perlman is the author of the #1 Amazon.com bestseller eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business. The book provides easy-to-do strategies and techniques to help you market your business on the Web. It covers topics such as social networking sites, Web site optimization, online articles and press releases, video marketing, and much more. To learn more about eBoot Camp or to purchase a copy, go to www.ebootcampbook.com.  

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We will start with Google Analytics
So what is Google Analytics ?
The basic definition of Google analytics - Google Analytics is a website analysis tool which provides in-depth reports about web traffic to your website. It shows you how visitors reach your site and how they interact with your site’s content.
The next question which comes to our mind is what is the process Google analytics follows to give us in depth reports?
It allows all webmasters to put in a tracking code on the root server of their website ,and subsequently verifies it.Once the verification is done by the Googlebot – it starts producing daily reports of people coming to your website.The tracking code to be uploaded is given by Google analytics after you have logged in to your analytics account. and asked for analytics report of a new website(your gmail account can also act as your analytics account).There isn’t any limit on the number of website you can mange through one analytic account.

What are the different reports google analytics can generate for me ?
There are 3 major type of reports which google analytics provides the webmaster
1> Visitors Report – this provides you with geographic variables of the visitor and if he is a unique visitor or not.
2> Traffic Sources Report – This reports mainly tells you about the different sources from where a visitor is coming to your websites and for what keywords search engines send you visitors and how many
3>Content Analysis Report – This report analyzes the top content and as well as best landing pages.

Now how can a loan Modification company use these reports to strategize their SEO efforts .
1> A Loan-Modification Company can know which keywords are sending the most traffic to them
2> They can also analyze which referring sites are giving the best results ,thus curtailing their efforts to a selected few.
3> Once they have at least 2months consolidated reports for content ,they can identify the best performing web-pages for them and then try and put all relevant information regarding loan modification therein.

Infact Google Analytics would help the loan Mod company to actually trace out the path ,they want the distressed homeowners to follow.Thus creating a much better online experience and increasing their chances with lead conversion.

next week i would writing another article about advanced Google analytics and Google adwords.

If you have any question please feel free to email me

Five Tips About Your Website That Your Web Designer May Have Missed

By Corey Perlman www.ebootcampbook.com

If you leave your website’s look and feel strictly to the designers, be prepared to get a beautiful, sexy, artistic site that does everything but make you money. Why? Because they know website design, but they do not know your business. The five tips below will help ensure that you not only have a website that looks professional, but a website that’s open and ready for business!

#1 – Keep your important information above the fold.  64.9% of people don’t scroll. And 77.3% of statistics are made up on the spot. J So forget the statistics, just remember that your phone number, physical address, “Buy Now” button all have a greater chance of being clicked on if you don’t require people to scroll down to click on them. Make sure all of your important information is eye level and consistent on every page throughout your site.

#2 – Include an Opt-in Form on your Website. By securing a person’s contact information prior to them leaving your Website, you’ve ensured that you can continue to communicate with this person down the road. This is critical to your success via the Web. As you know, people are very protective of their information and will be hesitant to give it away. To increase your chances of having a successful opt-in box, offer something of real value so people feel good about giving you their name and email address. Remind them that you will only email a periodic eNewsletter and that you will NEVER sell or give their email address to anyone else.

#3 – Link Clarity – Another rule of thumb: if the user doesn’t feel confident they know where the link they are about to click on is taking them, they won’t click on it. So take the guess work out of it and make your links abundantly clear. Contact Us. Yep, that’s pretty clear.

#4 – Color Pollution – Remember when your mom thought anything you brought home from art class was the most beautiful masterpiece in the world? Well, no offense, but I’m willing to bet it fell into the category of color pollution. Color pollution is simply more than three primary colors on a page. Any more than three and your brain slowly begins to turn to mush. This is crucial when it comes to your website because you want your user’s attention to stay focused on the content, not that odd shade of mauve.

#5 – Include Key Words in your homepage content – this is not your web designer’s job, so you can’t blame them for not doing it. Again, they don’t know your business and wouldn’t have the slightest clue what words would make the most sense to include on your homepage. Key Words are those words your users will type in search engines to find you…or your competitors. You want any word or phrase that they might type in to be scattered throughout your homepage as the search engines will give you credit for those words and that will increase your likelihood of a higher search engine ranking.

Corey Perlman is the author of the #1 Amazon.com bestseller eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business. The book provides easy-to-do strategies and techniques to help you market your business on the Web. It covers topics such as social networking sites, Web site optimization, online articles and press releases, video marketing, and much more. To learn more about eBoot Camp or to purchase a copy, go to www.ebootcampbook.com.

How To Be A Successful Web 2.0 Puppetmaster

by Nelson Tan

One of the key characteristics of Web 2.0 is participation, collaboration and moderation through the use of web applications. Web 2.0 sites derive their power from the human connections and network effects from this characteristic that is made possible, and grow in effectiveness the more people use them.

The idea of “participation, collaboration and moderation” can take many forms. If you look back history, bulletin boards are one form, online forums are another, online multiplayer games, content management systems (e.g. Wikis, Joomla), dating sites and classifieds as well. If not for features that enable multiple users to create their own space within a website via registering accounts or at least leave a message (like a comment in a blog), the communication culture would have been one-way (from the webmaster to the visitors) and remain stuck in 1.0.

Why would a webmaster want to go Web 2.0? We learned that social networkers want to expand their personal network of online friends. On the other hand, the webmaster desires to build up a core group of active participants who unconsciously help to sustain the ‘liveliness’ and therefore the longevity of the website and its agenda or interests while the overall database of users expand. In this manner, a lot of the effort that goes into building the database (or list) becomes very much hands-off for the webmaster. There’s leverage. This is also where moderation comes in. The role of the webmaster naturally becomes that of the moderator, whose job is to maintain some semblance of order (but not to the point of creating a restrictive environment) and general site maintenance. It gets better when the webmaster can promote participants into moderators themselves, and more and more s/he becomes the “silent puppetmaster” behind the scene without doing much. It may not be eas! ! y, but the whole mindset of being a moderator is to gain confidence in just “letting it be” and letting his/her site runs by itself.

Now that the webmaster’s motivation is addressed, s/he must find ways to avoid competition by finding new twists to contribute to the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Much as new sites keep popping up in recent months, somehow no 2 sites are made the same and they certainly enjoy a good amount of traffic anyway. It would be better when you can boil down social networking to the context of a specific niche, like a site to exchange Mexican recipes or talk about Ferrari car accessories or business opportunities in Central Asia. You can better target the type of people you are looking for and it also gives them a sharper sense of purpose to engage with and within your site.

At the end of the day, social networking is all about sharing valuable content and making friends. The successful Web 2.0 webmaster is one who knows how to tap on this human desire to the fullest and consistently encourages such a desire to grow within the culture of the social network he has created by offering further privileges for more prominent members. Really, there’s no better way for them to build up credibility and make their personalities known than to be consistently ‘alive’ and ‘happening’ on the Net. From the SEO standpoint of view, you can also accumulate more backlinks and subsequently more traffic to your social networking site.

Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center. Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts at http://www.internetmasterycenter.com

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